Tanj's6000thPostSpectacular: Kokane, G.Clinton, Rock the Bells, shouts and more!

[Tanjential]

Welcome to my 6000th post spectacular. Recently I had some cool experiences I wanted to share with y’all. Bookended by my shout outs to everyone I could remember off the top of my head. But hey even if I missed you on the list, anyone that’s ever given me love, respect, or even just a thoughtful reply is propped in my mind you know?

So a lot of people were asking me details about my experience meeting Kokane, Soundscannerz and George Clinton so here’s my quick narrative.


So I walked into the Soundscanners studio at Eagle rock and immediately George Clinton is walking up the hall I’m walking down with a weed pipe in his hand. I tried to shake his hand but the way he came at me I kinda had to half hug him if that makes sense. Said I was a fan of his work, he steps into the booth. Josef Leimberg is working the boards while Clinton flexes his voice muscles. I meet this cat J-Silva who apparently runs the label Kokane is currently on as well as produces. He says he produced the track George is recording over for Koke’s album.
     I was telling Quaze about how crazy Diggfinger is about everyone in the room’s work (for the most part) and damn, I ain’t even knowin’, cause Quaze was like “Diggfinger? Yeah that’s the DUDE. He does promotion for us out there and shit. They keep it ridiculously gangster over there in Germany man.” I sparked a joint and took pictures with all these cats. Leimberg had a blunt going at all times. My hippie friends packed bowls in a pipe, and some other cats did the same. Leimberg was like, “Man, we both got the big curly hair going on eh?”
           I was tellin’ Kokane it was really cool to meet him considering I was just getting into Black Mafia Life like the week before. He was like “Man…we were on some OTHER shit on that record man…and I tell you man, we doing it. We’re gonna do the Above the Law album.”  I had talked to KMG on the phone the week before and dude said that Hutch wasn’t down since he got out of prison. I relayed this to Kokane and Koke said “Oh trust man…we gonna get him. We GOTta get him. We’ll get Hutch on the record.” He had funky “Ohh’s” in the midst of almost all of his sentences. I met his wife Alicia, and she seemed to be endlessly amused by him.  I told him how I appreciated his work in preserving the legacy of G-Funk and how much me and various cats I know enjoy it. He seemed quite appreciative.
           Now the highlight of the night to me, as an artistic type of dude, was observing George Clinton work. Clinton and Leimberg were pretty much the only cats working in the studio for the few hours I was there but I was not there all night. Clinton’s voice initially sounded very worn and he kept having Leimberg delete his tracks and do the takes over and over and over again. The same two words, just over and over. Now not only have I done a lot of drugs in my short time on this earth but I’ve seen a lot of drug use and users. That said, an ‘acid loop’ is when you fixate on something to the point where you have thought cycles between mentions of the thing you’re fixated on due to being on a trip drug. I remember one time camping I lost my sunglasses and I spent most of my trip looking for them and had every thought conceivable between saying “where are my glasses?” and ‘what was I doing again?/what am I looking for?’ Initially, I thought that this was G. Clinton was in the middle of as he seemed to be having looped thoughts. We’d hear his lighter flick in between vocal exercises. After about 25 minutes I realized I was way wrong. He was layering his vocals incredibly carefully. It’s like watching someone create a picture. First there’s your pencil outline, then your inks, then your colors etc. He layered the skeletal main melody, then a double to that, then a harmony to that etc. etc. After 25 minutes the vocals and the song started to take shape. That’s when I realized this dude has been doing this stuff since the 60’s. He knew exactly what the hell he was doing. And in about two and a half hours there was 6 masterfully laid vocal tracks on about 2.5 minutes worth of this track. He stepped outside the booth as Leimberg blasted the track repeatedly. Clinton waddled and bobbed about the room singing the song extra high pitched with the track playing , “In this world of technological/it seems so illogical…that I just can’t get a hold of youuu” over and over as he made funny faces at the girls in the room. I sparked another joint and had my homegirl take a picture of me and George Clinton. After the joint finished Leimberg sparked and passed another and I was finally toasted just groovin’. At this point it was approaching 3 in the morning and even though Mamie Guns and Kokane were about to get in the booth (Mamie had actually started her vocal exercises as I was walking out) I was hungry as fuck and Josef Leimberg told me there was a Tommy Burger down the way. Me and the homies dipped and said peace out to everyone. Kokane said “God bless”, gave me his number and said he had to leave as another person that him and Quaze seemed to know very well approached.  I had work the next morning, otherwise I would have gladly stayed all night and saw them finish the track. But it was amazing seeing George Clinton work like that. I wish I could have heard all of the vocal layers with Koka and Mamie that  night but it was getting late and I didn’t wanna be beat as fuck at work the next  day.

