In the fall semester of 1997, I was 17 years old and a senior in high school at University City High School in San Diego, California. I loved playing sports, watching sports, and hanging out with all of my childhood friends. We all listened to west coast rappers like Snoop, Dre, DJ Quik, Tha Dogg Pound, E-40, and Brotha Lynch Hung and hung out with each other as much as we could. We were tight and we were always there for each other. Those are my day ones and my homies for life. But in 1997 I started to hang out with my homie Anthony a lot more. Anthony and I both loved music but while I was on my west coast gangster sh*t, Anthony was on more of the boom bap hip hop type of vibes. But our styles and personalities just meshed well together. Anthony was hilarious and we were always laughing and cracking jokes about each other. We both rocked streetwear gear which included some skate kicks, baggy pants, and a t-shirt which repped one of the many skate companies we liked. We were basically billboards for the emerging streetwear culture in Cali. Our Jansport backpacks were filled with cassettes, walkmans, batteries, headphones, and occasionally a schoolbook or two.

We had a few classes with each other that year and both of us were easily distracted. Not bad students by any means but also not the ones that the teachers were too stoked on. Ant and I always discussed music when we hung out and one day in class, he unzipped his backpack full of graffiti tags and handed me a cassette tape that I wasn’t familiar with. It was actually a Kinko’s photocopied j-card cover with a tape inside. The cover showed a dude with a beanie on it with some dope graffiti on it which I couldn’t read. I always needed help deciphering the graf writing! Anthony told me, “this guy is called The Grouch and he is from the Living Legends and he is dope as f*ck.” If Anthony said you were dope then I didn’t ask questions. He had an amazing ear and knew music. So while the teacher talked in class, I quietly popped The Grouch tape in my walkman, slid my earbuds up through my right arm of my hoodie and put my right hand by my ear so I could bump my music without anybody knowing. It would just look like I was tired or bored while I rested on my arm which were common mannerisms for me anyway back then. This is how most of us listened to music while in class back in the 90’s. Pretty stealth! The first song I heard from The Grouch was called “Rap is Senseless” and it changed my life.

I had never heard anything like this. I didn’t know anything about this rapper named The Grouch and it added to the mystique of it all. The vibe of the song and the lyrics just hit home to me. While I listened to gangster rap and in my head I was a G, on the outside I was a well-mannered white kid with a good head on my shoulders. This was a time in my life when those around me were starting to drink, do drugs, and chase girls and I just wasn’t into any of that. I mean, I liked girls but to actually walk up to one of them and say hi? Nah, I’m good! All I wanted to do was listen to music and talk about music with like-minded homies. This tape from The Grouch was called Nothing Changes and I could relate to entire the album. The Grouch wasn’t a gangster… Wasn’t a thug… Wasn’t trying to be something he wasn’t. He was just a relatable emcee with lyrics that spoke to me. While I had emotional issues tucked deep inside of me, I would press play on my walkman and forget about everything in the world. Rappers like The Grouch gave me great escapes through their music.

How did Anthony get this cassette tape that I knew nothing about? Where was The Grouch from? Who was this hip hop crew known as The Living Legends? Were they like the West Coast Wu-Tang Clan? Was it true that The Grouch was white? Since I was white too, could I become a rapper if I put in the work? Anthony had a few tapes from this Living Legends crew and we all passed them back and forth between classes, after school, and on the weekends. While I lived in UC (aka University City), Anthony lived 20 miles south in Paradise Hills but that never stopped me from hanging with Anthony and the crew. The 2nd underground rap cassette tape I got from Anthony was from a rapper named Murs and the tape was called F’Real. Anthony told me that Murs was a dope freestyler and his name was an acronym that actually stood for M.aking U R.ecognize and S.ubmit. No further background on any of these rappers or albums because the internet isn’t what it is now so word of mouth, magazines, record stores, late night local radio, and shows were how we got educated. But if you had a tape in hand, you could press play and listen while looking at the album cover and liner notes. And that’s exactly what I did… The first song I heard from Murs was called “4 the Record.” Below the YouTube link you’ll find the liner notes from the F’Real album. Again, a wonderful moment in time captured.

