On Wednesday nights the Red Dog in Wicker Park usually jumps with hip-hoppers and thumps with the 70s soul and the 80s-90s rap music that nurtures hip hop culture. But there’s something extra happening this particular Wednesday night. The usual poverty-friendly $3 cover has been upped to $5, and the bouncers are wearing serious “this is a goin’-on party and maybe I’ll think about lettin’ you in” attitudes. Inside, a tangible air of expectation floats amid the booming bass lines.
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Barry White’s “Your Game Baby” is slinking out of the speakers as Duro (he pronounces it Da-ROE) slowly edges his way through the crowd. He clasps hands with Sean Haley, publisher of a new hip hop zine, Scribble, due out in December. He accepts a hug from Kendall Lloyd, owner of Literary Explosions, the black bookstore that serves as one of the cornerstones of the Wicker Park scene. He greets hip hop promoter Mary Datcher, who brings a couple of new east coast rappers, the Troubleneck Brothers, over to meet him.
Meanwhile the dance floor is starting to fill and a tall bald girl strapped into a tiny backpack is gliding back and forth with the music. Two baby-faced dudes in baggy jeans and backward-turned hats rock their heads together.
Wicker Park didn’t have much of a hip hop scene when Duro, a photography student at Columbia College, moved here from Chatham in 1988. He started the Sunday Night Open Mic Hip Hop Show at the Lizard Lounge in ’91, a $1 all-ages show that attracted hip-hoppers from all over the city. Big Lip Productions, his promotion company, threw similar parties at the Rainbo Club, Estelle’s, the Czar Bar, and HotHouse. They provided rare opportunities for kids to gather, check out the local talent, and listen to undiluted rap music unharassed and unpressured.
Around the same time, Literary Explosions and Triple XXX, a hip hop clothing store, opened at the corner of North and Milwaukee, supplying an informal center for the hip hop crowd to meet and exchange ideas. Last summer it was common to see groups of hip-hoppers “freestyling” in front of Triple XXX, feverishly trying to outdo each other with improvised raps. In Literary Explosions, people would hang out discussing everything from the latest Common Sense album to black economic empowerment.
“Wicker Park serves as a downtown for hip hop,” he says. “It bridges the north, south, and west sides. A lot of kids meet up here.
Duro’s own four-member group is working on a demo. Judging from the two tracks they have completed, they’re doing a kind of sci-fi kung-fu cyber rap that reflects Duro’s interest in Star Trek and John Woo movies. Over the slow, drowsy beat of “Doom” he raps: “I’m deep space nine / I keep and erase rhymes / in my mindfield / my rhymes kill like cyclons / let me use Krylon / to write your eulogy.”
