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NIGHTLIFE
Awake Clique
This Berkeley rap group calls its music conscientious hip-hop, mixing an anti-war message in songs that strive to enlighten as well as entertain listeners
Lisa Hix
Thursday, April 6, 2006
MC Joe Conifer -- a.k.a. Joe Con -- is the cockeyed dreamer of Berkeley rap group Awake Clique, speaking in beautiful abstractions. "Awake Clique is about self-annihilation to be reborn in a better way," he says, his blue eyes earnest, a straw hat slightly askew on his head, a harmonica in hand.
Dreadhead producer Dejah Fortune appears to have his feet more solidly on the ground, with a realistic perspective on life in the East Bay.
Young Caveman, a producer who, like Fortune, wears the more standard rap attire -- a black hoodie and beanie -- is quiet and deliberate when he speaks.
This trio makes up the center of Awake Clique, a 10-man music collective. Musically, the group refers to itself as "hard-core conscious hip-hop" because, as Fortune explains it, "Conscious hip-hop has a bad rap as being corny or soft. We want to say we're proud to be knowledgeable and smart without sacrificing our 'masculinity' or whatever you want to call it."
Joe Con, originally from Kentucky, grew up listening to Pink Floyd and Bob Dylan as well as Wu-Tang Clan, Nas and Dr. Dre. He says he's both a born-again Christian and a conscientious objector to the war in Iraq. "We're all about challenging the main perceptions people have about everything," he says. "You have to analyze everything, whether that be the newspaper, what you see on the TV, the words in the holy book."
"Find your own truth," agrees Fortune, who grew up in Oakland listening to Jimi Hendrix and Too Short.
At the Ivy Room, all the members of Awake Clique will perform in various configurations. The collective's first project, Joe Con's "Awake and Dreaming" CD, which recalls the down-tempo grooves of A Tribe Called Quest's "Low End Theory," is due out May 1. Movies, visual arts and perhaps even a clothing line are in the works.
In the Bay Area, the "hyphy" sound is all the rage in hip-hop, which is all about "going dumb" or dancing as though you're out of your mind. "I go smart, that's what I say," explains Fortune, who says he respects where the hyphy movement is coming from.
"We have to expose and enlighten people about bull -- patriotic fervor," pipes up Joe Con. "That's how I get hyphy. They want people to go dumb. But I don't go dumb. I get hyphy and I stay smart. That's why I'm dangerous. That's why Malcolm X was dangerous. That's why Martin L. King was dangerous."
Awake Clique: Ivy Room, 858 San Pablo Ave., Albany. Thu., 10 p.m. Free. 21+. (510) 524-9220. www.ivyroom.com.
Lisa Hix, 96hours@sfchronicle.com
- San Francisco Chronicle
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NIGHTLIFE
Awake Clique
This Berkeley rap group calls its music conscientious hip-hop, mixing an anti-war message in songs that strive to enlighten as well as entertain listeners
Lisa Hix
Thursday, April 6, 2006
MC Joe Conifer -- a.k.a. Joe Con -- is the cockeyed dreamer of Berkeley rap group Awake Clique, speaking in beautiful abstractions. "Awake Clique is about self-annihilation to be reborn in a better way," he says, his blue eyes earnest, a straw hat slightly askew on his head, a harmonica in hand.
Dreadhead producer Dejah Fortune appears to have his feet more solidly on the ground, with a realistic perspective on life in the East Bay.
Young Caveman, a producer who, like Fortune, wears the more standard rap attire -- a black hoodie and beanie -- is quiet and deliberate when he speaks.
This trio makes up the center of Awake Clique, a 10-man music collective. Musically, the group refers to itself as "hard-core conscious hip-hop" because, as Fortune explains it, "Conscious hip-hop has a bad rap as being corny or soft. We want to say we're proud to be knowledgeable and smart without sacrificing our 'masculinity' or whatever you want to call it."
Joe Con, originally from Kentucky, grew up listening to Pink Floyd and Bob Dylan as well as Wu-Tang Clan, Nas and Dr. Dre. He says he's both a born-again Christian and a conscientious objector to the war in Iraq. "We're all about challenging the main perceptions people have about everything," he says. "You have to analyze everything, whether that be the newspaper, what you see on the TV, the words in the holy book."
"Find your own truth," agrees Fortune, who grew up in Oakland listening to Jimi Hendrix and Too Short.
At the Ivy Room, all the members of Awake Clique will perform in various configurations. The collective's first project, Joe Con's "Awake and Dreaming" CD, which recalls the down-tempo grooves of A Tribe Called Quest's "Low End Theory," is due out May 1. Movies, visual arts and perhaps even a clothing line are in the works.
