Your Place or Mine: The Complicated Affair of SXSW & Austin Hip-Hop

March in Austin, TX is a magical time. It’s the beginning of Spring, the best time to visit the CapitalCity. Rodeo Austin, the ABC Kite Festival, and the famous Texas Relays all attract people from acrossthe state, but only one spring event brings the rest of the world to our city, South by Southwest (SXSW)!The festival brings in more than 200,000 visitors and generates upwards of $300 million for the city everyyear — except, notably perhaps, last year, when it dropped to a mere $280 million. Each year, close 5,000 orapply and less than a third are accepted, but that’s still nearly 2,000 performers and artists compressed into10 days, including non-official SXSW gigs. These numbers provide a glimpse of SXSW’s influence, but howadvantageous is it for the artists and musicians based in the “live music capital of the world?” What if, inaddition to that, you perform in a genre that took a minute for the fest to embrace? As a long time Austinbased Hip-Hop artist this question gives me pause. And the answer, as with any long term relationship, iscomplicated.

Austin’s Hip-Hop scene has grown up with SXSW. The early to mid-1990s brought the first wave of Hip-Hop acts to SXSW, just a few years before I got involved in the Austin Hip-Hop scene in the late ’90s, while I was in high school. First, I be-came an on-air personality at KAZI 88.7, a community radio station. Soon after, I became a hype man for Austin-based rapper Nook, and through my time with him I became completely immersed in local music. In my early years, SXSW seemed like a dream opportunity, a goal to work towards.

While I was always involved in multiple unofficial shows (each year, promoters and event planners would have their own shows or showcases piggybacking off the festival), it wasn’t until 2006 that I became an official performer along with my former group Gutta Gang, off the success of our hit single “Game Time.” Since then, I’ve performed at SXSW seven more times, and I’ve seen it morph into the massive spectacle it is today. That’s my history, other local hip hop artist shave their own, and I reached out to three of the most prominent.

First I spoke to Bavu Blakes, the scholar MC whose Hip-Hop roots here go back to the mid ’90s, where he played a pivotal role in proving Austin not only had dope talent, but also could draw a crowd. Tee Double, Mirage512, DJ Massive, and so many others, birthed the ongoing weekly concert series Hip-Hop Humpday, which showcased local acts every Wednesday night live on 6th Street throughout the late ’90s and early ’00s. On April 23, 2015 Bavu was also honored with his own day by Austin Mayor Steve Adler, cementing his legacy in the city.

Next I sat down with Dominican Jay, the hustler MC from Austin’s south side. Dominican Jay started performing in the early ’00s, and was a primary member of the super group LOEGz (League of Extraordinary Gz), arguably one of the most impactful Hip-Hop groups to ever come out of Austin. As a member of the LOEGz Dominican Jay collaborated with nationally known acts such as Rittz, and toured with Jackie Chain and Dead Prez back to back in 2011. In the most recent years Dominican Jay has evolved his career into marketing, and is one of the few rappers to actually have influence onthe SXSW board, as he has helped program Hip-Hop showcases for the festival.

Finally I sat down with The Teeta, the versatile MC. While still young in age, Teeta has been on the scene since the late’00s, when he was a member of Team Next. Since branching out into his solo career, he’s seen his stock rise with feature articles first in The Austin Chronicle, NPR, and more. In 2021, Teeta expanded into the art world by simultaneously releasing his album “24” with an exhibit titled “The Teeta World.” Teeta first participated in SXSW in 2016 as an official performer.

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When was the first time you performed at SXSW as an official artist? Who did you open up for, and how many times have you performed there all together?

‍BAVU BLAKES 1996 was the first year I performed as an official artist. At the time I was part of a group called Reelaktz, and we performed at Emo’s when it was still on Red River and 6th.It was a Hip-Hop showcase that had Company Flow from Rawkus Records as the headliner.Disgruntled Seeds also performed that night as a main act. Jamon Horn spear-headed us getting on the showcase. Tee Double initially brought us the applications to sign up and perform. Not a lot of Hip-Hop at SXSW during that time. I remember there being more in the late ‘90s, and it’sonly increased since then. I’d have to say I’ve performed at SXSW on and off from 1996–2022. I may have missed a year or two, or three, in there, but I’ve performed at least 23–25 times since‘96.

DOMINICAN JAY I believe the very first year as an official SXSW performer had to be in 2007w/ my squad Da C.O.D. The headliners for our showcase were UGK, Chamillionaire, and Play NSkills. We also brought out Killa Kyleon during our set to rock a track we had with him. Man, I’ve performed at SXSW probably too many times to count. A lot of years we’d have official SXSW shows as solo artists, then as the group (LOEGz) & the label. One year we did a total of 17 shows during the festival. I didn’t want to talk for a week after that lol.

