Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Download Last Weeks Damage Control - 3 Devin Exclusives + Devin Interview - Devin in Montreal TONIGHT!

Sorry I Left Y'all Hanging - Devin the Dude Montreal Thursday - Damage Control Tonight



Yooooo um forgive me people for I have sinned. I wrote all that shit about Hurricane Rita and how we were finna sit on our asses here in Houston and ride it out and blah blah blah... and then pretty much stepped away from HoustonSoRealland for like almost a week.

Thing is we did get out, Friday morning there was no traffic -- there were plenty of cars on the road, just on the side of the road stalled and out of gas -- so we hit the road at 6 a.m. and got to Austin by 9 a.m. or so, fairly normal.

But yeah it was quite a scene. Seriously I had a lump in my throat the entire drive. We had the car packed down with babies and baby stuff and had no room for anyone to ride along with us. But as we drove to Austin we saw literally THOUSANDS of people stranded in and around their cars waiting for gas. I'm talking about the entire way. In the median, on the shoulder, along the feeders, every parking lot along the way looked like a camp ground, every gas station looked like a mob scene (or a party kind of -- lines around the block for the rest room, lines outside the door like crazy. More in a minute).

I'm saying it was Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome come to life. Minus the guns and the crazy hairdos. I saw mothers holding babies... it was fucked up. I was thinking how I would feel if I were standing along I-10 holding Elena and watching that Eva doesn't run out into the middle of traffic because she is NUTS. I thank God we had a full tank of gas and that there was no traffic because there was NO gas from Houston to Smithville straight up.

The only slow part was around Columbus (forgive me if you don't know your Austin to Houston geography, but Columbus is the point at I-10 where you cut down 71 to Austin. Generally exactly one hour drive outside Houston). Just about 5 miles east of Columbus, the fear set in. Remember, the morning before we had spent 5 hours in the car and only got ten miles. I saw the craziest line of traffic I have ever seen in my life with no end in site, and on this morning I just thought to myself, "Oh great I bet this bitch is backed up to here from San Antonio AND Austin and we aren't going anywhere.

Well I was wrong. The traffic only lasted for about 5 miles and that only took about 45 minutes or so. When we approiached the exit at Columbus -- where there's like 4 gas stations or some shit -- you would have thought you were outside the Super Bowl or some shit. I'm talking about THOUSANDS of cars at that point EVERYWHERE. Lanes closed because the lines from the gas stations extended out onto the highway. Contraflow lanes going slow because cars were parked 3 deep along the entire shoulder on each side and just randomly left in the median. As we passed over the bridge and could get a good look at the street below I saw the line outside the Chevron extend like 50 feet at least 5 deep. I'm talking about it looked like what you see when you walk outside Reliant Stadium before a big soccer game, only these people were just trying to get something to eat or maybe use a rest room.

Dog, it was crazy. And it really made me think. I thought about how stressed I was just seeing all that shit, and dealing with the MINIMAL amount of shit I had to deal with to get out of this city. Then I thought about how those people must feel being stranded on the road. Then I thought about how all that ain't shit compared to what the people of New Orleans went through. And then I thought about how that ain't shit compared to the people of New Orleans, Mississippi, etc who are STILL going through the shit weeks later. And then I just got really depressed.

Help someone if you can. It's hard to fathom what's really going on out there in that region, I know. But when the TV cameras leave, these people will still be fucked. I got 6 families worth of step family who lost everything basically. Saw my step mothers parents in San Antonio this weekend, both in their 70's, lost their house. Barely brought any clothes with them. Car gone. Their childrens homes destroyed. And they're some of the lucky ones. They have a house to stay in. Man, this shit is insane.

Thank you Rita for sparing us.

On a much lighter note, I hope someone is reading this blog in Montreal and can tell all their friends to come out to the Main Hall for Devin the Dude's appearance at POP MONTREAL! He's appearing with Chromeo -- a wild band that features my boy A-Trak's brother -- and resident DJ's Simahlak and Jordan Dare.

Before that I'ma try and see Boom Bip (does that surprise you? yes I always thought Anticon was a little um, well, I'm not gonna talk down, but Boom Bip has some SHIT!) and then after it's all about my people Caps and Jones and my boy Lemon-Red along for the ride with Ghislain Poirier at Blizzarts 3956A St-Laurent (near Duluth) 10PM- 3AM / $3. Feel that realness, it's going down.

Someone bring me some hash please. That's all I want in Canada. I love me some Canada. Civilization here we come.

Tonight on Damage Control I invited like a million people and don't really remember who to be honest but I do know that KB THE KIDNAPPA from Street Military will be in the house, so if you wanna learn something about REAL HOUSTON, tune in tonight. Click here for the website round about midnight - 2 a.m. central time.

Also, I still don't have a ton of details regarding the death of K-Ruger. Many are saying he killed himself. How? I am not sure. All I know is there will be a memorial service for him Thursday evening from 5 - 7 p.m. at Duncan Funeral Home. Meechie sent me a text with that info. I really know nothing else.

K-Ruger Rest in Peace.

Canada Stand Up.

Houston, help your brothers and sister.

And the rest of y'all, hold tight for Devin the Dude in Denmark. New York October jump off at Sway TBA. Roxy and Atrak Kanye After Party Houston Steez at a venue to be announced (AND MAN WILL THIS BE A FUCKING ANNOUNCEMENT HOUSTON GET READY WE GOT BIG TINGS A GWAN VENUE WISE BYE BYE SHIT HOUSES HELLO SOREAL WEEKLY JUMPO THE FUCK OFF).

Oh yeah and don't let me forget, my man RAY TAMARRA hooked us up photo wise for the Screwed Up Click show in New York. His flicks made it to VIBE.COM and he's also got a gang of great stuff up on THE CRUSADE. Click the links and go check 'em out. It was truely a magical night y'all. Try to relive it. I know I am...


ESG


SUC FOOL!


My SoReal Family getting along so well. Sister Roxy and Cousin BBK chillin'


Me and my favorite rapper, Jean Grae

THANKS RAY!

Thanks for your time.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Don't Pat Yourself on the Fuckin Back Quite Yet Houston



The birds are gone, the squirrels have burrowed or scattered, or whatever it is they do when a natural disaster looms, and all that's left is the people in their big iron tanks. And the City of Houston, it seems, is already patting itself on the back for a job well done, having gotten everyone stirred up into a shitstorm waaaay in advance of the impending Shitstorm Rita, which I suppose is good. But they're being a little premature.

Thing is, the shitheads didn't prepare very well. My family and I just spent 5 hours (2:45 a.m. - 7:45 a.m.) driving just over ten miles on Highway 290 towards Austin. 5 hours for 10 miles y'all, while the fucking east bound lanes were wide open and clear as can be. People are breaking down on the side of the road, over heating, running out of gas -- as are the stations on pretty much every highway -- and no one in the city can think to open the east bound lanes to west bound traffic? I'm serious yo, if I wasn't in such a daze I would have taken some photos myself. It is straight up insanity out there. Serious, I saw 290, Beltway 8 and I-10 more packed than anything I've ever seen in my life.

Parking lots.

So, once we reached Beltway 8, we turned around and came home. Might ride this little bitch out. Might try again if they open up the inbound lanes. Might try to get a flight. I don't know but this shit is fucking fucked.

We'll survive though. These fools are making way more out of it than it really is, and like I said, are already patting themselves on the back while they fuck the fuck up incessantly. I'm pissed. No sleep till Austin.

And to top it off I couldn't stick around the station to watch the blue line crawl as I uploaded Damage Control, so it obviously didn't. Fuck fuck fuck....

No sleep till Austin.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Mother Fuck Rita

ME and DJ Eva ain't neva scared...



Um, well maybe a little bit. See you fools in Austin after we do this Damage Control tonight.

11 p.m. - 2 a.m. CENTRAL TIME. That's right fools we fillin' in and got an extra hour. 3 hours of Damage Control... Set your alarms!

Tune in www.kpft.org LIVE!

DJ Chill gonna be in Austin too. Fader Party gonna get bumrushed by Houstonians Friday night. ACL better offer us some refuge. We in there...

And um, God, please don't take the above as me being cocky, it's just funny right? Just all in fun. Please don't let a tree hit my house. Just bought it. Also, we don't have flood insurance because these bitches out here want to break the bank on a hard working boy like myself, sooooooo if you could please spare our city, I'd appreciate it. We have soooo much stuff going on right now, and you know, it's really important to me and a whole lot of people that Houston stay in tact.

THANKS!
PEACE to all of you. Stay safe. Get out of town. Tape them windows and say a lil prayer. Stop frontin' you goof balls. Pray to something cuz it's goin DOOOWWWWN!

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Kruger Rest in Peace

I hate when I have so much good going on in my life, then I get hit with something like this...

Kruger, an artist on Str8 Lace/Def Jam Records and a friend to me and all of us at Damage Control, was found dead by his grandfather yesterday. Some are calling it a suicide, no one is quite sure yet and I don't want to start rumors. I'll give you more info as it comes in.


Meechie aka Bloa with his Protege Kruger, 2 weeks ago at the Paul Wall video shoot. They were so excited for his upcoming release. It's a damn shame.

Our prayers are with his family and of course his friends like my man Meechie.

Shit...

Monday, September 19, 2005

Devin the Dude Live in Montreal - Thursday Sept. 29th

That's in Canada fool. Bring something to smoke....

I Hate When I Get Too Busy to Blog - But this week I had many excuses - SUCNYC BUNBIDEOSHOOT LIKE WHOA!



Well it's been a whirlwind week round these here SoReal Headquarters. My brain's been buzzing with so much shit that I've wanted to blog about, but alas and alak, my computer access whilst on the road is quite lax and well, shit... I'm only a week late on some of this shit. Anyway lets get todays ball rolling with some photos from Bun B's latest video shoot. THe song is "Draped Up" and it features Lil Keke as you will see....

So many folks showed out for this. Don't sleep on Bun B now, it's takeover time.


Graph, Bun B, Skinhead Rob, Chino XL


Well... it's a video shoot.


Aztec


More Aztec.




My man Bomani from ESPN.com interviewing ESG.


Candyman


Chino XL is on Bun's album fool!


Super Producer (and rapper too) Cory Mo


Daika Bray of Murder Dog and more with Big Bub


Das Dude. See y'all in Montreal Sept. 29th. Aarhus Denmark Oct. 7th.


OG Dewey


Po up and show up, as they say...


Hawk


The man LUMP!


Couple MDDL FNGZ up


Mike Mack


Money Marc, Wonderous, MC Qua and more!


PKT Is a serious lyricist from the H. He jams...




Scarface, Chingy and SPICE 1!


Spice 1 in case YOU DIDN'T CATCH IT!


Towdown


Xtract


Young Wee


Yungstar


ZRO, J. Prince


And more form the roof







--------------------------------

That was Monday. Then on Wednesday, I took off for New York with Pretty Todd and the man....


BBK, where we rented a playa ass Magnum and rolled thru them streets. Seriously, I think BBK wants me to write about our whole ordeal in procuring this car and everything else we went thru in the city that day but shit, it's late. Suffice it to say, New York in general needs a lil lesson in customer service.


That night, me, Chill, Rapid Ric, Pretty Todd, BBK and Roxy all headed over to East Village Radio which is fucking dope as fuck. This lil store front net radio joint connected to a bar has the greatest vibe and they play great tunes quite often as well. PEACE to DJ Dirty and Minski for having us. Shit was fun.






DJ Frampster showed up from the UK


With Lady Sovereign and her manager Zack. But Sov wouldn't get on the air cuz she had the hiccups.


