Culture Cultivation: The Summit of alaska hip hop

By Tubby

Photos / Matt Captures

If you've followed rap music over the last 10 to 20 years or more, then you've witnessed the culture grow, change and evolve, stylistically, many times. Specific regions blossomed, obviously, starting with the East Coast, specifically New York, where hip hop was born. Sooner or later, the West Coast, with its completely unique and, at the time, very new sound and style took over the rap scene, commercially and musically. From there, we witnessed the South rise to prominence as their entire style, culture, sound and overall way of life influenced what was current and fresh in hip hop. Specific areas in the South, such as Houston, Atlanta, Memphis and Miami, to name a few, developed such a tight-knit, supportive music scene within their own respective cities that when artists from that city broke through and became mainstream or commercial successes many other artists from that area would eventually get notoriety and recognition which, in a lot of cases, meant more stars from the same place, all supporting and helping each other grow into even bigger, better artists. 

The thing that I've been trying to do for a while now is help cultivate and build the talented but unfortunately, unrecognized (for now) hip hop music scene in Alaska. I want the Alaska hip hop scene to mirror that of Houston's, or Atlanta's or even the Bay Area’s. I feel like we are at a point where we've finally got a blossoming, healthy and competitive music scene with a decent sized talent pool that includes several local stars. There are so many great artists already and I'm excited to say that there are many more young artists on the rise, many of which performed this last Saturday at The Summit, an event thrown by Frozen Founders at Anchorage Community Works.

The Summit is a hip hop event that brings together not only local visual artists and painters, but musical acts that include some of Alaska's best hip hop artists as well as some new, young up-and-comers in the beginning stages of making names for themselves in Anchorage. 

I went to host the event and support my friends at Frozen Founders, but left extremely happy to have seen some of the young, new talent that I was not privy to prior to hosting the event. 

The performances started with Kidd Base, a new rapper affiliated with Frozen Founders who, for his first time performing, held his own under the stage lights. A little nervous at moments, but overall a good performance by the young emcee. 

Ben Swann came on after Kidd Base and, as usual, he did his thing with the confidence and charm he's known for. Young Mastadon performed "InHereThickAF" alongside the Trill Twinz, who also performed and had a great set. Loner Luc performing "Shut It Down" was one of the stand out performances of the night. Trill Twinz affiliate Tay Gee graced the stage as well with a quick set of her own.

Other artists that performed that evening included Double Dose, who did his current local buzz record "Fresh," Lee Jones, who drove down from Fairbanks to represent the Golden Heart City, Valley Boy Choze, who had a very good set that the females were visibly excited about, AG 2 Tone and Frozen Founders' own Dope Dylan, Tayy Tarantino, Duckman and King Coo, and Leak Leisure, who was another act I was not knowledgeable of. Leak Leisure's performance of his local hit, "YahYah" was one of the more impressive sets not only due to how catchy his record is, but the incredible response by the crowd. The crowd was a younger demographic than I'm used to (The Summit is an 18 & up event) so I was surprised and thoroughly amazed how many people knew and clearly appreciated the record. That was definitely one of the highlights of the night in my book. 

Another highlight, and probably my favorite set of the night, went to Frozen Founders as a whole. Cypress and Kayco performed their new record, the incredibly catchy and hot "Wristwork," while Alaska Boi and DC The Savage performed "Some Mo," which, in my opinion, is without question top 3 rap songs in Alaska in 2017. The energy of the crowd, along with everyone on stage during that performance, was electric. Definitely a moment I will never forget. 

The evening went beautifully. All these different acts, different individuals with different egos, different crews… all at the same place for the same cause: to support local arts. Everything from local clothing and merchandise to paintings and sketches to break dancing (special shout out to Anchorage Breakers who did a dance set in between performances and fucking killed it!) to rap performances. Alaska hip hop thrived and ultimately grew Saturday night at Anchorage Community Works. 

Not only did it show me the amount of new talent we have in this constantly growing scene, but it also showed me that if we all work together and support one another as a community, we will eventually get that recognition this scene deserves. 

For the cause… *raised fist emoji* 

For a full catalog of photos from The Summit, hit up Tubby Blog.

Check out Tubby's weekly podcast #TubbysManCaveProject, which showcases Alaska hip hop, from playing local records to discussing upcoming events to behind the scenes, untold stories of local rap legacy. #TubbysManCaveProject is on iTunes, Soundcloud and Podbean.