BEGIN:VCALENDAR PRODID;X-RICAL-TZSOURCE=TZINFO:-//com.denhaven2/NONSGML ri_cal gem//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN VERSION:2.0 BEGIN:VEVENT DESCRIPTION:Doors at 10pm\nTickets available at Ticketweb.com or at Grog Shop 216-321-5588\nI recorded a song back in 1990 called &ldquo\;The Rhy me Has To Be Good&rdquo\;. I made the beat\, rapped and did the scratch es all myself. I began teaching myself how to do those things several y ears before\, secretly\, in the privacy of my bedroom. I grew up in a s mall rural town called Mt. Uniacke in Nova Scotia and none of my friend s were interested in hip hop music. Ironically &ndash\; given the title - that first song isn&rsquo\;t very good at all. But we all have to sta rt somewhere. That song got played on the college radio station in the c ity (Halifax) a few times and soon I started meeting other rappers and DJs. In the early days\, it was mostly about performing &ndash\; in liv ing rooms\, at dances\, on the radio\, in the woods\, on roofs\, or whe rever. I was never the most talented guy around\, but it was a huge pas sion and I took it all very seriously &ndash\; even when I was acting l ike a goofball.\nA few years later\, the focus turned to recording. Thro ugh the 90&prime\;s I recorded countless songs with friends and on my o wn. For most of those years my efforts went unheard outside my hometown and sadly\, a lot of those recordings have been lost.\nToward the end of the decade (around 1997 or so) I began to find an international audi ence and a place in a wider underground community with the help of the internet. Small independent labels with names like Four Ways To Rock\, Hand Solo and Anticon began to offer help.\nBy 2000\, I had a career on my hands. Music became my sole means of income. Somehow I managed to fi nd my way around the world and pay off my student loans. My wildest dre ams had come true.\nThen\, in 2002\, after 12 years of independent hustl e\, I signed a big time record deal with Warner and moved to France. Si nce then I&rsquo\;ve worked with musicians from all over the world &nda sh\; some with big names\, some with no name at all. And I&rsquo\;ve co ntinued to work with my old friends from my hometown too. For a while n ow\, people have been saying that the music I make doesn&rsquo\;t exact ly sound like hip hop. I think that&rsquo\;s partly because I often hear hip hop where other people might not. Sometimes I hear it in pre-war blues songs. I hear it in albums like New Values by Iggy Pop or Is This Desire? by PJ Harvey. I hear it in experimental recordings by William S . Burroughs or minstrel songs by Emmett Miller. It&rsquo\;s a curse.\nM y newest collection of songs is called 20 Odd Years. This time around I went back to the formula that worked so well on Talkin&rsquo\; Honky B lues &ndash\; I returned to Halifax to build some songs &ndash\; from th e ground up &ndash\; with my friends Charles Austin and Graeme Campbell . We also called in a bunch of friends to contribute vocals. Plus\, I r ecorded a song with my old pal Jo Run\, who I&rsquo\;ve worked with sin ce the early days.\nIt&rsquo\;s a strange thing for me to consider\, but there aren&rsquo\;t many people who were on the hip hop scene in 1990 who are still here today. I&rsquo\;ve seen a lot of talented people com e and go in my time. I have no idea why I&rsquo\;ve lasted when so many others have not. I guess that&rsquo\;s up to you to decide. But despit e my best efforts\, I&rsquo\;ve never been trendy and maybe that&rsquo\ ;s had something to do with it.\nTwenty years seems like a long time but the thought of slowing down or &lsquo\;hanging it up&rsquo\; has not e ven crossed my mind. Will I still be at it when I&rsquo\;m 50 years old ? I guarantee you that I will. There may not always be an audience\, bu t that didn&rsquo\;t stop me in the beginning&hellip\; URL:http://clevelandheights.patch.com/events/buck-65-busdriver-presque-vu -wes-dacko SUMMARY:Buck 65 / Busdriver / Presque Vu / Wes &\; Dacko LOCATION:Grog Shop: 2785 Euclid Heights Blvd\, Cleveland\, OH END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR