Sixtoo comments on Blowed

The influence that the Blowed/Goodlife may or may not have had on hip-hop, seems to be an never ending point of dispute, with die hard fans on one side and haters on the other. Love or hate the Blowed, it seems like people will never get enough of debating their impact. Here is Sixtoo's take, a response to a message board thread gone ugly.

As someone who has looked up to many of these cats over the years, I can only say this: the fact that blowed never really blew up on the underground like it should have (while white suburban kids that based thier whole thing on a creative philosophy pioneered by these guys) just sucks.

When I was living out in Cali I was *really* trying to put in work with Micah9. I think to this day, if you give him a good beat, he will seriously bruise shit [the last Daddy Kev and Prefuse productions are a testament to that]. He is still one of my faves. I would still love to work with him and think that given the right producer, he could absolutely murder shit.

I used to do buisness with G-Money when I used to run a little hiphop website after graduating from college. We talked about him managing me a long time ago, before my associations with Anticon, while I was still working with a very young Buck65 under a group named Sebutones. G-Money helped me out alot back then, pushing my first couple 12's.. and in some ways I still think he has helped me as a musician.

My first time at Blowed was the night P.E.A.C.E. got out of prison... one of the most tense hiphop nights I have ever felt in my life. Im 31. I have been going to hiphop shows since '87 in broke ass hoods from Junglis to the Bronx and south central LA. Blowed is a rugged ass rapspot man! People were trying to battle PEACE just hours out of prison, and it almost ended in some real shit. There was other crazy shit that went on as well... but looking back on all I can do is admire everyone that was performing there.

Anyways, A few months later I worked on a few songs with P.E.A.C.E that were never released or really finished, and I can tell you that dood in intense, and is a fucking POWERHOUSE in the booth. The last thing I heard him on was Diplo's LP, which I thought was a fucking hot track. Dood can obviously rap and freestyle, whether you feel it or not, on some level you have to respect it.

I have only met the CVE cats a few times, and they have always seemed like serious, hardworking doods, and some of the best freestylers on the planet. The percieved-"spinoff"-blowed LA stuff is the shit that I dig the most outside of the OG Fellowship camp. Darkleaf, Mumbles, OMD and some of the guys that worked with Kev and Hive and OMID (who is one of the best doods on the planet, period), Busdriver, AWOL and some of the other guys. Anyways, my 2 cents on the whole thing is this...

Some people wanna shit on doods for making prograssive rap and inventing styles for whatever reason...
You gonna trash talk a record produced by mumbles and call yourself a record dood? Man, seriously... don't play yourself. I think any self respecting music lover should be able to identify with music moving forward and pushing itself... whether you like it or not.

Without people that take chances on stuff, then the music stays in the exact same place reverse engineering itself. I would rather hear someone trying to make new shit/styles/beats and failing miserably that trying to do the same shit over and over.
I still love and respect Blowed.

Aww...
Sixtoo.