Volume 38, Issue 13. Today is
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Volume 38, Issue 13. Today is
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Student promotes activism through hip hop, indie labelBY JORDAN CURRIER
MCC student Bobby Evers isn’t Mesa’s equivalent of Eminem, but he is white, he’s young, and he’s a rapper with plenty to say.
Evers, 19, is trying to instill some serious changes in both the hip hop industry and the Valley’s fledgling independent music scene. Evers has, therefore, been writing and recording a no-holds-barred hip-hop album under the name "Domestic," which he plans to release Valley-wide through his own record label, Literary Works. Evers’ LP, "The Invention of Voice," as well as his label, have been funded completely out of his own pocket. He plans to take out loans to further establish his label and press his album. He also plans to set up unannounced performances on the streets of Mill Avenue – a form of grassroots advertising for his album.
"That’s the way I wanted to do it, though. I wanted to do it myself," Evers said. "With trying to market yourself to a label and trying to get signed – there’s a degree of compromise there that I don’t want to do." Evers has one major goal he would like to accomplish as a musician: – to set himself apart from other hip hop artists. "I’m so tired of hip hop being used as a commercial marketing tool," Evers said. "If it’s not change, I at least want to make people think differently." Evers, with minor production assistance from friends, has written and recorded "The Invention of Voice" by himself. Evers creates his own music from the ground up, playing acoustic guitar, creating rhythms on a beat machine, and writing hundreds of pages of lyrics. "I write a lot of political music. I can just watch the news. Any artist who says that inspiration is hard to find is not looking," Evers said. "There’s so many injustices in the world. You can just write about them all day until you’re blue in the face. To me, hip-hop has has always been kind of the voice of the unheard person." Evers defines his music as "activism through hip hop," taking on the legitimacy of Malcolm X and discussing issues of racism in the track "Voices of Islam." "Every oppressed person has a voice," Evers says on his website. "Hear mine." Evers also writes lyrics about the government, the current state of hip hop music and his own personal experiences. On the track "Cloned Sheep," Evers raps, "One-dimensional capitalistic entities, fallin’ down upon the backs of socialistic entities. Creating catastrophic wars and destroying all enemies with the instinct of Castro and the charm of the Kennedys." "He’s got a lot of talent. He could seriously do it, he just needs that push," said MCC student Nick Spetrino, who, alongside Evers, formed the band Shame the Elephant Man, an eclectic rock/hip hop ensemble. "When you hear (Evers), you know it’s him. He’s just got that style. You can tell it’s 100 percent hip hop," Spetrino said. Evers continues to perform with Shame the Elephant Man Valley-wide, as well as his hip hop side-project, Core 3, a group that includes Evers, Spetrino and MCC student Ryan Gardner. But Evers’ current focus is on completing his solo project for a May release in several local stores – he will rely on word-of-mouth promotion, as well as "street-team" campaigning, to ensure that his music is heard. "It’s very tough to make it as an artist in this industry," said MCC studio recording instructor Andy Seagle, who, throughout his 15 year career as a freelance recording engineer, worked with Paul McCartney, Lyle Lovett and Placido Domingo, among others. "The odds are not there. Tenacity is a word I use a lot of. It takes tremendous tenacity." Evers fully intends to remain as tenacious as possible to get his music distributed. "If you really have something to say, and you’re trying to tell people something, then I’m going to want my CD in the hands of every man, woman and child and dog in the country." For more information on "The Invention of Voice," go to www.geocities.com/domestic22. |
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