Heavy beats slam through the room like war drums. The crowded nightclub is thick with cigarette smoke, booze, a trace of weed — and adrenaline. Here at Full Moon Saloon in Ybor City, well past midnight on a Wednesday, local emcees are engaged in rap battles — face-to-face put-downs built on improvised rhymes. Umbrella Corporation, a Tampa hip-hop collective that's changing the landscape of the 813 underground, calls the venue home. Tonight their artists dominate the congested stage.
A lanky young man in a long red T-shirt stands isolated in the back of the club. His lips move as he rehearses. Impromptu rhymes are the rule in these verbal smackdowns, but it's well known that many emcees spit written verse. A murmur grows when the unknown kid gets on stage to earn his props. He stands firm: one leg poised in front of the other, right arm bent at a sharp 45-degree angle, a big hand clutching the mic tightly.
And then he spits ... gibberish.
The unknown's initial composure crumbles. Three mumbled lines into his performance and he looks like a petrified fifth grader forced into a school play. Umbrella Corporation founder Aych (pronounced "H") fires back with a dazzling verbal barrage that defies the old adage about words hurting less than sticks and stones. His victim probably would rather be knocked cold by a left hook than endure one more second of this humiliation. "There's a highway to heaven and a subway to hell," Aych raps, burying the newcomer. "Look at you standing there with nothing to tell."
His flow — bold, relaxed, melodic, on beat — is as important as the actual lines.
"Oh, no, there he goes," responds a young woman wearing a form-fitting dress that barely covers her backside. Dressed-to-impress women crowd the edge of the stage. They squeal, slap their hands together, shake their heads in disbelief and smile, making flirtatious eye contact with the performers.
The other Umbrella artists on stage — Jersey, Larcen, Infarel, Neece and Supa Man — nod in approval and laugh at the defeated emcee. The men in the audience lift their drinks in a sign of respect as Aych unleashes a torrent of clever, smoothly delivered boasts and taunts. After the beat-down comes to a merciful end, the pummeled wannabe rapper sprints to the bathroom, locks himself in the stall and vomits — his gut apparently rocked by an unsavory mix of strong drink, high anxiety and shame.
Tampa Bay's hip-hop scene, which seems perpetually stuck in neutral, has never seen anything quite like Umbrella Corporation. And there isn't exactly a national precedent for this D.I.Y. hip-hop model, either. Usually, the template is one star rapper and his sidekicks. Or a crew of emcees that divvy up the verses, like Wu Tang Clan. Umbrella Corporation is a loose collective that includes music makers but also managers, promoters, photographers and graphic designers. They've joined forces on the creative and business fronts. It's "not a group, it is not a label, it is a union between bosses," Aych says.
Umbrella currently includes 15 emcees, two DJs, seven producers and three people involved more in the business end (including Creative Loafing Marketing Director Durium "Deacon" Jones, who helps with artist development and promoting shows to local media). They aim to put the "813" on the map and create a scene here that rivals that of Southern cities like New Orleans, Houston, Atlanta and even Miami — places that enjoy the attention of record-label suits and million-dollar sales figures. Ultimately, everyone in Umbrella wants to get paid for doing something they love. Something that's legal. Something that doesn't require a college degree, putting on a uniform or busting ass in the Florida heat.
"For me, Umbrella Corporation is an opportunity not only to sharpen my craft as an artist and performer," rapper Jersey says, "but to give some knowledge to the other less experienced people.
"Umbrella Corporation is not even so much about the music but being able to get the music heard," he continues. "It's about getting the music to other people, building a name for our organization. That's why it's comprised of not just artists, but producers, promoters, people in every aspect of the business."
Umbrella's motto is "We get results." And they do — at least on a local level. The robust Wednesday turnouts at Full Moon are an anomaly in the Tampa Bay original-music scene. Local indie rockers might draw 60 or 70 people to an occasional multi-band show at, say, Ybor City's New World Brewery. Aych's open mic regularly draws around 150 — on a night not known for pulling big crowds to Ybor.
Aych calls these regular showcases Da Cypher. The name is a term for the free-style rapping the takes place on street corners, a common practice in northern cities like Philly and New York. Members of Umbrella sharpen their skills at Da Cypher, usually by butchering aspiring rappers (the "unknowns"). Aych calls it Umbrella's "training ground."
