Get Your Hands Dirty: XY Scatter

Published February 12, 2008

By Peter Casasa-Blouin

I’ve finally decided I want to be in California. I may have known before I knew, but for a long time I was living in Cali vicariously through music. Underground hip-hop in the Bay Area has a refreshing nature that enables a listener to be rolling at a club or sitting down at a cipher and philosophizing. That multiplicity that gives the Bay its vitality has been articulated yet again by a group of twenty year olds in Oakland, California.

The group is XY Scatter and their album is “Scatter Like Roaches.” Though new, the group has amassed a substantial following through energetic local performances (opening for acts like Keek Da Seak and Andre Nikotina) and their site www.myspace.com/xyscatter.

On the album Sam Staar, Abdan, Ron Weezie, A1, and MC Shampoo collaborate to bring five distinct voices and styles into each intricate beat. Sam (Wu Steez) Staar has labored over archives of samples stringing them together seamlessly so that the line between Mo-Town and Bay Area gets blurred.

XY maintains that their sound is unique, which could hardly be challenged. They’ve been known to say, “good artists are influenced, great ones steal. blud.” This reflects the camaraderie between artists in the Bay Area and how fresh and original their music is, while simultaneously incorporating the work of others. In their songs they move from encouraging girls to “pop it like pop rocks” to detailing the paranoia of growing up in a country controlled by conspirators like Skull and Bones.

Of honorable mention is the solo track by Abdan entitled “Lost,” which has numerous quotables that speakers just can’t contain. But this sensitive, hyper-aware reflection is one of many profound tracks. If you don’t hold lyrics to a high premium then you will not be let down by the production of this album. The second track is simply an instrumental (an ambitious move for a premier album) with shades of RZA that made me chilly.

Although I never deter from hip-hop in my reviews, this piece transcends “hip-hop” and begins to embody something more important. As one member said, “Reality’s real.” The irony will not elude you once you have heard the CD because they are able to observe and expose “realities” within culture while simultaneously flipping them on their backs and dancing around them.

This is an abstract example of great new hip-hop and the fact that it is so good bodes well for listeners who are willing to get their hands dirty.

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