Here are the pics of myself with those cats:


We Want the Funk. George Clinton himself.



Tanj and Kokane. Close like shit stains and hanes(sorry I couldn't resist).











Stayin' long, curly and faded with Josef Leimberg and Quazedelic: the Soundscannerz.

Also, I went to Rock the Bells when it hit my hometown of San Bernardino, so here’s my quick narrative of all that:         

 Rock the Bells was ridiculously awesome and at the same time horribly miserable. While I got to see more headlining acts in one day than any other in my life, the sun in my hometown of San Bernardino was nigh unbearable. We walked into the Supernatural and Rahzel beatboxing and freestyling which was mad cool. Then Jedi Mind Tricks came on and we rolled a joint and a blunt when Immortal Technique took the stage.  After which we went over to the paid dues stage, saw breakers breakin’ on the way to the stage. Smoked a blunt to Grouch and Eli’s AMAZING set. Check the song ‘Artsy’ by the Grouch if you haven’t already. Ridiculously dope shit. Blueprint rapped “Gotta Blame it on the Yager” over “Billie Jean” and that was sick.

            Went back to the mainstage, caught Murs doing a set (which was weird cause we had just seen him hosting at the Paid Dues stage) consisting primarily of suff of the 9th edition. Mitchy Slick got on the main stage as well and dropped a hot verse. Talib Kweli and Mos Def played as well. I was disappointed with both a little, but it was cool. A bunch of my friends split off to catch Felt/Murs/Slug/Sage Francis but I stuck around for Nas at the mainstage who didn’t show up till much after he was scheduled. Eventually, me and all but two of the friends I was with made it down to the mainstage during Public Enemy’s set which was pretty friggin’ awesome. They were followed by the Roots who were astounding. Especially the guitarist/singer who Justin “We Fly High” Li later informed me’s name was Marc Luther. Roots even played some Ozzie licks like war pigs and iron man (last time I saw them they were covering led zeppelin, the shit)
                 They were followed by Cypress Hill who opened with “We Ain’t Goin’ Out Like That”. Muggz was nowhere to be seen but Fred Wreck DJed for them and that was awesome.  They proceeded to do their really hyphy shit like ‘insane in the membrane’ ‘kill a man’ and various others at which point I became restless for some laid back stony funky shit. Right on time B-Real yelled “It’s time for a chronic break!” and pulled out a huge bong and had their bongo player “Bobo” hit it on stage. They performed “I want to get high”, “Hits from the Bong” , “dr.greenthumb” and some really trippy spacy stoner song that I had never heard before while me and the homies blazed three joints and a blunt. I was finally as toasted as I needed to be. Cypress ended their set with ‘rock superstar’ and after their set I began to realize how much I needed to use the restroom and drink some water. In the pit there was no porta-potties, no vendors…no nothing. And if we left the pit we were not gonna be able to get back in as nothing but the headliners were playing on the main stage now.  People were stampeding through the police and security barricades which in turn caused the police to tear gas and pepper-spray much of the crowd which really choked me and my people up further. I think that shit may have some kind of dehydrating agent in it as well cause that shit fucked my shit up hardcore.
      By the time Wu-Tang took the stage, a few fires were started by the grass-section of the crowd.    Wu opened up strong with RZA having great hosting skills and stage presence. There was a big flag-box  that said ODB RIP on it and the Wu went on to talk about how at 2004’s San Bernardino rock the bells, ODB joined the whole Wu for the last time so this city was important to them (Wu even has a ‘Live in San Bernardino’ album, I’ve seen it at best buy). They opened with ‘Wu-Tang Clan ain’t nuthin ta fuck wit’  and a few other classics. ODB’s audio was always played and they all rapped along with it. They did ‘da mystery of chessboxin’ and other essentials but when they started busting out later shit with Cappadonna the crowd became less interested and Meth was kinda pissed.
