APRIL 15 / 9:00PM
21+ / $10 Advance

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Nectar Presents:

Akil The MC of Jurassic 5

• Raashan Ahmad of Crown City Rockers
• Coolzey
• American Hero

AKIL THE MC

Who is Akil The Mc? When asked this question one would expect a simple answer but its just not that simple. There are many dimensions to this question and really that depends on whom you are talking too but they will all agree that Akil is truly an artist to the fullest. Multitalented Producer songwriter DJ, Dancer, Photographer, Model, Artist consultant, Live Show Coordinator, Hip Hop Scholar and Educator, Community activist, Father, Husband, everybody’s best friend just a multidimensional person period. Akil is one of the best MC/Producers that Hip Hop has to offer. Hailing from the west coast 1 of the mc's of the infamous hip hop group Jurassic 5, known for their old school flavor harmony and uplifting lyrical content witch Akil played a big part in building lyrically, musically and conceptually. Akil is one of the centerpieces and cornerstones of Jurassic 5, writing being one of his strong points Akil has penned many of the infamous songs noted by Jurassic 5 "Concrete School Yard”, “Quality Control” "Thin Line with Nelly Furtado and many more Akil not only lending his expertise in penmanship, but also adding his talent as a producer to help create the Jurassic 5 formula. With the current statusof Jurassic 5 taking a break, Akil has stepped out on his own not in abandonment but as a means too broaden the branches of the Tree. Akil says he is going to “push until the baby comes I feel like lyrically and musically I haven't been heard so this is my time."

CROWN CITY ROCKERS

What happens when you combine trained musicians from the world-renowned Berklee School of Music in Boston, with an articulate emcee and breathtaking beat-wizard both born and raised in sunny, southern California? Crown City Rockers, that's what - a genre-blending hip-hop sollective whose music is original, powerful and provocative all in the same breath and follows in the storied footsteps of such pioneers as The Roots, De La Soul and Tribe Called Quest. With an organic blend of lush, funk-drenched grooves, riveting classic soul samples, sharp live instrumentation and of course old-school inflected rhymes, Crown City Rockers is a welcome breath of fresh air in today's commercially cluttered hip-hop cosmos. Comprised of stellar emcee Raashan Ahmad, producer Woodstock, keyboardist Kat Ouano, bassist/producer Headnodic, and drummer Max MacVeety, Crown City Rockers formed in Beantown's Roxbury section during the late nineties. Raashan, who'd moved from Pasadena at the time to pursue his dreams of emceeing ran into the Berklee contingent at various open-mic and freestyle sessions aroung the city (Kat hails originally from Wichita, Kansas, Headnodic from Wisconsin, and Max is from Massachusetts). Everyone clicked, sharing an interest in organic hip-hop and live instrumentation, bonding musically as well as personally. "We did some shows in Boston trying to get our name out," recounts Raashan. "And then we decided to move out to Cali to record an album." And so, the group, then known as Mission: which at that time included Moe Pope (check Project Move), set out West. The trip to Cali proved to be an adventure in itself. An 18-wheeler totaled all of the group's instruments and the car they were driving. Once the group finally made it out west, they used the insurance money from the accident to put out a self-titled EP to get their name out. Soon after came their first full-length, called One. The album quickly established the group as a subterranean stalwart in the Bay Area, where they were now located. After that, the group, who changed their name to Crown City Rockers after Mission UK, (an old 60's British rock band) asked them to switch monikers, hit the studio hard recording countless songs which they'd eventually whittle down to 19. Now, Crown City Rockers' epic full-length LP, Earthtones is poised for release. It is an astonishing achievement, seamlessly fusing all of the group's sonic facets together. Indeed, the album overflows with Raashan's battle raps, poetic musings and emotionally fraught tracks about life and love. The lyrics are, in turn, melded with Kat's keyboards, Max's drums and Headnodic and Woodstock's beats - which run the creative gamut frum funk and soul, to jazz, to straight classic hip-hop.

LINKS

• Akil The MC on MySpace
• Raashan Ahmad on Myspace
• Coolzey on Myspace
• American Hero on Myspace

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