In a broader sense, the Full Moon stage on Wednesday night is a meeting place for creative young men in their early 20s, most of them African-American, with a shared dream of finding riches and respect through rhymes and beats.
Umbrella Corporation might be about business, but these battles are the main events, where egos are stroked or crushed, reputations ruined or established. At their best and most dramatic, the spectacles resemble the climatic confrontation in the Eminem flick 8 Mile.
Brutal, graphic, often witty insults and brags — tempered with the occasional confessional musing — elate the attentive, enthusiastic audience. It's like being at a contact sporting event as much as a concert. Not that there's any physical violence; it's the energy level, the rush of competitive spirit that permeates the room, the thrill of knowing that there will be no polite applause for weak rhymes, only adulation for the most vicious and intelligent verbiage. The sense of excitement is unmatched by the open mic nights and shows put on in any other genre of local music — including the heaviest of rockers engaging in the grandest battles of the bands.
A rapper can't prepare for a freestyle bout the same way other musicians prep for a performance. Canned phrases are frowned upon. The artist is expected to step on stage and in a split second riff off what is standing in front of him.
"I'm a weirdo," Aych says. "I believe in the whole energy thing, feeding off the energy of the crowd. I look at the person I'm about to battle and think if I'm gonna talk about his shoes, if he has some kinda off shirt on, if he has a lazy eye."
Everything's fair game. Political correctness does not exist during an emcee battle. "If you can't take it," Aych says, "then don't get up there."
About once a month, Da Cypher doubles as a mixtape release party for one or more of the Umbrella members. These mixtapes are self-produced CDs that feature original rhymes over beats that have been crafted by a fellow Umbrella member or lifted from other songs. In July, Neece celebrated the unveiling of his The Campaign MixTape, while Supa Man went on stage to promote Supamixtape Vol.2: Fly Flashy Flossin.
"This is the place for exposure," Neece says. "We all got a lot of stuff coming up through here."
Aych, a tall, strapping 24-year-old, holds an enviable spot in the Tampa hip-hop arena. Unlike most of his associates, he doesn't drink, and he doesn't smoke — anything. There's a confident gleam in his eye that suggests star power. It's a characteristic he and most of the other Umbrella members have acquired after years spent penning rhymes and performing in rowdy settings like Full Moon.
Aych started rapping — on the playground, during lunch, after school — while in the fourth grade after hearing Eric B. & Rakim's "Ain't No Joke." At the time, he was known as Hansel Wilson and residing in Wilmington, Del. In 2004, when he was 18, he left home and spent some time living in his car. Fortunately, Aych had met Jamal Peacock six months prior during a visit to Tampa. The two men shared a passion for hip-hop and stayed in touch. When Peacock heard his friend from Delaware was homeless, he offered him a sofa. But there was a catch.
"I was having a rough time at home so Jamal said I could move down here — rent free," Aych says. "Just as long as I recorded a song a day. I slept on his couch for seven months and recorded a song every day."
Peacock taught himself to be a sound engineer, and the two men collaborated on "Dolla & a Dream," one of Aych's best-known and most personal songs. A boisterous groove goosed by horn samples carries the anthemic lyric: "Yeah, I know, everything that glitter ain't gold/ Everything shining ain't a diamond/ But I'm gonna ride 'til the wheels fall off, and the gas is gone/ When the gas is gone, I'm gonna walk."
When the track plays at Full Moon, people recognize it. "Dolla & a Dream" distinguishes Aych from many of his Umbrella peers. Both aggressive and contemplative, he splits the difference between hardcore (Jersey, Larcen) and a more mellow "backpack" style (Neece, Infarel, Supa Man).
"The first time my mom heard 'Dolla & a Dream,' she cried," Aych says.
While living with Peacock — who Aych describes as a mentor, business partner and recording engineer — the upstart rapper issued his mixtape The Meltdown. Aych jumped on stage at open mic nights at On the Rocks, which is now Crowbar (also in Ybor City). He made connections and started pushing compilation discs featuring local artists called Dolla Day.
When the old open-mic night went bust, Aych persuaded management at Full Moon to let him host a regular Wednesday. Da Cypher has been a success since debuting last June. Aych keeps the door money; the club gets the bar revenue. Men pay $5 to enter. Women get in free. A hundred dudes through the door means Aych walks away with about $400 after he pays the DJ.
