Music Style If the Last Poets had been lesbians

Musical Influences Ultramagnetic MC's, British R and B, noisepop, Joan Armatrading,

Similar Artists Anti Pop Consortium, Freestyle Fellowship, Kinnee Starr, Bitch And Animal

Artist History Juba Kalamka (pointfivefag) barely subsisting and living in a youth hostel following a December 1998 move to San Francisco from Chicago, takes the last $30 of his Starbucks paycheck and buys two tickets for the 10th Anniversary screening of Marlon Riggs' Tongue Untied at the Castro Theatre. Says pointfivefag:"I'd paid my rent for the next two weeks, and the two tickets left me with $3 till we got tips the next Friday. I'm thinking, I'm in 'Frisco, and it's my first pride event. Do I miss this show, or go, be really broke and have something to remember for life? I'm so glad I did."An erotic poetry reading followed the screening, in which Tim'm T. West (25 percenter) was a presenter alongside Jewel Gomez, G Winston James and Marvin K. White. Struck by the first open description of queer desire in hip hop culture he'd ever heard, Juba approached West following the reading and exchanged phone numbers. After a week or so of phone tag, the two began hanging out. On one occasion Juba was introduced to Louie Butler, who hosted a series of popular spoken word events in downtown Oakland.Juba was in the beginning stages of recording what would become his first solo spoken word/hip hop experiment - Pre/tensions, and now had the opportunity to write and perform on a regular basis in a queer-friendly context. Meanwhile, on Stanford's campus, Tim'm made his first connection with Phillip Atiba Goff (lightskindid) a Philadelphia born, Harvard grad/first-year psychology student. Says 25percenter: "In a typical sort of Stanfordish fashion someone asked me, "do you know Phill? He has dreadlocks too, but he's lightskinded" The two began commisserating around Stanford's Campus, the three finally meeting at a Stanford COHO Spoken Word/Hip Hop show. It was at this point that the three realized the intersection of their artistic and cultural sensibilities, and decided to hang out to work together.Adjourning to a music room on Stanford's campus to jam in a piano room, Tim'm and Juba rapped, sang and scatted while Phil spoke and wailed and played. They came up with the basis for 15-20 songs (a number of which have become bourgiebohopostpomoafrohomo), as well as the name Deep Dickollective - a tongue in cheek fun-poke at the proliferation of womanist "punani poet" enclaves in '90s spoken word circles.Returning from a radio simulcast of counter-hegemonic-to-the-military/industrial-cultural-production poetry and song, it was over a double cheeseburger and chili fries that Ralowe Trinitroluene Ampu (G-Minus) brought his brand of scathing anarchy into 25percenter's operation. 25percenter was unsure with whether the young and apparently mentally unstable individual (who was dressed as the devil) was just another irrational radical or in fact, a fag. Their first encounter was not the most harmonious, but it was G-Minus' sincere passion for their art of rhyming which proved irresistible and resulting in the near immediate installment in the collective. G-Minus' most optimistic hopes of what the collective can accomplish will be to provide the psychological foundation for queer youth around the world, who are alienated by patriarchal constraints; from this, form the regimes which will annihilate the oppressive and exploitative structures of the status quo.OK, not all members of D/DC carry G-Minus' optimism about the overthrow of phallogocentrism or capitalism. But given the impress hip-hop has had on culture internationally, the interventions lyrically and politically of four queer Negroes is bound to have ripple effects. The point is that D/DC represents a "coming out" in hip-hop about what some of us have known for a long time: that any black cultural Renaissance needs fags. There is no cypher without the sissy - whether they appear as the abject reference of the insecure closet fagrapper or whether the fervor with which they approach lyricism, beatmaking, graffiti art, or breakin has inspirations that have been cloaked in compulsory silence.The fag has entered and the cypher is stalled. The anti-gangster aesthetic of quasi-Nationalist "conscious" hip-hoppers and bohemian MC thrift shoppers pave a space for D/DC to articulate its word play. They represent a political lyricism that does not take itself too seriously. they are the brave mavericks of a movement that some affectionately refer to as homo-hop. They are Oxymoronic "out" black queer Emcees the world says do not exist. They are the rumblings of a revolution that have for too long been silenced. Overstand? It's not that deep.

Group Members Active: Juba Kalamka (Pointfivefag) Tim'm T. West (25Percenter) Jeree Brown (JB RapItUp) Auxilliary/Inactive: Marcus Rene'Van (Mr. ManMan) Phillip Atiba Goff (LSP The Lightskindid Phil/osopher) Dazie' Grego (Ms. Edge) Douglas Eglin, Jr. (Doug E) Rashad Pridgen (Soulnubian) Ralowe T. Ampu (G Minus)

Albums http://sugartruck.tripod.com

Press Reviews "Gawd, that group is so gay, and proud of it. These self-defined "BourgieBohoPostPomoAfroHomos" get the word out to hip-hop haters and enthusiasts. Their lyrics are brainy and political, but their live shows are pure animal energy. Check 'em out." on Deep Dickollective voted BEST HIP HOP GROUP in the 2003 San Francisco Bay Guardian's "Best Of The Bay" Readers Poll 7/30/2003 -------------------- "The collective uses live instruments and plays with forms the way the experimental rappers the Roots do. Its rappers, or M.C.'s, rhyme with the intellectual revolutionary pose of Chuck D and the erudition of Cornel West. " from the feature "Gay Rappers: Too Real for Hip-Hop" by Touré, New York Times Arts Section Sunday,4/20/2003

Location Oakland, California - USA

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