Seven from Chocolate Industries is my man, he's got a Lady SOv EP coming in November that is blazin'...


Everyone who sees this picture asks me, "Um who's that girl?" It's Gwen from Chocolate Industries. Seriously Gwen, people checkin' for you...



Then we hightailed it off to Joe's Fucking Pub for this Cage release party to have a drink or two and saw my man

James Dunn of RIME Magazine. James is my man, and I dig his magazine a lot. But peep a lil excerpt from an article he wrote and published on New Orleans Brass Bands just weeks before Hurricane Katrina swooped in...

"The theory that a strong enough earthquake could cause Southern California to crack off the continent is known bullshit today, but there's nothing imaginary about the elaborate system of pumps, canals and levees that work to constantly keep Lake Pontchartrain and America's longest river from turning Louisiana's largest city into Discovery Channel material for our great-grandchildren."

Whoa, if this little writer boy can predict the shit, why weren't we ready???


Spankrock was in the building and of course that's that girl ROX-OH right thurr too...


And of course this is my good friend Jessica. Jessica, meet the world.


You have no idea how real this photo really is. Roxy, myself and Jessica Weber from Spectre keeping it fucking real. Finna take over.

After a couple drinks at Joe's motherfucking little fucking pub, we hightailed it on down to the Knitting Factor for a Fader Magazine sponsored jump off with the Purple Ribbon All Stars, Big Boi, Killer Mike, Sleepy Brown, etc... Shit was off the chain mayne. For real.


Despite the fact that it was to start at 1:30 a.m. and didn't even get in the room till 2:30 a.m. But fuck it, good friends, good times, beer, no place to go, fuck it.


Roxy took this one, no, Big Boi wasn't looking at ME like that...


One of the GOATS-IMO


Oxy be getting up with them new stickers.


Chill, Lin Yee of Houston, TX / Fader Magazine and another dude whos name I don't frickin' remember. Lemme take this space right now to apologize to Lin Yee for not getting into my SUC party at Joe's Funky Ass Little Pub, more on that in a minute. I am so sorry Lin Yee I feel like the biggest dork on the planet and you don't even know. We from Texas, I'm not on that New York shit... I'll splain in a second...


Roxy and Richard Martin of Complex Magazine. Thanks so much to Complex Magazine for sponsoring ours and their CMJ Jump Off, more on that later. Oh yeah and mucho apologies too man. If I were a bigger man I would have floored a few folks and opend the flood gates on that fucking Pub of a fucking New York... shit, more in a minute... Sense my anger people. I'm finna explode.


Jennifer Odell is the panels coordinator of CMJ and she worked with me on doing this Mixtape panel we did with myself, DJ Chill, Rapid Ric, Consequence and Green Lantern, can't find all the flicks tho. Shit was packed to the gills though.


Here's ONE tho. DJ Chill in cop glasses and Consequence, who is signed to Kanye's label. Yo, I wrote Consequences first bio in 1994 when we used to sit at 307 Clinton ave and smoke much charm while my man OT would make beats and Quence would record all night. Shit was crazy to see him again...


Then we went to Tamara Palmer and Bill Adlers Down South Photo Exhibit at Eyejammie Gallery. Shit was real dope to see work from Peter Beste, Jack Thompson, Julia Beverly, Deron Neblitt and more in one place at one time. They all my folks soreal.


Julia Beverly, Rapid Ric and Tamara Palmer making one of them DBD's.


Julia Beverly at Penelope, where I ate like 4 times this trip to NYC.

Thursday night though, it was on. If you missed it, I'm sorry. You probably tried to get in, but the motherfucking management and door folsk at Joe's Frickin' Pub for some reason had a problem letting patrons actually patronize our event and were on some serious Studio 54 hoe shit. Seriously, they cut off the list like 30 minutes into it citing rappers entourages and shit as having filled them to capacity. But real talk, the shit was not at capacity. The dancefloor was quite comfortable and they just went for theirs and enjoyed fucking with me I swear.

Anyway yo, I was glad to see who I did see out there, but man, people like Lin Yee, my man Josh from the Resource, man, so many people did not get in.

Even Redhanded and his peeps WHO WERE PERFORMING AND HELPED US WITH SOME LAST MINUTE EXPENSES HAD TO WAIT 15 MINUTES! I was standing there like YO THIS DUDE IS PERFORMING THS DUDE HELPED ME OUT A LOT LET THEM IN LET THEM IN LET THEM IN. It was ridiculous man. I didn't know what to do. Next New York show I'ma have my own security to deal with the club security and management hating on my shit. It was so insane man... This is not Studio 54, but I think the ghost of Andy Warhol was present... I think...

Some of these photos like this one of Bun were taken by Aubin Bryan who once again, thankfully, took my camera...


King of the Trill


Shawn Harris helped with the hosting...


Me and Niq of Grit Boys




I waited so long to make this photo happen - Bun B and JEAN GRAE!


Grit Boys fuckin' wrecked


Scooby




Unique




Poppy






Bun B and Roxy Oxy


Pretty Todd and BBK. Go get that Paul Wall record if you wanna hear some of that Pretty Todd HEAT!


Then Redhanded came on, wrecked with Grit Boys and did his own set.


Redhanded is one of the livest dudes in New York right now to me. Peep his single with Scooby and Paul Wall. In fact you can peep his video here. Can't locate it at the moment, but its dope... Peace to Deja Vu Ent., my man Moe, for coming through!












Redhanded




You feeling that shirt?


Fat Face McGuillicuddy on the verge of a breakdown... for real. I'm not gonna get way into it man, Joe's Pub had me about to explode though...


Unique!


G. Rivera from Sirus and DJ Chill




Jean Grae!


Short Dawg also came thru and wrecked. He's a new young cat from Houston, signed to Russell Simmons Music Group. Expect big things, his show was off the chain. Hopefully he'll be on Damage COntrol this week and I'l have more to tell you about him soon. The single "Cruisin'" is fire...








Short Dawg


Lil O, Niq


Man, soreal to finally meet my man Chris from Lemon Red and of course always a pleasure to see Jon Caramanica. Jon LACED us in the new Spin Magazine. If you haven't read his Houston article, you are fucking up. He gave Damage Control much love and I thank him for that shit.


Lil O was the first from the Screwed Up Click to hit the stage (uless you count our host, Bun B). Man Lil O killed it.

You know me and Roxy (and Complex of course) brought Screwed Up Click to New York City for a concert right??? You know that right???


Lil O, Poppy


Lord Sear, ESG


M1 of Dead Prez with Bun B


Feel it...


Bun pulled me on stage and said some nice things. I can't even handle it. Like whoa. I thought he was finna say... "I'll smack a backpacka...." but he didn't.


Moe - Deja Vu Ent., Roxy and Niq


Hawk wreckin'!


Hawk, Rapid Ric, DJ Chill


Lil Keke and Hawk live on stage in New York...






Lil Keke!




Poppy


Rapid Ricardo


Deja Vu Familia!


And their ladies... in the house!





How Scooby get so close to my girls....?

Jean Grae and


Julia Beverly


Lisa E.


Scooby, Niq, Bun B, Lil O


Them Spectre Girls...


Red Handed, Green Lantern


ESG is now Roxy Oxy's favorite rapper. What you know bout that???


He fucking wrecked that place for real. Peoples jaws were dropped his whole set. He showed em how it really goes. For real. SoReal...











Man, it was really insane. I don't have the energy to really go into the details of it all, maybe official review will follow tomorrow. I don't know. I'm fading fast. Next jump off in October??? Big surprise... THANKS AGAIN SO MUCH ROXYSOREAL - RICHARD AND SHERRY AT COMPLEX AND MY MAN MOE AND EVERYONE INVOLVED IN MAKING THIS HAPPEN. MAN!