In the Bay Area, the "hyphy" sound is all the rage in hip-hop, which is all about "going dumb" or dancing as though you're out of your mind. "I go smart, that's what I say," explains Fortune, who says he respects where the hyphy movement is coming from.
"We have to expose and enlighten people about bull -- patriotic fervor," pipes up Joe Con. "That's how I get hyphy. They want people to go dumb. But I don't go dumb. I get hyphy and I stay smart. That's why I'm dangerous. That's why Malcolm X was dangerous. That's why Martin L. King was dangerous."
Awake Clique: Ivy Room, 858 San Pablo Ave., Albany. Thu., 10 p.m. Free. 21+. (510) 524-9220. www.ivyroom.com.
Lisa Hix, 96hours@sfchronicle.com
- San Francisco Chronicle
Discography
ConCave: ZooLife (2008)
iConoclast (2008)
Bad News First (2007)
Awake and Dreaming (2006)
Shadow Caste EP (2005)
Photos
Bio
Who is Joe?
Joe is every man. He's Joe six-pack...Joe Shmoe, Joe Blow, Joe Cool, Camel Joe, Joltin' Joe, Broadway Joe and even and especially, Joe Mamma. He could be anybody. He's one of us. Just your average Joe. He could be the guy at the end of the bar or the nobody bagging your groceries. Or maybe he's the kid on the corner with a pocketful of trouble and that look in his eye....nothing special at first glance. Another face in the crowd. You could say he's just like you and me. But while the world sleeps on in ignorant bliss, Joe is wide AWAKE...
What is Con?
Con is a double-edged sword: It is a gift, though at times it can seem like a curse. Con may be a mask, but it is first and forever a voice behind that mask. Con is a shield, a sword, and a light in dark places. Yet it is also the darkness personified. Con is with, even when it is against. But again, the opposite is also true. Con is not a trick or a gimmick. It is not a game. It is most definitely not what you expected. Con is a roadmap: from the mind, through the heart, to the whole beyond the Code of the Soul...Con is speaking to all of us.
Joe Con is the Latest Updated Version of the Ancient Myth.
Joe Con is the Word Made Fresh...
Joe Con emerged from the bluegrass covered hills of his old Kentucky home at seventeen, forsaking the life he'd been given, the life he'd always known. He followed in the steps of Rimbaud, Dylan, Guthrie and Kerouac. He learned to be someone else, on the road, in your land and my land, with no direction home. He read Marx and Kafka and Hesse and the Bagavhad Gita. He listened to Beethoven and Hendrix and Howlin' Wolf. He danced with the sinners and sang with the saints in pursuit of the oasis we call the Real American Dream. He headed west for the promised land of California, seeking to find the proverbial gold at rainbow's end just like every other wide-eyed, wandering, mystical adventurer and dreamer who has heard the call and taken the trip...and, like so many before him, Joe discovered that reality is far less beautiful than the storybooks lead us to believe. Thrown into the cesspool of squalor that is San Francisco's Tenderloin district to sink or swim alongside cross-dressing hookers and their suit-and-silk-tie Johns, dodging or digging zombie crackheads broken as their own old vials, stumbling in front of indifferent police, witnessing obsene wealth and poverty living next door to one another, misery and happiness stacked so close there's barely room to breathe, all under a psychadelic golden gate sky calmly brimming with all the power and potential of a fuse just before it's blown or lit, Joe Con experienced a spiritual awakening not unlike prince Siddhartha's upon first leaving his palace and venturing past the castle walls to find a world of suffering and death outside. Thus Joe Con came to be Awake. And thus began the formative artistic renaissance of a young man whose life, words and myth are destined to forever alter the written word, and the world, as we now know it. Joe Con's debut album is called Awake and Dreaming...
What people are saying about Joe Con and Awake and Dreaming:
"This album is the new true Christian Americana--everything the church and the state don't want you to hear...Joe Con is a true poet!"
--Shing02
"Joe Con and Caveman are like the next Gangstarr---a Guru and Premier type duo."
--JernEye (Lunar Heights)
"Wow! This kid's a real writer."
--Scarub (Living Legends)
"Conscientious hip-hop, mixing an anti-war message in songs that strive to enlighten as well as entertain.."
--Lisa Hix, SF Chronicle
"Joe Con is one of the few Bay Area rappers I truly respect. I'm a fan!"
--Kristo (Sol Rebelz)
For fans of:
Black Star, Nas, Canibus, Dead Prez, Dip Set, Def Jux, Quannum, Rhymesayers, Stones Throw
royalarkmusic.com
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