TEETA It’s been a while but I believe 2016 if I’m not mistaken. Before then I had been doing unofficial showcases since 2010. I believe Maxo Kream and a whole lot of bigger underground artists, but it’s been a while. I’ve performed between like 5–7 times.

As an Austin based artist how important has SXSW been to your career?

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‍BAVU BLAKES Performing there opened up a lot of doors for me. I was able to meet all sorts of new people and contacts. This led to me being able to book more shows and events. From97–08 I was performing all across Texas and in the Southwest.

DOMINICAN JAY It’s played a principal avenue for not only performing, but has been a great time to network with strangers & introduce the unknown to what we bring, but also a great way we built relationships with major artist and label individuals where it prompted us going on tour with them or collaborating on other business ventures. I received a clothing sponsorship deal where they ended up funding a good portion of the tour I did with Starlito as well as meeting and connecting with SiriusXM and the Shade45 team, who I’m in business with today.

TEETA SXSW is a fun time, and I’ve networked with some important people, but maybe only one of them was life changing. I like to put in work year round, so SXSW is just a good time to have everyone in the vicinity get free food, drinks, and stuff. Kind of like a week-long camp where you meet cool people from everywhere. It’s been fun for me honestly, I can’t really say it’s enhanced my professional career, especially in the last few years because it’s been more of a corporate powered event. Back in the blog era you could really blow up off it because people were coming for discovery. Now it’s more so people coming to see headliners and enjoy themselves like any other festival.

In your opinion, how important is SXSW to the overall Austin Hip-Hop scene, and does SXSW being held in Austin every year help or hurt the local Hip-Hop scene?

‍BAVU BLAKES Generally I don’t focus on negatives, but I like to look at what’s possible in a situation. Being a long time independent artist, this is a thought process I’ve developed that helps me, so I can’t say it’s hurt the local scene. For an Austin based artist, the whole world is coming to your city, so you have the opportunity to tailor your goals to all kinds of opportunities and people that are in your backyard. If you’re not tailoring your goals, you’re doing yourself a disservice. It’s became more high profile, so from a purely independent artist perspective it created opportunities to mix it up with bigger artists. In particular, it allowed me to network with fans and new people. So this created more access to a larger fan base. I think it boomed really hard in 2005 though. Since then it has become corporatized.

DOMINICAN JAY I think the fact that it’s a lot easier for artists to promote full fledged, and having the advantage at just about everything arriving to your backyard makes it an important entity to utilize regardless if you’re selected to perform at SXSW or not.While most have to fly in to start promoting, living here can help align your own events, put up promotional content all around the hot spots in the city as well as building with folks you know are in town for SXSW that can turn into later collaborative events in the city. I think it helps if you strategically utilize it to its full potential.Main thing I see that hurts is how it handicaps a lot of artists to sit around all year waiting for just this one festival, out of the thousands of others that come around. Also, the entitlement from artists who assume because it is being held in their hometown that this extremely large music festival should automatically pick them to perform is unrealistic. But again there are someadvantages to it being in your hometown, if you execute the right plans.

TEETA I think it brings a lot of money to the community as a whole if you get hustled and get plays lined up, but I don’t think in this era the festival as a whole is formatted to highlight local music, so it’s as important as you make it. I don’t exactly see how it would hurt us, overall it opens the door to thousands of people that a lot of artists wouldn’t touch throughout the year, but it’s just one event.

‍What’s the biggest change you’ve seen with local representation in your time performing at SXSW? If you could change one thing about SXSW what would it be?

BAVU BLAKES It was supposed to be about the little man, and over time the little man got overshadowed. I still think there is a huge opportunity in participating, but it is easier to get overshadowed. Once again though, I prefer to find the positives, or learning opportunities in situations. So the big takeaway from the attention the smaller artist gets, OR do artists just need to get more creative about how they interact with the fans that are available during that time? It’s very hard for me to see it as an overall negative personally, since I remember a time when zero opportunities were coming to Austin.

DOMINICAN JAY I’ve seen a lot less headliners & Major DJs showing up mainly because after the pandemic they’re touring around that time leaving SXSW to use the same headliners form multiple shows for the week. Also, again, less venues in ATX exist so some SXSW showcases were forced to perform in smaller bars with rented stages instead of the larger music venues Austin once had.

If it was up to me to change anything about SXSW it would be to extend the music week like ACL does giving folks more than just one week to work their showcases & possibly more venue availability as well. Right now SXSW struggles with securing venues willing to partner with the festival like before because they’d rather charge more to out of town promoters leaving a slimmer opportunity for SXSW to grow & add more local talent to the festival.

TEETA: I feel local artists are represented as if they can be seen out there representing themselves and also being recognized if you’re familiar, but not much beyond that. I don’t think it’s a festival centered around representing local artists. I’d take it back to the roots where it was more about discovering new talent.

