Digging Into The SDMA’s: Interview: MC Flow and Hip-Hop Credibility
Abby Schwartz, better known as her stage moniker, MC Flow, has been at the focal point of controversy between the San Diego Music Awards and the local hip-hop community for the past few years. We spoke to MC Flow directly to address the controversy and the annual awards themselves. In this first part, MC Flow speaks on her credibility in hip-hop, which has been the main point of criticism from the hip-hop community. After you’re done, continue onto part 2 where Flow speaks on the SDMA’s.
SDRaps.com: You’re not originally from San Diego, right? You’re from Manhattan?
MC Flow: I’m from just north of Manhattan. Westchester County, which is like the suburbs of the city, about 25 minutes north of Manhattan. A city called White Plains.
SDRaps.com: But you’re from New York, which is basically the Mecca of hip-hop. How did you first get into the music?
MC Flow: From being there. From high school. When I was young I went to private Jewish day-school and I was raised in a really religious family. So it wasn’t until I got to high school that I discovered this whole other world. My high school was really diverse. Hip-hop was just part of the culture. At that time, at all of our football games and basketball games, there was Tribe Called Quest playing in the background. That’s how I first got into it: from being there and just experiencing it.
SDRaps.com: And were you already trying stuff out even back then? Rapping, break-dancing … ?
MC Flow: No. I wasn’t rapping back then but I was already writing and I was writing a lot of poetry. I would write–I was thinking about this the other day–I would write poems that were kinda like raps by request for my friends on different topics. So I guess it was kinda like the birth of my writing verse. But back then I think I would’ve just called it writing poetry.
……
SDRaps.com: How did you get into the spoken word scene down here in San Diego?
MC Flow: I just started going to open mics that were around. I started going to Claire De Lune in North Park. There was a really vibrant open mic there at that time. And a couple others. Then I ended up starting one with Taylor. She and I actually started an open mic for queer women which was called Siren. We ran that for two years. And actually the beginning of MC Flow was kinda born there. We would test out our material and do little shows there. That was kinda the birth of it. It was a little bit of a different form. We would even play with instruments and drums. We didn’t really have beats at that time. It was mostly acoustic style, rapping over guitar and djimbe and stuff like that.
We did that open mic, which was really amazing and a wonderful community of people that came together … I’m trying to think of where else. I hopped around town to a bunch of different ones and participated in a bunch of different open mics.
SDRaps.com: Were they mostly coffeehouse-like open mics?
MC Flow: Yeah.
SDRaps.com: Did you ever try going to a more traditional hip-hop open mic? I know on Sundays, there’s Bohemian Rap City at Kadan’s.
MC Flow: Yeah, that’s Miki’s event, Miki and Leo Lea. I haven’t been there yet. I’ve been wanting to go there and test out some of the newer stuff that I’ve been working out on my own. I think I will get there. But I haven’t been anywhere recently.
SDRaps.com: So you came up in a more coffeehouse type of environment. You have acceptance from that crowd as well as the indie rock crowd. But you’ve gotten a lot of backlash from a more traditional hip-hop crowd. Do you have any desire to obtain acceptance from them?
MC Flow: Actually, my start as MC Flow and doing more hip-hop stuff was in a hip-hop group and network of people. When I first started, the first shows I did were with a group called The Community. It was a San Diego hip-hop networking community. Jukebox and I were actually talking about it on your blog the other day. That’s how I met him. It was started by this guy named Madcat, who’s a rapper and was later in a group with Rinasanz (I forgot what their duo was called).
But my first shows were with people that I met through that group. What that group was–I found it on Craigslist–we would meet in Madcat’s basement. We would play our demos for each other. Then we had a little recording studio we would meet at sometimes in North Park. It was just different artists that would come through. We would meet pretty much monthly. Everyone would bring what they were working on. We would sit around, listen to each other’s stuff, give feedback. Eventually, once we had more confidence, that’s when we put on our first few shows.
So my first few real shows, aside from the stuff I did at open mics or–my friend, Lauren, who’s a rock performer, I would do some stuff with her at her shows. But my first few real shows and hip-hop sets were at Dreamstreet and–what was that place Downtown? It’s changed names so many times. It was like Static Lounge. It’s on B Street. Every year it changes names but it’s been pretty consistently hip-hop. Until last year. I think it got shut down.
So the artists that I first performed with and who I first gained “acceptance” from were all hip-hop heads. They were purely hip-hop shows and that was how we met Rob Fader. He was DJing for True Light, who’s another emcee who was part of The Community. He kinda lent us Rob Fader for a little bit. He started collaborating with us. But a lot of people don’t know that, but that’s actually where the birth of MC Flow was. It was really in a more traditional hip-hop scene.
As I started to book bigger shows, that was when I started to book myself at clubs that I knew of, which were pretty much more indie rock clubs like Casbah, Ruby Room, places where I went to see shows. And I think the backlash grew as I started, I don’t know, getting more attention or getting more …
SDRaps.com: Why did you go to more indie rock-oriented venues? Was it because there weren’t that many hip-hop venues? Did you just feel more comfortable there?
