It’s Monday night. We rented a car. It was freezing in NYC that night we left. We headed out to club Demararas in the Chelsea section of Manhattan.

We get there only to find at least 200 bedroom MCs trying as hard as they can to look like rappers. See, VH1 is attempting to do a new “Making The Band” style show about underground hip-hop. Pack & Session were selected for the 2nd round of cuts. Well….VH1 had us waiting outside of their onstage showcase for hours – for no reason. Thank god Domingo stuck around and provided us with heat from his Van. When I say it was cold and sleety that night – I mean it. My feet were frozen for over 3 hours after we left. Regardless…Pack & Session showed all the bedroom MCs how to rock a stage properly…Onto Round 3. Anyways, we broke out. A little late, but fuck it.

It was a long ass car ride down to Atlanta…not to mention that a CDR demo’d up version of Archetype murdered our rental car CD player and it refused to play anything else from there on out. It kept reading “ERR”...so we had nothing but country music on the radio for 6 hours till we got to Atlanta. I kept telling myself that Nelly had sabotaged the carwith voodoo in an attempt to get back at me for “Clear Em Out.”

The show went well. There was an MC battle that night, entitled MIC CLUB. The shit last HELLA LONG. Even before the final round, it was AT LEAST 3 hours before we had a chance to take the stage. Apparently, it’s been going on for a while. Still, SOS showed up outta nowhere, bodied the battle competition, even with strong showings from Kory Calico & Zero Basement. Cunninlynguists did their thing. Not too shabby for their 1st appearance with SOS in tow. eFamm did our thing as usual. People drank and some people even played pool. Things like that happen when the energy has been sucked out of the club, and there are 2 many MCs in the audience. We left.

Long night of takeout IHOP and freestyling in the hotel room ensued. Lack of sleep turned me into a zombie. Everyone kept asking me “What’s wrong?.” I had to keep reiterrating that I wasn’t really awake.

We broke out from ATL in the morning, switched our rental car for a new one, so we could get a working CD Player…and headed out to SC. Deacon The Villain drove us out there. Peeped some of his new shit for his new “Hell & High Water” LP – FIRE. We continued to play music. We stopped over at a Checkers…but I had Burger King across the street. We hopped back in the car and nodded our head to beats for another hour and a half. Shit is real.

We Made it to Hotel in South Carolina. Everyone else went to the mall before the show. Apparently it was dead, cause they came back hella early. Once again, I tried to sleep…but was awoken after an hour to the sounds of Session recapping his plans for “SPICASSO” to Kno via his laptop – complete with live acapellas. Bastard.

Lack of sleep make tone want kill.

We go to show. Seems somewhat sparse…but the energy this crowd gave us was well worth the entire trip. We rocked hard. Met a few cool cats….(ie Shekeese, Amen, Lyrical Buddah). Cunninlynguists Bodied their set much harder this time around with more crowd interaction and appeal. Hot shit. It’s nice to watch these cats evolve onstage right before your eyes. They are incredibly quick learners, and they have an undeniable chemistry onstage when they’re all together. A few more shows and they’ll be ready to conquer the world.

My main homeslice, Supastition suprised us with an appearance…I couldnt help but to beatbox for him some more so that he didnt stop rhyming…(Im a fan)...and it turned into a 1 hour stage cypher. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out Supa’s “7 Years Of Bad Luck” LP. Shit is bananas. Fucker’s got a sick flow with even sicker lyrics. Wild stuff. Anyways…It turned into a madhouse onstage. Every MC in the place wanted to hop on stage and rhyme…i had to police the turns so that no one hogged the mic. Worked out nicely. I’m a stage daddy.

We sold lots of HFYS, Hyphen & Asterisk:One CDs. Thank god That box was huge and It woulda sucked to have to drag it back again to NY. Big shout out to QN5’s resident soundman, Akolades for holding us down the whole trip…making sure shit went smoothly. We hung out with the locals for a second…and then split back to the hotel for a breather. We repacked and split once more back to NYC.

A superlong drive ensues. Stan tries to drive for an hour and basically just cant do it. I took the reigns for the longhaul, blasting LOUD Trance music as loud as I can to keep my mind working. Blitzkrieg took the final hour of the drive. We make it home to friendly NYC. heh.

We dropped the car off and I caught a cab home. I come home to Mrs Deff. We eat General Tso’s chicken and then I pass out for 17 hours. Only to have to get up an work again the next day.

Tone’s Total sleep count for the trip: 5 hours (in 3 Days)

We gotta do it again sometime.

Remember…we’re always down to rock…anywhere…you just gotta book us. And we’ll go.

Peace & Respect.
Tone.