While the Grouch was on a super mellow vibe, Murs’ lyrics had this sense of urgency that made you feel like you had to hang on every word or he might come out of the tape and punch you in the face. Now remember, I had a gangster rap musical background but my life was more on the hip hop side. Murs took both worlds and combined them and was the first conscious hood rapper that I had ever heard. Nowadays you hear lots of rappers like Kendrick Lamar, Vince Staples, and more running with the style that Murs help user in to hip hop. Through his lyrics I knew that he had some kind of gang affiliations but he wasn’t repping it too hard. He just channeled his past experiences into his lyrics in a way that seemed honest to me. Murs freestyled… He told hood stories… He had sports references…. He was into video games…. He rapped with Japanese dudes who I couldn’t understand… He talked about high school… And then, “The Jerry Maguire Song” started on my tape and the beat caught me. Murs was so passionate with his bars on this song and the lyrics inspired me to live out my dreams. A year later Devin the Dude was telling me the same message with “Do What You Wanna Do” but Murs was first rapper to put the words in my ear that I should pursue what I love in life.

Now that you’ve listened to the song, please read the lyrics from the first verse. This was amazing penmanship that spoke to me as a 17 year old but still rings just as true now that I’m 40.

I loved both The Grouch and Murs tapes and needed more from their crew. I’ve always been a fiend for good music so I had to go back to Anthony in need of a re-up. Next he told me about a rapper named Eligh who was also from the Living Legends. At this point I just knew that the words Living Legends were synonymous with dope so if you were in the Legends I needed to hear you. The tape Anthony gave me was called As They Pass. I pressed play and was blown away by Eligh’s effortless double-time flow and his cadence on the beats. “Moving99” will forever be my favorite Eligh track so of course I’m including it right here. The artwork looked like an ancient scroll and there was an eye with more words that I needed my tagger homies to help me read! I loved the whole vibe of this artwork!

After the Eligh tape, Anthony introduced me to the Mystik Journeymen. I was told that the Mystik Journeymen (BFAP & PSC) were the OG’s of the Legends crew. Their album covers and splat logo were iconic. As I pressed play on the “4001” The Stolen Legacy album it was now 4 tapes received from Anthony and 4 tapes I loved. Anthony was the plug for all of the dope hip hop.

But I couldn’t just be good with having these dope tapes and not knowing more about these guys. How did Anthony find these tapes? How did he discover the Living Legends? It had been bugging me for awhile so to write this article, I reached out to all of my old school Living Legends homies and asked them where they first heard of them They all came back with the same answer, Anthony. I asked Anthony last weekend how he found these tapes and his answer is such a great snapshot in time that I just have to show you the screenshot of our DM.

All my hip hop heads know about digging in the crates and buying an album on the strength of the cover. This is how Anthony found The Grouch. From there Anthony told all of us about The Grouch… then Murs… then Eligh… then Mystik Journeymen… This one day when Anthony brought The Grouch tape to school literally changed the lives of at least 20 people that I know. I started hanging out with a whole new group of homies after this who all bumped the Legends. We started our own hip hop crew called The Creatures (their story is coming soon!) because we had aspirations to follow in the footsteps of the Living Legends touring around the world and getting our music heard. We hung out at house parties on the weekends where our crew was DJ’ing, our crew was breakin’, our crew was rapping on the mic, and our crew was working on some graffiti. And then in between our crew was crushing some lumpia, pansit, and adobo and partying with the adults. Filipino house parties were the best!

The Legends were our idols. They showed us that through hard work at your craft you could do anything you wanted in life. We started going to every Living Legends show we could. We drove up and down the Cali coast to see the Legends perform. We bought tapes hand-to-hand from the Legends. We respected their hustle…. We supported their movement and they appreciated all of us for doing so. They shook our hands at shows. They talked to us. They took pics with us. They rapped with us. They smoked with us. They drank with us. They were basically just like us and we respected them so much for that! Mutual respect is how you build a fan base and they exemplified this.

In 1998, I left San Diego to attend college in Arizona at ASU. I was never good at talking to people I didn’t know (low key introvert) so my acclimation to a new city and new surroundings was difficult. My childhood friends weren’t there for me to kick it with. My parents were 350 miles away. I was super emotional. The saving grace for me that Fall was my walkman, headphones, backpack, and skateboard. I didn’t have that bond with new friends yet so my relationship with hip hop grew stronger. I put all of my passion into music. I started basically living at all of the record stores around town. Back in 1998 there were 4 record stores within a half mile radius out in Tempe, AZ. We had the record store on ASU’s campus, Tower Records, Zia Records, and Eastside Records. Each had their own quirks and I spent HOURS at these stores weekly. Each time I had to leave these stores I would stop on my way out and look at all of the concert flyers to see who was coming to town. I usually walked away with a back pocket full of folded up show flyers to put on my fridge. But one day there was a concert flyer that was staring right back at me. The date on the flyer for the concert was October 8th, 1998 which was only a few weeks away at the time. The show was billed as the entire Hieroglyphics crew (Del, Souls, Casual, Pep Love, Domino) with the Living Legends (Mystik Journeymen, 3MG, Asop, Bicasso) opening for them. For me, this was Jordan playing against Magic. That was the magnitude of this concert for me back in ‘98.

Shout out to @thatguyyams on the flyer flip

I didn’t know anybody else out in Arizona who liked hip hop like me so I went to the show solo. I had gone solo to a concert before so this was a big step for me. To “look” hip hop, I put didn’t wash my hair for a few days for that greasy look and then put egg whites in the fro the day of the show. Egg whites and being grimey were good for the curly white boy fro if you didn’t know! To cap off the look, I had my ECW Sabu shirt, baggy camo cargo shorts, and some fresh Nike Air Maxes because who knows, maybe there would be a fly hip hop honey in attendance that night that would want to go back to my dorm room with me. How could a single girl resist me in my wrestling shirt?

The night of the show I was amped. The AZ hip hop scene was a really good one and that spanned from Tempe to Phoenix and then down to Tucson. I got to the show early (as I usually do!) and being that I was only 18, there was no beer in hand or anything cool like that. I just brought myself up to the front of the stage and waited through some opening acts until it was time for the Living Legends. The Legends were in full that night (minus Arata and Scarub) and they knew they had a chance to convert some Hiero fans into Legends fans so they went all out. To me, Sunspot Jonz (aka BFAP) was the nucleus of the Legends’ live show. He was a dope emcee but was also one of the greatest hype men of all-time. And usually hype men weren’t dope emcees but Sunspot was nice on the mic. Murs and PSC (aka Luckyiam) always had great energy and those 3 guys (BFAP, Murs, PSC) could take a whole room of hip hop heads and get them all to start jumping around with index fingers and thumbs in the air throwing up L’s. The Legends were the dopest live hip hop act at the time. They’re one of the best live hip hop acts ever. The other members of the crew, The Grouch, Eligh, Aesop, and Bizarro (aka Bicasso) came in and out strategically with their verses and the whole thing just worked. The Legends RIPPED that show that night. Here is some live footage of theirs to show you what a Legends show is like. If only there were camera phones back in the late 90’s!!! Why did I sell all of my old live Legends footage? Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

After the Legends finished their set it was apparent that it would be some time before Hiero came on. I had never seen Hiero and was a HUGE Del fan so I couldn’t wait. I needed some fresh air so I went outside of Bash on Ash in Tempe. If you recall, I went solo to the show so I went solo to get some fresh air too. I’ve always been somebody who just observed my surroundings and took mental notes of things. The energy was so good at that show so that same energy poured outside of the venue too with people smoking and rap cyphers everywhere with emcees freestyling. Fans everywhere just like me who showed up that night to watch Cali underground’s finest. While outside, I saw somebody off in the distance that looked familiar. I got a little closer and yup, it was him. Del the Funky Homosapien was right there in front of me just chillin’ with the fans. He was actually out of his mind on some sh*t! Then I noticed that Eligh, who had just finished his performance, was out there with Del. It was so cool how accessible these independent rappers were. I didn’t say anything to them but I lurked in the shadows for sure because my hip hop posters in my dorm room had just come to life. A couple of years later they actually had a song with each other. Maybe it was that night in AZ that they formulated a plan to collab? One will never know but for my story I’m going with it! Here’s Eligh and Del on the song “A Lesson Garden.”

I went back inside to get a good spot for Hiero and had my head down as I was usually shy when I didn’t know people. Then, I have a guy with a lot of energy straight geek out about my Sabu shirt. I look up and it is Murs from the Living Legends who is looking at my shirt just the way I was in awe at him performing on stage. And in that very moment, I realized that while Murs was a legend to me because of his mic skills, he was a just a regular dude and a nice human being at his core. Everybody was coming up to Murs to get his autograph or buy tapes off of him but he didn’t care because we were rapping out about life. He HAD to know where I got my ECW shirt. We talked for a good 10 minutes but then the show was starting so I had to go to the front of the stage while he left to sell music out of his backpack. Before we homie high fived and hugged it out, I gave him my AOL email address (remember, it was ‘98) so we could start to write each other and trade wrestling VHS tapes. It was all just so surreal. Murs was so cool. I was one fan out of many but he treated me with such respect. How many rappers treated their fans like this? Basically none. We said peace and I left thinking I would never get an email from him. The show ended that night and I walked back to my dorm on top of the world. I got to see the Legends and Hiero on the same bill and got to have a conversation with Murs. I didn’t bring a hip hop honey back to my dorm last night but I did carry some memories to last a lifetime.

A few weeks after the show I skated to the computer lab on campus and opened my AOL email account on dial up internet and there it was…. an email from my new homie Murs.

To be continued…

If you’re looking for a Living Legends playlist on Spotify I got you covered right here.

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