“I don’t understand a word of Spanish,” says Abstruse Tone (aka Seth Rich) of local hip-hoppers Earatik Statik. Neither does his partner-in-rhyme C-Lo (Carlos Polk), but that doesn’t stop them from grabbing the mic and freestyling in honor of tonight’s guests from the Oeste Side of Buenos Aires who, depending on perspective, are probably the farthest Down South group to come through Chicago. El Sindicato Argentino and Earatik Statik speak a common language of beats and flow from the mother tongue of hip-hop; neither outfit understands the specifics of what each other is saying tonight, but they embrace like homies meeting at a turntable land-bridge. “I can tell the production and rhymes are real tight,” says Abstruse Tone after ripping it on stage, “and they got a good mix of commercial and underground going on.”


He picks up on the sound that was nurtured by the streets of B.A. and cultivated to garner last year’s Latin Grammy for Best Hip-Hop album, an amazing feat for a scene so far removed from affordable access to the latest recordings and live music we take for granted here.
Earatik Statik are among few black patrons in attendance, and they’re in the subcultural minority, since few obvious hip-hop heads are mixing it up with a largely Mexican rockero crowd. So why are they here, at a show that’s not on the mainstream hip-hop or rock map? “Because we’re not haters,” says Tone. “It’s about music.” These words cut right through all the artificial divisions, especially at a club that usually features big regional Mexican acts on the main stage and weekly merengue-salsa-bachata mixes — local rockeros play on Saturdays in the small Dirty Worm Room downstairs.
After some DJ sound checks and mixes of Kurtis Blow, the Beatnuts, and Jay-Z, the evening starts with a specifically Mexican rock sound from Conflictos, kicking out ska rhythms and heavy-metal-styled guitar solos. Their last piece starts with a hearty grito and a shout of “¡Viva México Cabrones!” as Conflictos barrel into a raucous rendition of “México Lindo y Querido.” As the feedback subsides, Dre and Snoop-Dogg crescendo on the house speakers with “Nuthin’ But A ‘G’ Thang.” Milwaukee’s Kinto Sol (with Los Marijuanos members and DJ Playback Garcia) follow with a solidly Latino bilingual hip-hop vibe, and though it’s more of a compatible intro to what el Sindicato will bring, their sound and swagger speak largely to U.S. Mexican b-boy concerns, opening with an Aztec danzante and miming barrio confrontations with their stage show.
By the time el Sindicato take control of the mics and turntables, the crowd seems to have thinned out, massing near the front of the stage. MCs Derek, Frost, Smoler, and Huexo, with DJ Fabri, bring a more clean and tight style of tag-team rap bubbling against a tapestry of beats and samples from Joan Manuel Serrat, Celia Cruz, Chic, and Argentinean folk. Plus, they’re rather stylishly decked out in jerseys, hoodies, du-rags, and sports caps — gear that violates the club’s dress code, by the way. The usually frenetic speed-rap of many Latin hip-hoppers gets a chill pill with the catchy melodic strain in el Sindicato, from an R&B knack demonstrated both by versatile vocalists and multi-textured DJ tapestries on such tracks as “Mil Horas” and “Cuatro Minutos de Funk.” Except for the linguistic difference, the performance matches most live hip-hop and surpasses the usual head-nodding with a more variable rhythmic attack. The mutual genres and fans at the show at least made it past prohibitive labels and categories, because like Earatic Statik said, it’s all about the music, after all.
April 2002, Illinois Entertainer

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