Milwaukee hip-hop cannot have enough collaborative events or compilation albums.
The reason I say this is because by and large, the Milwaukee hip-hop scene is vastly segregated when it comes to style and more often than not the group of people that make up one style of hip-hop know little to nothing about the other side of people that make another style of hip-hop.
People have made attempts to correct this. People like Jordan "Madhatter" Lee used the idea that beats are universal to try to bring the different sides of sound together through his largely popular yearly event, the Miltown Beat Down.
Heck, even a terrible rapper and sub-par blogger like myself recognized the need for some more cooperation while I was creating the compilation album "Yo! MKE Raps" in 2010, which unfortunately largely represented just one side of Milwaukee hip-hop’s creative community.
Well, over the weekend the yang to "Yo!" was released, the DJ Heathen-led project "Watch MKE."
"Watch MKE" brings to the forefront a handful of Milwaukee’s hip-hop talents that you unfortunately won’t read about in many of Milwaukee’s publications, even on Milwaukee UP. That’s not to say that we’re not interested in many of these artists, it’s that our depth of knowledge only goes so far.
That’s why projects like Heathen’s "Watch MKE" are great for the interested music lover because it teaches the listener about something they previously didn’t know about, bringing more ears to the personally unknown.
What’s even better about the project, and something that I have absolutely no desire to do with "Yo!" is that all of the songs are original tracks to the project.
DJ Heathen, I don’t know you, but I commend you for your patience to deal with all of these rappers, producers and artists to put "Watch MKE" together.
Milwaukee and beyond, dig in. Learn about some artists and music that you didn’t know about, and enjoy some new music from the names that you do know.
"Watch MKE" is available for free streaming and download here.
Born in Milwaukee and raised in the Milwaukee suburb of Brown Deer, Concordia University Wisconsin alumnus Poppe has spent the majority of his life in or around the city and county of Milwaukee.
As an advocate of Milwaukee's hip-hop community Poppe began popular local music blog Milwaukee UP in March 2010. Check out the archived entries here.
Though heavy on the hip-hop, Poppe writes about other genres of music and occasionally about food, culture or sports, and is always ready to show his pride in Milwaukee and Wisconsin.
