AMPON: True hip-hop for a good cause

Ever wonder what happens when passion for a noble cause gets more intense and hip-hop music is amplified to the fullest? For me, that can only mean one thing: AMPON (short for Absolute Messages Personified Over Noise).

As I said last week, AMPON is a non-profit organization with a wide pool of talents: Emcees, rappers, graffiti artists, producers and beat-boxers. For these artists, it’s an organization that unifies underground hip-hop artists, solo and group performers alike. What’s more, they remain committed to "adopting" a beneficiary with every performance. I may have already mentioned the different talents under AMPON’s wing. However, I feel that there are more things worth mentioning about three of the groups which were featured last week.

Taking their music to an intellectual level is the group Archonz Akeen, composed of seven talented emcees. Seeing strength in numbers, the group has been receiving pretty good raves from music lovers. However, they admit that they did not start out that way. Some people initially found their music rather "hard to swallow." They’ve certainly come a long way – their listeners enjoy their unique style and brand of music.

One of the most interesting groups in the organization is that of three emcees called Epical, composed of Chyro the Wrath, P-flex (Professor Flex) and Prot, who distinguish themselves from the rest with their storytelling and wordplay. According to Chyro, Ampon is actually an idea conceived by Epical. He goes on to say that Ampon was basically born out of the desire to enrich Filipino music and let people hear what good music is really all about.

Living up to its name Creative Consciousness, CRECON is a three-emcee group that has been catching the ears of many listeners wherever they go. What makes them stand out is their soulful style in fusing consciousness and awareness with creativity, producing a kind of music that they can definitely call their own. Brothers Bong a.k.a. B-Roc and Ryan a.k.a. Psylent have united with Dom a.k.a. Arkane to form one of the greatest groups to ever emerge from the underground hip-hop scene. Not only that, they have also formed Turbulence Productions, an underground hip-hop and R&B label. Needless to say, these three artists each bring something unique into the group. B-Roc is no ordinary rapper. He’s the in-house producer for CRECON as well. More, being the good older brother that he is, B-Roc also serves as Psylent’s manager and agent. Having been attracting a lot of raves from both the mainstream and underground hip-hop scenes, Psylent’s beat-boxing gigs just keep on coming. With his determination to destroy the notion of beat-boxing as a mere fad, you can surely expect Psylent to be hitting a lot of music scenes as he lets everyone know just how sweet his "ear candy" can be. Equally worth watching is emcee champ Arkane, whom everyone can expect to bag yet another emcee championship this year. Indeed, CRECON combines soul, poetry, "head-tripping" and a passion for timelessness to bring you hip-hop like you’ve never heard before.

As a whole, AMPON is one organization that’s bent on making a significant contribution to the future of Filipino hip-hop music. Through them, Filipinos can now experience hip-hop in its fullest form. Keeping an open mind though has also led them to unite with Pinoy Stories, a rock band, as described by B-Roc. With so much to give to their listeners, AMPON has a very promising future ahead. They are also a living testament that there are seriously good talents in the underground music scene that are simply worth checking out.

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My sincerest apologies to readers for factual slips with regard to AMPON and Pinoy Stories’ names as well as the inadvertent switching of captions on two pictures last week. This piece ends my two-part story on AMPON. For more of them, visit www.turbulenceproductions.net. Finally, my warmest thanks to Ryan (Psylent) and Bong (B-Roc) for all the help they gave me in putting together this two-part article.

E-mail me at ice_wave_42@yahoo.com.