Digging Into The SDMA’s: Interview: MC Flow and The SDMA’s
We conclude our chat with MC Flow. Flow’s fiance, Kelly Dorsey, was also present to assist during the interview. Here, Flow directly addresses the San Diego Music Awards, the SDMA nomination process, and her views on its biases. If you missed it, check out part 1 where Flow speaks on her background in hip-hop.
SDRaps.com: In 2007 when you were first nominated for a San Diego Music Award, there was a story in the San Diego Reader. Another local rapper, Ricasshay, his main gripe with you was that you hadn’t paid your dues in the hip-hop community. What’s your response to that?
MC Flow: Again, I think a lot of people don’t know that I actually really did have my birth as an artist in a community of real hip-hop heads. I think a lot of that comes from misconception.
But I don’t know how I feel about the concept of “paying dues.” Who decides what the dues are and who pays them, how it all works? If somebody’s passionate and good at what they do, how many years do they have to do it before they’re technically allowed to have success? I’m kinda mixed about that concept. I think a lot of that comes from misconception that I never play hip-hop shows and never did, which isn’t true. But I’m open to dialogue on it.
SDRaps.com: How long were you doing shows with The Community?
MC Flow: As long as it lasted. Unfortunately, it kinda went under. Probably about a year, a year and a half.
SDRaps.com: And this was back in …
MC Flow: When we first started, ’05. Like ’05-’06. You could ask Jukebox too. I can look at some of the old posters because I kept some of the old posters and flyers from some of those first shows.
SDRaps.com: But it’s not like you first started rapping when you hooked up with The Community. You were already writing your raps prior to that.
MC Flow: Yeah about a year prior.
SDRaps.com: That’s when you jumped from spoken word to rapping, like ’04?
MC Flow: Yeah.
SDRaps.com: Do you think there’s some backlash because you came up in more of a coffeehouse setting as opposed to rapping in some dude’s basement for five years?
MC Flow: I don’t know. I think people just love to talk shit and there’s backlash. I don’t know … Yeah I guess Ricasshay didn’t think I had paid my dues in the way that he classified dues to be paid.
SDRaps.com: Let me move into the SDMA’s. We’ve already touched on it. You’ve said that “The SDMA’s will continue to reflect artists who play and crossover into the rock genre.” You’re obviously one of those artists. Was that a conscious decision to crossover?
MC Flow: I don’t know. I guess so, yeah. I just think that good music should crossover. I don’t think that there needs to be such strict boundaries about who plays with who and shows being all hip-hop or all indie rock. I think good music and good community should be mixed, should be diverse, should be inclusive. So I guess, yeah. If that means it being a conscious choice, yeah.
But the reason I said that was not necessarily because of the artists themselves but because of who makes up the committee that decides who gets nominated for SDMA’s. Which, if you look at the list, it’s people from the indie rock radio stations. People from the publications that cover mostly indie rock. And people from the venues that are indie rock venues. If those are the people deciding, they are gonna nominate who and what they know. So the hip-hop artists, the only hip-hop artists that they seem to be aware of are those that do crossover into their territory or their zone. That’s why I think the main thing that should change is the representation on the actual committee who creates the nominations. The committee itself needs to be reflective of the hip-hop community. Whether that’s somebody from–it should be more than one person, obviously. Whether that’s someone from rap radio stations, somebody from one of the bigger clubs that’s booking hip-hop regularly, somebody like yourself who’s like a community activist and/or blogger who really has his finger on the pulse. Until the committee is reflective of people who know what’s happening within the hip-hop community, then of course it’s gonna reflect what the committee knows.
The people that I’ve been nominated with, of course, some have been straight-up hip-hop artists. I’m not saying that everyone that’s nominated this year is a crossover artist. But Vokab Kompany, the shows I’ve played with them have been in PB. Deep Rooted, obviously, they’re a straight-up hip-hop act but DJ Artistic is very networked into the indie club scene. He does nights at U-31 and elsewhere. He is very much part of the music scene in general through working at Guitar Center and other stuff that he’s done. Addiquit. Addiquit herself will say she doesn’t really consider herself a hip-hop artist. But she raps in her songs so she’s nominated for “Best Hip-Hop.” But all the shows we’ve played together have been at Beauty Bar, Casbah. The show I played with Deep Rooted was at Casbah.
That’s what I’m saying. These people are pulling what they know. Whether you can fault them for that or not is another question. It seems like by now there’s enough noise about this that you’d think maybe there would be a little bit more enlightenment to the issue. And it seems to be the same people nominated every year. Things aren’t really changing.
But in some ways, you can’t really fault them. They’re really passionate about what they do. They’re great at what they do. But they operate within a certain community and a certain understanding of the music scene that’s different than what, like, you experience.
SDRaps.com: You’ve been through the SDMA process three times over now–
MC Flow: Four times because the first year, we didn’t win. First year, we were nominated but we didn’t win. We were totally shocked. We were just starting out. We were nominated, we went, and we lost. And then we went on our streak of winning.
But the SDMA’s are a funny thing. Even the award itself. They give you a physical award. It doesn’t even have your name on it. It’s just this piece of wood and metal that they ordered a whole bunch of them. Isn’t that what Seth said?
Kelly: It’s really lame. They look like they’re from the 1980s.
MC Flow: They ordered like a whole ton of them and they ended up with so many that they’re still giving them away. But they don’t even put your name on it.
SDRaps.com: It’s not personalized at all? It doesn’t even say the category?
MC Flow: No! It doesn’t even say anything on it. I could show it to you. We have one here. Everyone in the band has one. It’s funny. It doesn’t say anything about you on it.
SDRaps.com: Is it the same physical award every year?
MC Flow: Yeah! Yes. I have one here in our workout room, I think. It’s on the shelf in there. But Rob has one. Taylor has one. I don’t think GG has one.
SDRaps.com: How do you go about getting nominated? I’ve heard conflicting reports about a submission process or an application process.
MC Flow: No! No. You don’t do anything. I’ve never done anything. You just get nominated.
[Kelly returns with SDMA award]
Kelly: There’s nothing on it that says it’s an SDMA. Would you know that’s an SDMA? Nothing. You could’ve got that at a high school talent competition.
SDRaps.com: Seriously?
MC Flow: Seriously. That’s an SDMA.
Kelly: Every year, that’s the same one they give out. Every year. Same thing. [laughs]
MC Flow: That’s another misconception from what you’re saying. There’s no vetting process. It’s not like you nominate yourself to be nominated. It’s this committee of experts who use whatever process they have–I don’t know what they’re exact process is–and they pick the nominees. The first year we found out because they announced it on [FM] 94/9 which was I think how we heard about it.
SDRaps.com: They didn’t tell you before?
MC Flow: No, no, no.
Kelly: This last time, I looked it up on the Internet. I got a Facebook message–
MC Flow: This last one you found out about it and told me. A couple days later I get an email saying, “Congratulations! You’ve been nominated. Please send us a photo.” So that’s pretty much the process. It’s not very fancy.
SDRaps.com: You’ve won for the past three years now. Has that opened any more doors or opportunities for you?
MC Flow: That’s a good question … I think, of course, that’s a nice thing to put on your resume or bio. But no, I don’t think it’s made that big of an impact. I think playing shows, opening for bigger people, that makes more of an impact and is a better resume check. But I guess … locally, it helps because I think the bookers, people at different venues, they keep up on who’s nominated. So I’m sure it helps in that regard and helps in getting your name out there. But I haven’t seen any huge change.
Reading be fun though:
