Sammys 7 - Syracuse musicians pack in an outdoor party

Singing for Their Supper

Syracuse rap trio Deadwate weighs in with Dinnertime

Syracuse has spawned its fair share of hip-hop celebrities over the years: DJ Red Alert, DJ Fuze of Digital Underground, Rich Nice, Miss Jones and the rising Seth Marcel (see cover story on page XX). But this ain't exactly Miami or the Motor City, and the members of Deadwate know it.

"It's hard to get gigs around here," laments emcee Michael Childs a.k.a. Our Reality. "The connotation {of hip-hop} is violent. It's kind of how it was in the beginning, when people had to fight to get heard. "
Childs and his bandmates, emcee Louis Courcy a.k.a. Mister Louiee and deejay Salvatore Chisari a.k.a. DJ Tes, released their debut album Dinnertime (Red Brick Records) in May. The CD is a booming hybrid of vintage and modern rap sounds, of new-school crunch and old-school outlook. It's been a long time coming, considering Deadwate began back in the day: 1997, to be exact.

Then again, they haven't had the luxury of major-label support or huge cash advances. Originally a studio project, the plan was to record material at Chisari's own Ruffbeat Studios, located on North Salina Street in Syracuse. The material would then be released through Red Brick, the imprint started by Childs and Courcy in 1996.

Along the way the label racked up a healthy roster of fellow hip-hoppers, including Childs' own pre-Deadwate group Mad Pack. "If you talk about Syracuse hip-hop and you don't talk about Red Brick, you don't really know the scene," Courcy, 33, says. "We helped start the careers of a lot of these rappers: Seth Marcel, Just One, Taj Mahal."

Today it houses Doowittle and James Hurtado, and releases works by Chisari's instrumental outlet, Tes the Sicilian. "A lot of rap music today is shoved so far underground, nobody knows it's there," Childs, 34, says, explaining Red Brick's devotion to helping local acts.

Last year Deadwate became serious about seeing their own musical agenda materialize, the results being the 16-track, 73-minute monster Dinnertime. "We backed off of everything to dedicate ourselves to just making music," Courcy remembers. He even quit his job as a chef at To The Moon, formerly at 305 Burnet Ave., to free up more creative time.

The disc's influences are diverse, reflecting the members' proclivities for New York City underground hip-hop, 1984-'88-era rap and modern rhythm'n'blues. The robotic synth lines and bold delivery of "Hip-Hop America" recall Mr. Lif, for example, while "Playa Playa" suggests a more boastful Black Starr and "Jim Johnson" rides a similar dancehall/rap vibe ala Shabba Ranks. The poignant lyrics and coruscating keyboard line of "Stress" bring to mind Sage Francis or Aesop Rock.

"The beats are very strong, but at the same time very catchy," Childs points out. "We're not all thugged out. Mostly, artists today are just doing the same thing."

"Just rapping over a CD," Chisari, 31, agrees. "There's nothing original."

Rebelling against the mainstream paradigm was their m.o. in creating the disc's music, which is all-organic, meaning no samples are used. "Everything's played," Chisari says. "Some of the drumbeats are taken from a drum machine, but there's no loops. We didn't even replicate old stuff. It's hard to get the same sound as most commercial CDs today; you really have to mix it well."

But Chisari pulled it off, playing keyboards while Rob Boogie, a Syracuse musician and friend of the group, laid down bass, keyboards, guitar and vocals. James Hurtado contributed Latin guitar, and wrote the melody eventually used in "Understand That." Chisari then worked his studio wizardry, cutting and pasting segments of melodies into driving, beat-oriented music that sounds deceptively like the work of sampling.

The lyrical realm the group mines is feel-good and largely positive, just like Jurassic Five or Blackalicous. "If you just look at the songs, a lot of them are about what we named them," Childs says. "In 'Stomp' and 'Turn it Up,' for example, we're just trying to uplift the kids, get people off their feet."

Most of Childs' raps on the disc are freestyle, which is where a lot of their power comes from. "Usually I just lay on the floor, and let the music go through my head," he says. "It's very spontaneous. If the raps don't come, they just don't come. I have to capture what's there."

Courcy's case is the opposite, as he often broods for an hour on a single verse. It's his reverence for hip-hop ("When I was a teen-ager, I'd buy $150 in records a week," he recalls, "I had to be the first one to get what's hot.") that compels him to be such a craftsman. "The music is an escape for me," Courcy says. "When I get too many calls, when there's too many people bothering me, I can just put the music on and escape."

Right now Dinnertime's trajectory seems upward-bound, with stores throughout the Salt City selling the CD. A distribution deal with Nation Jam will soon bring the disc to the chain stores FYE, Coconuts and Strawberries. Deadwate also inked a deal with BPM Promotions, which will be hawking the group's tunes to commercial-radio stations across the country in the coming months.

A video for the disc's third track, "Masters of the Microphone," made its debut May 30 on Buffalo PBS station WNED-Channel 20's program Late Night Noise. Videos for "Hustle On" and "Stomp" are also in the works. "I'm truly happy with {the disc}. If we don't sell another record, I'll still be happy," Childs says. "I've lived my hip-hop dream."

The group's Red Brick label has helped along the dreams of other rappers as well. "We're not saying we're everything," Childs explains. "But we've put a lot of cats at the dinner table over the years. Now it's our turn to sit down, our turn to come and eat."