BCC4LIFE!

^ Props to Village Slum on the lens...

If you remember when I first came to this site and created the annual Harbody awards most of you dudes claimed that the word hardbody was ghey. Good thing I knew better than to listen to a bunch of dudes that last saw pussy at their own childbirth.

Rock and Sean P., shit, the entire Boot Camp Clik for that matter, embodies the meaning of the word hardbody through and through. Despite all the trends that have come and gone through the Hip-Hop genre they never changed their style to fit in with the flavor of the day. Boot Camp Clik never went stadium status though and that says they certainly never went pop. Just boom bap, punch you in the mouth, elbow you in the neck, hardbody rap music.

No chaser involved, no sexy bitch or R & B disco shoes on the hook. If you see a chick rolling with the BCC it's likely she has a shank in her pocket, and these are the white bitches I'm referring to. Don't even step to the Black broads if you don't want to get chain snatched. This is just how Boot Camp Clik came into the rap game nearly twenty years ago. What were you doing twenty years ago?

I reminisced yesterday on DipSet and I always talk about my love for the Wu-Tang Clan, but what other rap collective has been on their grind since damn near 1989? Through the good times and the lean years Boot Camp Clik has maintained their solidarity and more importantly, their ability to make good fucking music. Sean Price has continued to excel since the underground classic 'Monkey Barz' dropped. Producers also get their shine from the Beatminerz to 9th Wonder and fellow Justus League member Khrysis.

The underground isn't just alive, it's economically viable for artists provided the fans show respect and support. I remember talking to Dru Ha the co-founder of the legendary Duck Down Records alongside the B.D.I. Buckshot Shorty. He said that for years the Boot Camp Clik shirked the designation of being "backpackers" because the BCC aesthetic was too grimey. But Dru Ha now fully embraces the categorization as a "dirty backpacker". As time rolls on we see that the Boot Camp Clik was the only collective with the talent and the determination to make backpacker rap the most official Hip-Hop sub-genre.

I remember my Nervous Records maxi-single for 'Who Got The Props' that I played in my Sony cassette Walkman until the tape popped. I repaired that shit with scotch tape as well as the headphones (several times). I had the super official Wilderness Experience bookbag and the crispiest 'Lo stadium series rugby jerseys. My sneaker of choice was either the Air Tech Challenge (Agassis) or the Air Trainer SC (Bo Jacksons). The only jeans you was allowed to wear back then was Girbaud, or maybe Guess.

That is where I am transported when I see Buckshot Shorty hit the stage bouncing from one corner to the other. I'm still here doing what it do. I'm thankful that the Boot Camp Clik is too.