So there’s a lot of talk about the scene and what it is or means to be Hip Hop. Personally, and I’m sure many would agree, Hip Hop is a lifestyle and from that lifestyle we, (some of us) get to be able to translate that life into music. For other it’s poetry, graffiti, and even painting. I think that we get so caught up on being labeled that we forget the essence of it all is the actual lives the music comes from. And since I believe that, to know Hip Hop, there has to be some desire to learn its history and from that create its future.
So I’ve decided to at least be the educator on the inhabitants of this scene in Hawaii. Big ups to all of the local artists… support local art (…whatever it takes the form of). Peace. The first look into the Hip Hop scene HI calls home, is my homie Rhyme the Old. Of all the cats I’ve had the honor to know, this brother has the knowledge and the character to carry him.
Rhyme the Old Man…born Raymonte’ Leviticus Britt, in Brooklyn New York, waayyy back in 19?? (got to have some mystery), I was pretty much raised during the early stages of Hip Hop. I cut my teeth during those days but got really focused during the “golden age” of the culture during the 90-95 time-frame, the era of boom-bap. I had an older cousin who was considered the “Q” (like the character from the movie Juice) of East New York and I was his roadie. Since 1984, every block/basement party in the projects of Brooklyn, from 585 Blake Ave to 832 Ocean Ave over in Flatbush, you would find T-Rock and his little cousin “The Great Rockwell”. He would later change my name to Rhyme, which used to be spelled “Ryme” (RaYMontE). He said that “The Great Rockwell” carried a sound of expertise to it that was most definitely beyond my level of then wackness, and that there was room for only one person with the moniker “Rock” in their stage name, besides who was I to argue, as he put it “Ryme” was already built into the name my parents gave me, and here I am today.
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