While hosting Da Cypher, Aych found himself being asked how he managed to move nearly a thousand copies of The Meltdown and open for such stars as Missy Elliott, Chamillionaire, Wu-Tang Clan, Ludacris and KRS-One. After dispensing advice night after night, he got the idea to form Umbrella Corporation. Choosing the core emcees (see sidebar) was easy — these were the guys he saw ripping it up every Wednesday and putting out banging mixtapes.
With the nucleus in place for about four months, Umbrella could be poised to grow exponentially. "I kinda hate to use this analogy, but it's like the mob," Aych says. "I handpicked the core members. If they vouch for someone else, then it's on them that this person is going to bring something to the table."
Being under the Umbrella requires taking part in weekly phone conferences and a monthly in-person meeting. Members are expected to attend the shows of their associates. Umbrella producers offer their beats "for the love." Guest appearances on recordings are also done gratis. Each artist keeps the money from sales of his own mixtapes.
The Umbrella Corp's general business agreement is this: If someone gets signed to a record contract and/or has a hit single, then the proper percentage of royalty points will be assigned to those who participated in the making of the track.
"If I signed a deal tomorrow, that would open the door for those with me," Jersey says. "I'd definitely get those people on my tracks, do whatever I could to bring them along. When Aych and I got together, we saw a noticeable difference in the notice we got."
Umbrella welcomes rappers of all stripes, from thug style to backpackers and in between. Infarel gets on stage and drops tricky puns. "You niggas is weak," he raps during a freestyle round. "The only reason you got hype is because of A.D.D."
Jersey and Larcen follow the path cut by violent, yet at times reflective, rappers such as 2Pac and Notorious B.I.G. "Go to church, pray somewhere," goes an improvised line by Larcen. "Come to Tampa, leave you in the Bay somewhere."
Jersey touts himself as the King of the 813. In person, he's affable — quick to smile and crack a joke. He puts his arm around a fellow when posing for a picture. But on record and on stage, he brings the menace. "Either respect my mind or respect my nine," he raps.
In the end, the emcees all want the same thing: success. Namely, financial success. They offer no apologies for this mindset. "I'm a product," Jersey says. He's wearing a customized shirt emblazoned with his own image. "Umbrella Corporation helps keep my name out there."
It's tough making it as a rapper from Tampa Bay, an area whose one international claim to musical fame has been its death-metal scene. The most respected hip-hop artist to emerge from around here was Hillsborough High graduate Kenny Waters, aka Kenny K, who built his rep hosting an early hip-hop show on WMNF and ended up working with Chuck D and Digital Underground. Kenny K died of liver failure in 1994. Since them, Tampa rappers have barely flirted with national recognition.
In '02, Khia's raunchy single "My Neck, My Back (Lick it)" peaked at No. 12 on Billboard's Hot Rap Tracks chart. But it was a novelty number, one that did little for the scene as a whole. The following year, Rated R's single "In Here Ta Nite" landed him a deal with Universal, but his 2003 full-length Da Ghetto Psychic bricked, missing the Billboard 200 altogether. A second major-label album has yet to materialize.
Acafool scored a middling regional hit last year with "Hata Blockas." But, once again, the track about sunglasses that magically deter haters didn't prompt record-label honchos to come buzzing around. The song faded before Acafool could fully capitalize.
On a positive note, Tampa did produce the pioneering rap trio Yo Majesty, which blew up following a wild performance at this year's South By Southwest conference in Austin, Texas. Open lesbians, the women flip the script on a genre traditionally known for its machismo and homophobia with their hardcore numbers about "Club Action" and "Kryptonite Pussy."
The music business is too fickle to predict whether a member of Umbrella Corporation has what major record labels are looking for in this era of diminishing CD sales. Aych would like to see Umbrella become a viable alternative for unsigned artists. His plan is for emcees like himself to host open mics in urban centers across the country to facilitate the advancement of skilled and motivated artists. Grassroots promotion would allow for national touring regardless of commercial airplay or major-label contracts.
Of course, the big payoff is still the pie in the sky. "If I was to get a multimillion-dollar record deal," Aych says, "then I'd go about having a Da Cypher set up in every major city."
Click here to read more about Umbrella Corp.'s nine core artists
