We ducked out of Birmingham around 3 yesterday and hit the road for the Atl and the 7th annual A3C Hip Hop Festival. At right about 6:30 Atlanta time, we pulled into the hotel and found Jeff C unloading his car – two baggage carts full of turntables, speakers, records and bags. It was just what we needed to know that this was going to be a great weekend. We all checked in, got situated and then met back up, piled Jeff in the car with us and bopped down the road to The Masquerade and A3C. Walking to the venue we could hear our homie Headkrack rocking the mic in the distance. The crowd was thick and we ended up missing Headkrack’s set with his group The Bodega Brovas, but met up with them by the stage and it was on from there. Non-stop – there was great music and talent back to back from the moment we hit the festival till we called it quits, exhausted at about 2:30 this morning.

The first act we saw was El Da Sensei [who used to run with the iconic hip hop act Artifacts], shortly followed by One Be Lo [of Binary Star]. We saw a ton of folks and i got to meet and talk to almost all of them about LOBOTOMIX and what we do in Birmingham. Highlights of the evening after El and One were Kosha Dillz, Homeboy Sandman, Freeway, Bronze Nazareth [check this guy out – a righteous emcee and producer who rocks the mic in his own right, and produces tracks for the Wu Tang] and then the double highlight of my evening……Random Axe followed immediately by Percee P. Random Axe put on one of the best shows i’ve seen in a LONG time – after Black Milk got up and got the beats going, Sean Price ripped into some rhymes and then brought out Guilty Simpson and the three of them killed it. It was a great set – solid all the way through. After stopping to talk to Black Milk for a minute, we ducked downstairs to catch the second half of Percee P’s set. He was already going strong when we hit the room, but we still got to watch him rock the mic for a good 45min steady. Percee P has got to be one of my favorite emcees – i really like his flow and he seems to be involved with a lot of great artists and projects – just the fact that he collaborated with MF Doom and The Heliocentrics at the same time speaks volumes about the level that this man is on. We talked for a bit after his set and traded numbers – i’m hoping he can come down to Birmingham soon. I hope a lot of these guys can.

Rashid.

Be sure to check out the post and pictures from Day 2 at A3C.