MC Flow: I think it was a mix of different things. I think it was wanting to play bigger shows in bigger clubs and get access to more people. I think it was also that I knew from the beginning that I could crossover and do all different types of things. Our act does well in a hip-hop club and does well in an indie scene. I think we kind of have that ability to go back and forth. And … I don’t know. A lot of it was also I would get tons and tons of invitations to play from different bands, from clubs. I didn’t have problems booking. I’ve never had a manager. I’ve always done it all myself. And I was lucky enough that at the time, there was enough of a buzz around it that I got lots of offers and was able to play. There were times that we were playing four or five shows a month.
SDRaps.com: You never got invitations to play from places like The Static Lounge?
MC Flow: Sometimes, yeah. Like I said, we played both. We have played both. I know there’s a feeling out there that we don’t play those clubs, but we do. We played Honey Bee Hive over by San Diego City College which was a hip-hop venue at that time. But mostly I was focused on playing with bands and acts that I wanted to play with, interacting with people and building relationships. Of course, there’s always the fact that as an artist, you play were you get offered and you get paid to play. We were really lucky that we got tapped to play at places like The Belly Up and bigger places to play as opening acts for touring national acts. Those shows were always super exciting.
SDRaps.com: Yeah, I read that you opened for The Clipse before.
MC Flow: Yup, we opened for The Clipse on St. Patrick’s Day at Belly Up. That was a fun show. We opened for Common. We opened for T.I. twice. We opened for Eve. Those were the big ones.
SDRaps.com: At the time that you joined The Community, you were already MC Flow. What’s the very beginning of MC Flow? I had read that you had moved into a house with musicians and became MC Flow just by experimenting with them.
MC Flow: Yeah, it was really that I was doing a lot of spoken word at the time. Then I moved into a house with all my friends who were all really accomplished musicians. And I have no musical training. I’m just now learning how to play guitar. But at that time, I knew how to play no instruments. So I started messing around with them and trying to put some of the stuff I had written to music. And eventually to beats. And that’s how it all started.
SDRaps.com: Why’d you choose the name “MC Flow?”
MC Flow: Mostly to be funny and sarcastic as a female emcee named “MC Flow.” I just thought it was a funny double entendre. It’s obviously “flow” as in lyrical flow. But it’s also … other types of flow that I think to me, it was funny. [laughs]
SDRaps.com: Should I ask about the other meaning? I just got the “flowing lyrically” part.
MC Flow: Yeah but … other ways that women flow. [laughs] It’s funny and it’s feminist. To me, it’s funny.
SDRaps.com: On one of your songs, you mention Digital Underground and Tribe and Mary J. and Grand Puba. Were any of them big influences on you writing?
MC Flow: Those were just artists that I listened to in high school. That song was predominantly about high school at that time and the artists I was listening to when I was falling in love with hip-hop. All those artists are people that bring me back to that time in my life. Black Sheep. Nice & Smooth. Those were just artists we were listening to at the time.
……
SDRaps.com: You talked about hitting walls as a San Diego artist. Do you feel like you face extra walls with: 1. being female; and 2. being homosexual?
MC Flow: I don’t know. It’s always hard to tell what exactly the barriers are. I think being me and being kinda different and weird has worked against me in some cases and in some cases it’s worked for me. In some ways, it’s good to be different because it makes you stand out as opposed to fade in.
But yeah, being a female artist, in general, is hard in any genre of music. There are challenges that go along with that. The gay thing? I don’t know. I’m sure there are some people that don’t wanna know what I have to say because I’m gay. But whatever, fine. I know that I’m not for everyone and that’s totally fine with me. I think that’s something that most artists get forced to come to that conclusion. There is no way that you’re gonna please everyone and be a band or an artist that everyone’s gonna love.
But of course, there’s always issues with being different, with having a different message. There’s certain people that don’t wanna hear some of the messages that I choose to spread. But it’s not about them so …
SDRaps.com: Do you think some of the backlash you’ve received from the more traditional hip-hop community is because of your homosexuality?
MC Flow: I don’t know. I’ve never had anybody say it straight to my face. I’m not sure, it’s quite possible.
Well, that’s not true. I remember having a few interactions with a few people in the hip-hop Community group. I remember one guy saying to me, “Well, you do know you’re going to go to Hell, right?” I’m like, “No, actually. No.” But I think being gay in the world, you’re gonna run into that no matter what, whether you’re an artist or not. I think also I have this huge army of wonderful fans and community members who have rallied behind me. So it works on the love side as well as it does on the hateful side.
But the day after the San Diego Music Awards nominations came out–this year–the “Created Equal” video the next morning was flooded with people trolling on there, y’know, “Faggot!” [or] “You should die in a fire!” I don’t have any proof that the two are related. But I think it’s kinda interesting timing that that hadn’t really been going down. And then the morning after they were announced, all of a sudden it was posted on some different conservative sites and the people from those sites were trolling it, just really hateful stuff.
So it’s possible that there’s a correlation but …
SDRaps.com: It’s not like you go to hip-hop–
MC Flow: Shows and people yell “Faggot” and throw things at me? No. That thankfully has not happened. I have had men come up to me after performing at hip-hop shows and ask me who writes my lyrics. And I’ve been very pleased to tell them I write all my lyrics. I think there were quite a few that assumed that we did not do what we do on our own. But I think that’s something that many female artists encounter no matter the genre.
Continue onto part 2, in which Flow speaks on the San Diego Music Awards themselves and her thoughts on its possible biases.
Reading be fun though:
