the homeys Islands came through to good ol’ Durham, NC and being the Briefcase Rocker that i am/friends of the fam …. i got to fill the shoes of the various rappers (including myself in the past) that have got to grace the stage for a rendition of Where There’s A Will There’s A Whalebone, the album version of which features Subtitle and Busdriver.

i tried to mimic Subtitle’s way of handling this guest spot (after watching many youtube versions of him doing it) by remaining sort of “in the cut” and not letting anyone know it was going to go down, and then just popping up at the last minute right before it’s time for me to rip.

i went to a side mic so that Nick could still have the main one for when he comes back in, but for some reason it was dead. turns out neither the in-house nor the touring sound man had any idea what was going on, and cut the mic as soon as i went for it, thinking i was a party crasher. i end up on the main mic and proceed to get tackled by the local sound guy, who attempts to drag me off the stage while i am just beginning to spit, causing me to space on my pre-prepared lyrics and launch into a freestyle, never missing a beat even as i am trying to shrug the guy off. i guess he realized the band was cool with what was happening and he lets it ride, and he gets quickly dissed in my free, which ends up being rather aggressive as well as laudatory to Islands, who were definitely killing their set. turns out the freestyle went over great, better than my written lyrics could have (just a random verse from a Huevos classic) and after watching as many versions of the song as i could earlier that day, i was able to get the timing down perfect and everyone went nuts. it was rad. i received many pats on the back as well as apologies from both sound men, though of course the fact that they tried to shut me down made the appearance way more crev and exciting for the audience, so i’m stoked that it went down like that.