    My thought is this, the main members WITHOUT any non-main members is pushing TEN dudes. And what did they do? They were the one group disrespectful enough to bring out like 20 people with mics (not to mention the approximately 50 other dudes they had on stage with them that didn’t have mics) so all we hear is a bunch of jumbled vocal over Djed beats. The DJed beats really pissed me off too, you’re telling me more of these groups couldn’t have live musicians? Public Enemy had live musicians, Cypress Hill had live musicians, The Roots and RATM are live musicians etc. Not saying I don’t like DJs, I think live musicians should have DJs scratching and shit like that too but the Djed beats get old to me. Anyway, I don’t know why wu-tang was expecting us to know all the lyrics to some obscure cappadonna song from 2002 or their new shit. Meth told us in the middle of the set they need more energy from us and shit but frankly at this point I needed water and a restroom desperately. They kept throwing water bottles into the pit to like the same 3 dudes. It was whack. They did an O.D.B. tribute and played “shimmy shimmy ya” while we all sang along. They had one of ODB’s kids rap along to Brooklyn Zoo. Meth did ‘METHOD MAN’ from 36 chambers, jumped in the crowd, crowd surfed, gave all kinds of people right in the front dap and shit so it got cool again and they did more popular songs like ‘ice cream’ and ‘bring the pain’ and shit. Near the end of the set the guitarist from System of a Down played with them and that was dope. Can’t even remember what they closed with I was so delirious and fluid deprived.
             Around the time Wu came on, the tear gas/pepper spray concentration was so bad on the left side of the pit that there was a mass exodus towards the center. After the shift of position I was surrounded by completely different people than before. I was looking around in bored anticipation of RATM and noticed two Asian dudes with white badges on their shirts that said “Press:DUBCNN”. I said to them, “hey are you guys on the dubcc forum community?” and that’s how I met We Fly High right before Rage started. I asked him if he wanted to smoke, he was down and my friends were already friend out of their gourds from Cypress’ set so noone tripped when I took one of the many communal Js we had at the show. I chopped it up with Justin for a minute and then RATM took the stage and opened with “Guerilla Radio”. The whole mood of the crowd immediately shifted immensely more intensely than before and people commenced to slam dance, mosh, start fires, stampede through police barricades and all hell broke loose. We were caught up in what felt like a sea-storm of people when Justin said “We gotta get the fuck outa here!” I initially agreed because I had my little brother with me (he’s 16) and he’d never been in such a pit at a show before but within a minute of the song my brother was bouncing with the rest of the crowd. I thought about how I was in my home city (grew up in, used to live in, still go to school and work in San Bernardino) and felt that this madness I was in the midst of was something that really was not foreign to me when I was honest with myself and decided to stay in the pit despite my immense physical discomfort. In the madness I saw Justin and gave him dap before he bounced out to the press-pit. Presumably to get better pictures I suppose. Rage proceeded to play all their best songs and even covered “hand on the pump’ by cypress hill (cypress actually did play the song earlier too). They did “sleep now in the fire”, “down rodeo”, ‘calm like a bomb’, ‘bombtrack’ , “people of the sun” and many others. They changed lyrics to take shots at President Bush  “some of those who burn crosses/are some of those that hold office” and just basically rocked the fuck out causing everyone in the audience to wild the fuck out. Including me , my little bro and all the homies. They did an encore of “Bulls on parade”, “killing in the name of “ and another song in between those two whose name escapes me. But anyway,after the first encore song I told my group of people that I wanted to leave then so we could beat the crowd and we could just listen to the songs as we left. They agreed and as we were leaving we came across the heavily pepper sprayed/tear gased area that we left earlier and now not only was it less spray heavy but it was clear of people. We decided to stay and watch the show from there as it was clear of people. Killing in the name of was an amazing finish as everyone in the crowd ferociously jumped about screaming “Fuck you! I won’t do what you tell me!” After the show it was all about getting water a restroom and home but while the show was physically taxing it was worth it. I’ve mainly gone to rock shows in my concert going experiences (cause I prefer live instruments)  but in one day I was able to make the list of how many dope rock acts I’ve seen and how many dope rap acts I’ve seen live just about even.

     I just wish more cats from the Dub woulda been there. We really gotta do a convention or some shit.
      That said, shouts for my 6000th Post

