This past Friday was a busy night for Buffalo’s growing hip hop scene. The evening started off at The Vault (702 Main St.); where both the upstairs and downstairs galleries were open. The “Cuts & Breaks” event had been receiving a lot of good press, including a two page piece in Artvoice, and anticipation was high. Downstairs was a street art exhibit which displayed loads of local street art, ranging from custom skate decks, to photography. Laid out in an atypical art exhibition form, the downstairs lost many of the attendees to the more energetic main stage upstairs.
After a quick jaunt up some stairs and a ten dollar entry fee, we had reached the center of Buffalo’s street scene. Set up almost in homage to late 80’s Chicago or Brooklyn, the vast art gallery had been transported back in time. With graffiti tags covering every wall, a soundstage with nearly only vinyl being cut, vintage pinball and arcade games, and 4x4 piece of linoleum with B-Boys and girls of all shapes and sizes break dancing, the true of spirit of hip hop and street culture was being preserved, and was on display. DJ’s Cutler and LoPro (amongst and handful of others) were spinning vintage James Brown to Gang Starr, and eventually brought up some local emcees before announcing that despite having a “unified hip hop scene”, there was another show was starting across town.
After a quick train trip and another fifteen dollars, we were inside Soundlab
for the Baby Steps 12th Anniversary Show. Baby Steps, for those of who don’t know, was a weekly hip hop showcase started by Pseudo Slang’s emcee Sick at Broadway Joe’s about 12 years ago (give or take) to help Buffalo’s emerging hip hop scene take “baby steps” at becoming larger. Since then, Baby Steps has grown into a family of emcees and DJ’s, and has helped cement their place as the true stay in Buffalo hip hop.
There were several openers to the night’s mystery guest, but the real winner of the opening acts was A.L. Third, who’s set was eloquent and crowd bumping. Third accidentally let the mystery guest’s name out in his set, and left some in the crowd excited at the thought of seeing Brooklyn emcee Masta Ace. Ace’s came out in his token bucket hat, and his set was impeccable; playing tracks off several of his albums, including hits “Beautiful”, and “Brooklyn Masala”. He spoke of his love for the Buffalo area, and his guest set at the Baby Steps anniversary implies that maybe the Buffalo hip hop scene has stopped crawling, and begun to walk.
~ sm
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