It’s time to bring live hip-hop back to Vallejo

VALLEJO – LaRussell wants every performance to feel like a homecoming. Fueled by a love for his city, Vallejo’s hottest rap artist freestyles in front of Momo’s Cafe, on the sidewalk beside M&M Liquors, and most notoriously, outside his childhood home in College Park.

LaRussell has remodeled his mother’s backyard into what he has dubbed “The Pergola.” With help from local artist Chalberto for its construction and design, LaRussell established his own “Backyard Residency,” featuring surprise performances from Sada Baby, P-Lo, Symba, and any talent in town willing to collaborate and join the family affair. 

LaRussell credits the sense of community he’s fostered for the success of the events. “With what we built, it built an even grander sense of unity and safekeep,” he said in an interview with Bootleg Kev. “The fans and the people who come here want to keep this place safe.”

But the reason LaRussell has had to take matters into his own hands is a lack of suitable venues in Vallejo. With no indoor space large enough to meet the overwhelming demand, Vallejo’s live music venues rarely book rap artists. Although LaRussell has booked the occasional show at the Empress Theater, Vallejo’s iconic theater’s events calendar typically includes rock tributes or blues and soul revivalists – a long way from the hyphy hometown heroes that put Vallejo on the map. 

Numerous renowned rap artists have called Vallejo home, but despite the city government awarding E-40 the key to the city in October, local venues and police pressure have largely deplatformed the city’s main cultural export.

Dating back to 1992, Mac Dre and the Romper Room were infamously targeted for a string of alleged bank robberies throughout California, leading the Vallejo Police Department to start cracking down on rappers and their performances throughout the city. 

Even after Mac Dre's death, Vallejo police kept close eyes on the Crest and Thizz Nation artists, closely working with the DEA to bust Thizz Entertainment rappers purportedly selling ecstasy. Vallejo police have a long history of aiming their sights on young African-American men, most recently killing Willie McCoy – who rapped under the name Willie Bo – in February 2019, firing at him 55 times after McCoy was found unresponsive in his car outside a Taco Bell.

When SOB X RBE – who would later go on to perform at Coachella – had their first live show in 2016 at the Boys & Girls Club in North Vallejo, the FADER wrote, “The tiny gym quickly exceeded its capacity and, midway through SOB X RBE’s performance, police moved in and shut it down.” 

“We get love, too, but more hate than love from our city,” Slimmy B of SOB X RBE told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2018. “There are a lot of people in Vallejo that don’t want to see us succeed.”

Intense pushback has forced local rappers to perform in neighboring cities instead, from the Ace of Spades in Sacramento to the Catalyst in Santa Cruz to as far as Aztec Theater in Fresno. Even Mac Dre Day has been displaced past the Carquinez Bridge, with the annual festival now setting up in Oakland or San Francisco.

But there may yet be hope for live hip-hop in Vallejo. Carnalito’s Customs at 905 Tennessee St. has doubled as recording studio Thou Wow Studios since January.

In collaboration with the Free Music Collective, for the last three years they have hosted cyphers, artist development workshops, live bands, singers, songwriters, rappers, ravers, and everything in-between. By varying the age restrictions on their events, with some open to all ages and some 21+, the collective’s lineup of events are constantly changing, pushing as many different sects of Vallejo as possible to participate. 

Meanwhile, inspired by LaRussell’s initiative and his ability to create a DIY space for community-building, Vallejo's Immersive Learning Center is transforming into  the KEYS STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) Society and hosting events and performances. 

The collective has already put on a variety of open mics, monthly mingling events, and they’re currently organizing city-wide talent shows to feature Vallejo’s overlooked talent. The KEYS STEAM Society has revitalized the space. “We set it up so now there’s a lounge area, there’s local art that’s featured, and it’s open Monday through Saturday,” said Alma Perez, an artist with the collective.

“The idea of this venue space is to just have artists come and perform here, where people want to come here,” Perez told the Vallejo Sun. “It doesn’t make sense that we don’t have real support for the music scene when there’s so much talent.”

“When you’re seeing who has ownership of these spaces, they’re not the people that would support these types of events,” she said. 

But putting on events like these requires working through an endless amount of red tape and permit fees with little support from the city. “We have city support, but not enough to where the city is supporting us financially to get things going, even when it is something for the community,” Perez said. “Where we’re at now, we’re trying to get the community together to do something for the community.”

Perez’s vision for the future of Vallejo’s performing arts isn’t some extravagant LED Sphere to rival that of Las Vegas, it doesn’t include an $800 million contract to bring in a professional sports player to compete against the LA Dodgers, and it doesn’t include any resources that Vallejo doesn’t already have. 

“[I want] to have a space where our talent is showcased and we can see each other perform, so all the artists who are up-and-coming can have that space and really gain the attention of the community and have all of us here supporting,” Perez said. “[I want] people from out of the community coming in to see that, to the point where we have artists that want to come and perform here.”

“My 12 year-old was like, ‘I don’t want to go to concerts in San Francisco and Oakland,” she added. “‘I want to go to a concert here. Why not?’”

Whether it’s her events at 250 Georgia St. or LaRussell’s Backyard Residency, Perez said that there’s really only one way to keep these independent shows running: “Just actually support us doing it.”