Nima, We Fly High, Jay, Seer and all the Dubcnn/Dubcc staff.
Raiders
D Nice
Lunatic
Sikotic
Sparegeez
Tommy Fits
Al Bundy
Blu Lacez
Crip hop
Sanford
Rik
Nik
Elevz
Timbo the King
Z
Doggystylin
Eazye
NWA whoorider
QuietTruth
STILLDRE
Diggfinger
XL Middleton
Rud
AlerG
Slick D
Almost grounded
Xander
Es-Jay, Trentman, and everyone else that maintains the Dre collection
GREAT ELEPHANT WANTS MC REN INTERVIEW
Tempo2
HighEyeCue and all real DPG fans
Swangin and Bangin
GangstaBoogy
West Coast
Trauma
California’s where I’m at right
Jrome
Floatin above (wait is this Lunatic? Or what was this persons regular sn?)
West Coast veteran
Snoopaveli
Snopafly
We died, they remixed
Infinite Allah/Harry Browne now?
LOUDsilence
Evan the dude
Tonyfett
DJR
4108
3331
Tha Crip
Shaka Zulu
Bigboy8-5
Adrianodogg
Jome
Bones01
Toshdawg
Digital Pimpin’
Hatesrats
FOLLOW ME TO VICTORY
Noncentz and all the DCM
You can’t knock my hustle, homie
Kuruption81
M Dogg
EBK
Eddie
Cey Cey
Dadry7
Psycho Hustla
Bay Area Jat
Cutthoat
And all the other stoners and Bay cats
The leak
Yishay
Lord funk burgundy
Don Jacob
Low key
Prominent
Oklin
Lamont
Shallow
Beatz
I’maputyouinthekuficategory
Rebel
So much style
Episcop and all the crooked fans
IG
Inmate
Shawn Nutt
So Glorious
Jesus stoned wheat
Da crips
Big Red
Hercy Buggz
Jscrilla
KDUB
Jordan
Gav009
Virtuoso
Don Rizzle
NicC
EJ Rizo
Lakers Fan
Paul
Hydro520
Larrabee
Relentless
Boo-yaa
Vance
T dub
Lyrical G
Bitch dat ain’t my baby
Mauzip
Robert de negro

I wonder how many people I just shouted multiple times due to aliases.

Yo K.DUB is that big white guy right? The one who’s really into 2pac that people were saying looks like the Timmy kid? That guy’s awesome. I’m just asking cause I wanna make sure that’s K.DUB cause if it’s not then I’d like to shout out that big white guy that likes 2pac that people say looks like the Timmy kid.

Peace and oh, it’s my birthday this Friday. So it’s a celebration mothafuckaz. Let the props back and forth commence.
-T

[Lunatic]

damn, thanks for all the info Tanj

sounds like u had a blast with clinton and them...god dammit sounds like clinton is on some other shit

rock the bells sounded cool as well

props 4 the shoutout

[.:Hercy Buggz:.]

Props to you man!!!   but damn Georges Clinton looks fucked!

[$Eg2$]

Dope +1
Rock the bells was off the chain 4 real

[Now_Im_Not_Banned]

Just got your voicemail and came straight here to check this...you're the funniest guy ever. Haven't read the whole post yet, but major props, man...PeACe

[d-nice]

That is the homie T right chea. Man I enjoy chopping game with you about music man. Dope ass post, It looks like a celebration to me. George looks even more fucked up then usual. 

+1 homie

It's a celebration bitches!!!!!! 

[rik]

Thanks for the shout out. You's a cool guy fa real. Even thought I act like an asshole at times, I got much love and respect for ya.

[Fuck Your Existence]

dope ass shit T...kickin it with those cats had to be a highlight,i know it would be for me. Rock the Bells sounded dope as well,im pissed that i skipped that shit. Props on the post,6g's and the shoutout.

[Fatdodger]

Damn Thats fucken tight you didnt shout me out but shit its ok

[Tanjential]

Thanks for the shout out. You's a cool guy fa real. Even thought I act like an asshole at times, I got much love and respect for ya.

we all do man, it's all delicious delicious gravy.

props to all in thread.

-T

[Tanjential]

Damn Thats fucken tight you didnt shout me out but shit its ok

you're relatively new which is why your sn didn't occur to me when i was listing cats, but it's all good. props

-T

[Tanjential]

Just got your voicemail and came straight here to check this...you're the funniest guy ever. Haven't read the whole post yet, but major props, man...PeACe

Ha, thanks man. I'm thinkin' about chillin' sunday. anything poppin'off in LA then?

-T

[The King]

Dude your the luckiest rap fan on the planet!! Getting to meet those dudes is awesome. Make it 12,000 posts

[Blu Lacez]

Whoa!!!!

Thanks for the shout out. You's a cool guy fa real, I got much love and respect for ya.

Damn, Wish I Was Out In LA, wulda love to hang out with Clinton,Kokane & Quaze..probably get Some funk tips, for ma music..
Props Tanjit,You Are  A Tru!!

[QuietTruth]

LOL, you are the best nigga. Best. Propz for being able to post yo' pics. And propz to just being a fuckin' great nigga. Congratulations on all them posts, congratulations on posting yo pics, and Happy Birthday and KEEP postin'! Homie, you're crazy. The board needs your knowledge and personality. Stay pimpin', pimpin'.