A few weeks back, the Arkansas hip-hop collective LabRatz crowded the stage at Cornerstone Pub. What occurred during their short set is best described as a party.
Decked out in LabRatz T-shirts, the group performed. Flashing LabRatz CDs. Throwing hands up. The good time flowing from the stage. That’s how you do it. That’s how you perform.
And the music? Tight, melodic, bumping Little Rock-bred hip-hop with touches of Southern soul. Every member present guiding the tunes. Trading microphones and swapping verses. Providing hooks. Enjoying the moment and celebrating the music. Enjoying themselves. Moving the audience. Converting them.
The moment flashed and disappeared. Three or so songs. Ten minutes maybe. Following the set, Epiphany, the MC of the night, commented that the LabRatz just “keep getting better and better.”
That same party atmosphere with a dose of the serious continues on the 14-member collective’s debut album The Experiment. It’s 20 tracks from a group that includes Blaze Beatz, Kwestion, Asylum, Fiyah Burnz, Osyrus Bolly, Doe Boi, Bobby, Turnpike, Tiko Brooks, X2C, Nick Broadway, King Knowlej, Gadah and Duke Stigall.
A week after that triumphant night on stage, five LabRatz — Blaze Beatz, Bobby, King Knowlej, Kwestion and Osyrus Bolly — gather and consider that night and consider the LabRatz as a whole.
“The album is called The Experiment, and that’s exactly what it was,” Bobby says. “We pretty much rolled the dice on the whole thing just like we rolled the dice for that show. What you saw on the stage is what we do in the studio. We just sit up and rap and laugh at each other and crack jokes. That’s why it looks like a party. We all had a good feel.”
What is Little Rock-bred hip-hop? It’s best experienced. But it’s really, really great. Rivaling other major cities better known than Little Rock for hip-hop. It shouldn’t be that way. Little Rock hip-hop should be known, too. A good introduction is LabRatz.
The 14-man group came together in the fall of 2011. Many of the members were friends, knowing each other from hanging out at an open-mic night hosted by Osyrus Bolly. Blaze Beatz kept telling the guys he had beats that needed rappers. Then Bobby sent out a Facebook invite. LabRatz was born. Blaze Beatz and Kwestion, who have been working together for the past three years, created the beats and produced, along with engineering help from Turnpike.
With the beats recorded, the rappers started writing and rapping. “The way the project went is they made the beat on the spot, it’s played, and everybody writes to it on every verse,” King Knowlej says. “And it goes around, and there’s a vote on every verse. If you don’t make it, that’s just what it is. No love lost.” Whoever had the best verses, the best hook — that’s who went on the tune. The goal was putting out the best music for the people. The members were also searching for cohesiveness.
Tracks were tested during the open-mic nights, where the group “sharpened up the performances,” Osyrus Bolly says. Creativity was sparked. Nothing old was used on the album. “Every song got made on the spot,” Osyrus Bolly says. “Every beat on the spot.”
After twice-weekly recording sessions at Blaze Beatz’s studio that stretched on for months, the collective had 48 finished songs. Then came the process of selecting the 20 tracks of The Experiment. The LabRatz voted, over the course of a long night and then another. Grueling is a word that describes the process. Hell is another.
But in the end there were these 20 nuggets of Little Rock hip-hop gold, re-recorded by Turnpike at Arkansas Baptist College’s Unified Studios.
“I Can’t Call It” is the album’s first single. It features Bobby on the first verse, Doe Boi on the second verse, and Gadah and Duke Stigall split the third verse with Asylum on the hook. It’s not overstuffed though. Over a ’70s Philly soul beat, Doe Boi raps rapid fire about “many bills to play/My sister’s got a kid on the way” before Asylum slides in. It’s a beat Blaze Beatz made on accident, “taking a sample and putting some rock to it,” and Doe Boi came up with the hook. “After I put the drums on there, before I could make the beat good, they had verses ready,” Blaze Beatz says. Such it went with The Experiment.
There’s no word on releasing the other 28 songs. Some might be used on individual solo releases. Those are coming, but right now the group is having too much fun performing their tunes. Tunes that made individuals better while also creating a lasting testament to Little Rock hip-hop circa 2012.
“I think we all went from rappers to artists,” says Kwestion about creating The Experiment. “If you weren’t an artist already you went from just being a rapper to becoming an artist.
“You take all these personalities that are different, and you come up with something that is so potent and into one entity. It’s 14 different people, but one dope musical project.”
see the LabRatz
LabRatz will perform as one of the opening acts for Devin the Dude’s June 10 show at Rev Room. It’s an 18-and-up show with the music starting at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 day of show. Also on the bill will be 607, Lo Thraxx, Arkansas Bo and Joe Average.