If you're a hip-hop fan in San Diego, it sucks having a day job. I mean, on top of grinding your soul into so much dust for 8-10 hours every single day, a lot of good hip-hop shows in town usually happen during the week. That usually means staying out until at least 1:00 a.m., waking up with a hangover around 7:00 a.m., and sneaking into work late, hoping no one notices the stench of cigarettes on your clothes, the liquor on your breath or the sleep in your eyes. Not to mention the shoddiness of your work.
So yeah, get ready for all of that to happen on Wednesday morning. That's because on Tuesday night, Action Bronson comes back to Porter's Pub at UCSD (more details here). Action Bronson is this jolly chef-turned-rapper who looks like a Nordic viking and raps like a wise-cracking, pop culture nerd (his moniker comes from combining the names of old school action heroes Action Jackson and Charles Bronson). He's been steadily gaining steam since dropping his debut, Dr. Lecter, in 2011 and he hasn't showed any signs of slowing down yet.
He came to Porter's Pub for the first time just about a year ago and it was a pretty unforgettable night. He performed maybe half of his set in the crowd. And while he was there, he would get the crowd to walk around the room with him arbitrarily. He was kinda like, Look how much power I have: everyone, follow me over here as I rap in front of the soundboard for no reason at all. That's to say nothing of the epic interview he did with SoundDiego, in which he talked about roasted duck and compared his career to a human bowel movement (sorry, this second part unfortunately did not make the cut for the video).
And what do you know? As an added bonus, you can also check out local rapper Marty MacPhly, who does this cool thing of being funny without being gimmicky. He just released an EP called In Advance, which is solid though you should probably go ahead and grab his previous mixtape, Cheers, for free from DatPiff as well. I'm telling you, that tape has surprising staying power. I kept it on my MP3 player for more than a year.
Quan Vu Quan Vu is the founder and editor of local music blog sdRAPS.com. He has also written about local and national hip-hop acts for San Diego CityBeat and the San Diego Reader. You can nerd out on rap trivia by becoming BFF's on Facebook or e-mailing him directly.