In Reflection

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I remember applying to perform at SXSW multiple times and not being chosen every year. In the beginning it didn’t bother me, and I found myself performing at a slew of different unofficial showcases. Quickly I learned that many of these events were mere cash grabs, as the promoters would charge acts to perform. SoI’d find myself in venues, usually far from Downtown, filled with artists waiting to perform.

Typically these shows were disappointing, but I learned to perform with everything I had no matter who, or how many were in the crowd. This became the best lesson I ever learned in my music career, and has helped take me far. I honed my skills as a performer at these types of events. In my mind, if I could make fifteen people enjoy my show in an empty venue, imagine what I could do with a packed crowd.

In May of 2005, I released a song called “Game Time”, which quickly took off and became a hit within the city, and in time became a regional hit across the state. By February 2006, my group and I had opened up for every single major rap show that came through Austin, and had toured all across Texas, and the gulf states. We were getting regular airplay on radio stations such as The Beat 104.3, as well as HOT 97.9 when they were both still active here. That year we were chosen to perform at SXSW, and I felt as if our shot to make it and get an offer from a major label was finally within our grasp.

We were originally slated to perform at an outdoor venue, but due to unforeseen rain, that show was canceled. Fortunately we were put onto another show, and we were able to open up for Chamillionaire. While it was an amazing feeling to perform at such a packed show, as an opening act I do remember being herded quickly off stage, and just feeling like well what’s next?Here is where I learned what SXSW was truly for and about.

Mingling, and meeting new people. Ever since that first year being an official performer, I made it my mission to simply get out there, and meet as many new people as I could. Specifically to meet people who were not from Austin. Better yet not fromTexas. SXSW became a networking marathon for me. My second and third year, I began to take advantage of the seminars and various panels being held.

I made great contacts at these events, and they became more important to me than actually performing. Over the years though I watched the festival change, and by 2012–2013, I noticed many of the underground Hip-Hop acts were relegated to showcases filled with nothing but other underground acts. No longer were they mixed in with larger acts that could pull in a crowd. So while you were on an official showcase, it was typically one without a major national act, and even worse the national act was performing at another venue the same night of your showcase.The networking became even more important in these years, if you wanted anyone of some importance to come and see you perform.2014 was my last year as an official performer at SXSW (until 2022),and I only performed two times that year. I spent the rest of the festival meeting panelists and keynote speakers (Russell Simmons founder and former CEO of Def Jam Records would be the highlight person from that year), and going to as many shows as possible.

The era of pop-up performances had begun, and most people were looking to go and see their favorite major artists’ sets, and then find the cool vendor parties to go to. The SXSW I had participated in for over ten years, had completely changed, and no longer felt like a place to be discovered, if it ever was. Now it seemed like the place to come and solidify your already growing fame and or notoriety. For many Austin based Hip-Hop acts this became a contentious point, as many felt they were being overlooked, or pushed to the side every year. Venues that these acts could perform in, week in and week out, would turn them away during the festival if they didn’t have the right badge or wristband.

I never developed the same level of resentment but I could sympathize with how many felt. I took a long break from music at this time, and didn’t participate in SXSW from 2015–2021. I avoided it as much as I could every year when it came to town. Not due to any ill feelings towards the festival, but at this point in my life music had not only taken a backseat, but had become almost non-existent.When I started doing music again in 2020, due to the pandemic,SXSW had been put on hold indefinitely. In 2022 I was chosen to be an official performer, and found myself back in the rat race after am eight ynar absence. I quickly found myself back making the rounds, and I ended up performing at six unofficial shows, as well as performing at my official showcase. I have to say that a part of me missed the hustle and bustle of performing all over town. The thrill of wowing a group of people who had never heard of you before.Having multiple people come over and ask for your social media to follow you, or to ask how to find you on streaming sites. Mostly though I missed the networking, and fell right back into it as a fish would fall back into water. I’ve grown to appreciate SXSW, and while it’s not the same festival I remember as a kid, it’s still a one of a kind experience. This year I didn’t apply to be an official performer, but Ido plan on getting out and doing some networking, and I’ve agree dto do two unofficial showcases with some venues and promotersI know personally. As always though I do plan on being out and about, loaded with all of my promotional materials.

In Conclusion

So does SXSW help, hurt, or even do anything for the local scene? Like most things in life, the answers are going to change depending on who you talk to. The one big take away that me, and the artists I interviewed all seem to agree on, is it’s up to the artist themselves to find a way to make the festival work for them. At the end of the day SXSW is a business, and just like the rest of the entertainment and hospitality industries in town, it’s up to us to find a way to make it beneficial. Whether that means you sign up to be an official performer, buy tickets and wristbands to participate in the hundreds of panels with industry professionals, or just hit the pavement armed to the teeth with promotional material, and interact with as many new people as possible. Not many cities in the country have something as huge as SXSW come to their doorstep every year. So get out there and make the best of the opportunity as you can.