Ampon: Rebels with a noble cause

They’re a group of diverse individuals unified by two things: The love for hip-hop in all its forms and the passion to perform for a noble cause. Having established themselves in the underground hip-hop scene, they call themselves AMPON (Amplified Messages Personified Over Noise).

Ampon is a nonprofit organization comprised of emcees, rappers, graffiti artists, producers and beat-boxers. It is an umbrella organization that houses a lot of promising underground hip-hop artists, solo and group performers alike. They intend to hook up every performance they mount with beneficiaries. As you probably know, there is nothing easy about this undertaking. But their consummate passion for good hip-hop music was enough to give birth to Ampon.

Founded by Bong (aka "B-Roc") and Vic (aka "Chyro the Wrath,") Ampon was formed late last year to bring together the country’s most talented underground artists. They bond through progressive music, challenging the stereotype form of hip-hop that seems to be dominating the soundwaves these days. As Arvin (aka "Caliph8") explains, hip-hop music today seems to be misrepresented. He says that the hip-hop that we know today only represents a part of hip-hop’s entirety and it’s so disappointing for people to claim they know hip-hop so well when they just know one aspect of it. Hip-hop’s certainly got a talent pool huge enough to make its presence known. Let me introduce you to some of them.

Describing himself as an ever-creative old schooler, Caliph8 is a 26-year-old graffiti artist/rapper who also makes beats. Doing his thing since 1995, he started with a now defunct group called Downearf, whom he still hooks up with from time to time. Today, he’s one of Ampon’s most commissioned graffiti artists, having done work for the French Embassy and Alliance Francaise. He says his graffiti works are usually related to gadgets, music and other simple things. But he adds that he’s also inspired by everyday life and struggles, along with art, audio or visual. Although he believes that Ampon is trying to "crush the perplexities of hip-hop and really let its whole essence shine," he nevertheless wants to remain in the underground music industry. This is to be able to separate themselves from non-believers who may just undermine their goals. In the future, he plans to do films, animation and commissioned works for clothing lines.

With a whole lot of ambition, soulful Nimbusnine is looking every bit the passionate emcee/rapper. Writing his own music and rap, he goes for street style but remains open to the abstract or anything else that’s good to his ear. Claiming to have been born a rapper, he was influenced early on by the late Notorious BIG. When it comes to music, his themes go around everyday things in life. In fact, his famous song entitled, Consequences is basically all about the what-ifs of life. For now, he says the crowd response has been pretty good. But he doesn’t mind getting negative feedback either. Whatever, it would just motivate him to do better.

Archonz Akeen is a group composed of seven emcees. They declare, "Our strength lies in numbers – one body, one soul." Ampon plays a significant role in their career in that the organization was their starting point. They treat the group like family. Acquiring lyrical inspiration from life, books, school and social issues, this group defies the stereotype by using a different style with every track. In addition, they aim to take their music to an intellectual level. That is, a level where the listener has to go deeper into the lyrics to grasp the message of their music. They’ve had a good crowd though initially, their music was not readily accepted. Good or bad, for Archonz Akeen, there ain’t no life without music.

Believing he’s unique, Mic is a solo-performing rapper. Writing his own music as well, he gets inspiration from the things that happen around him as well as his problems and issues. His music is usually street-style, one with a slow tempo and hard type of beats. He hopes that five years from now, he would have completed and sold an album.

Believing they’re out of this world are Epical’s Chyro the Wrath, P-flex (Professor Flex) and Prot. Chyro, as mentioned earlier, is a cofounder of Ampon. A man from wrathful Mars, he produces and does the rap for Epical. On the other hand, coming from the ringleader Saturn is P-flex who produces for Epical while Mercury’s Prot is the emcee of the group. With regard to Ampon, Chyro says it helps Epical and vice versa. Likewise, P-flex emphasizes that Ampon is their family and that it was established for them to be able to do what they want. For its part, Prot says the organization is like a family tree of organized music, modern organized music, more progressive music. The group shares the same insights about society, commercialism, artistry as well as what making real music is all about. Their writing style is word play and they use storytelling in their performances. With ideological influences such as Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Karl Marx, Freud, Nietzsche and Machiavelli, Epical believes they’re rebels with a (noble) cause.

Also calling themselves unique is a group called Dialect. It is made up of Abnormalities and NothingElse. Abnormalities shows forms of human flaws, which are expressed through different thoughts that have their roots in experiences and premonitions. Meanwhile, NothingElse shares the same perspective but does so in a rather complex way. They describe their music as experimental. It is one that deals with different unorthodox elements. They derive their lyrical inspiration from their beliefs and what they see in society. In Ampon, they help each other with the budget and networks. Ampon also generates more exposure for them.

Standing for creative consciousness, Crecon is a group made up of three emcees. The group was actually formed even before Ampon was. B-Roc, cofounder of Ampon, is also the in-house producer of Crecon and earlier established an underground hip-hop/R&B label called Turbulence Productions together with Crecon’s Psylent and Arkane. Dom aka Arkane, meanwhile, is a well-established emcee, who won the Battle Mc Champion by Infini8 Productions held last October 2003. Not surprisingly, B-Roc’s brother, Ryan aka Psylent has been attracting assorted audiences as a beat-boxer and has been making his presence known in both mainstream and underground hip-hop scenes. Primarily influenced by Musiq Soulchild, Psylent worked hard for about five months, honing and perfecting his beat-boxing skills while giving other rappers standard monotonous beats for them to rap over. More importantly, he worked hard to set his "ear candy" apart from vocal percussions. As he explains, vocal percussions refer to what we usually hear from an a cappella choir. On the other hand, beat boxing entails having to imitate the sound of the scratches, turn tables or any other sound effects that one can think about. As for future plans, Psylent is determined to defy the notion that beat boxing is only a fad.

Psylent explains that unlike other groups Ampon houses, Crecon’s music is more soulful in a sense that it isn’t hard-hitting. However, he maintains that their lyrics are meant to give one a "head-trip." B-Roc adds that infusing soul into their music makes it timeless. Timelessness may be one element that their music is about, but so is uniqueness in style. Through infusing poetry in their performance, the group aims to let people relate to their words more easily. They seem to see inspiration in just about anything. As B-Roc puts it, "As long as you’re breathing, you’ll always be inspired."

Asked how he sees Ampon five years from now, Psylent says that such a timeline is rather short considering that Ampon is working on progressive music. Extending the timeline to a couple of years more, he believes that Ampon would have increased its fan base as well as gotten pretty good raves from the media. They’re also planning to launch their own clothing line, but they have not decided whether to call it Likha or Katha. B-Roc and Psylent seem bent on coming out with a poet’s clothing line. That is, one that features readable things, quote-worthies from movies, etc.

For the moment though, Ampon is preparing for a series of gigs for all to enjoy. Should you decide to check one out, you’re pretty lucky because there’s one happening tonight. Ampon invites everyone to join them as they promote "Progressive Music for a Progressive Time." Enjoy tonight’s good mix of underground music. Listen to hip-hop groups, a rock band called Pinoy Street to get the party going. What’s more, listen to DJs play real hip-hop music, interesting IDM (Intelligent Dance Music) along with house and soul. This will all happen at Laureano Building on Pasong Tamo, Makati. Gates open at 8 p.m., but the show starts at 9:30 p.m. Check it out and groove the night away!

You can visit their website at www.turbulenceproductions.net.

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E-mail me at ice_wave_42@yahoo.com.