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Q & A with Jack Cracker of The Crest
This Saturday night, local rap/hip hop group The Crest is celebrating their tenth year together with a show at the High Noon Saloon. Madison natives Josh, aka Jack Cracker, 31, and his brother Adam, aka AD, 29, started making music together in high school. In 2003, DJ Skrabble and Paul Fresh came on board.
The Crest got started at a time when hip hop was still pretty unusual in Madison and they've grown with the local scene from pioneers to one of the leading groups in town. You can check out their excellent music at www.myspace.com/11321981.
If you've ever seen someone around town wearing a shirt that says "WISCOMPTON" on it in the style of Badger apparel - that's the work of The Crest. They sell the shirts at shows to make money for touring costs.
Earlier this week, Jack Cracker humored me by answering a few questions on the phone.
What was the first album you bought? A Beat Street tape and Run DMC's Raising Hell.
Is there anything from the early years that embarrasses you now? Oh sh**, the whole thing embarrasses me! Naw, I'm kidding. It is what it is.
Given your name, Cracker, what's it like being a white rapper? Throughout the ten years it's been different. Obviously in the beginning, it was "Oooh, a White Rapper!" The term was used a lot more. There weren't as many. Now, things have switched considerably, especially in "underground" hip hop. Most of the raised eyebrows have come from family and friends as opposed to outsiders. The first two years, it was definitely tough justifying to your family at Thanksgiving that, oh yeah, you rap. That's quite the bag of worms to open up at Thanksgiving for a typical Anglo-Saxon family. I personally put the issue to rest. It's a non-issue with me.
Where did you and your brother enjoy going to hear live music when you were underage? Well, back then, you could actually take an ID and slice it. So, the second I had an ID at 18, I was actually 21. You just cut the ID open, take a razor to it, take one of the serial numbers and replace the last digit of your birth date with it. All you had to know was someone with a laminator and a decent hand with the Exacto knife.
And you can't do that anymore? Well, no, now they're basically like credit cards. I mean, you can still do it. You could scrape it off and have someone ink it in, or just get a hold of someone at the DOT. But anyway...(laughs). Where did we go? The Paramount on Park Street. That's the first time I saw my brother perform in front of people. They had a little amateur hour. We were all underage. He was in there and 16 years old - things were a little more loose back then, at least I'd like to think that. That's another thing that's changed in ten years. There really weren't places to do hip hop music. For a while there, it was about trying to get a venue to even do a show with you. We ended up doing a lot of interesting venues throughout the years. Now, places are a little more open to doing it.
How have you stayed together this long? We're brothers. He can't disown me. Otherwise we probably would have said "f*** you" to each other a long time ago.
What do your hecklers say? The one heckler that sticks out in my head was pretty funny. He was really hooked on the Wiscompton thing. He thought he was making a point to us that we're not from the hood and Wiscompton is not the ghetto. I don't think he really understood the joke or the play on words. He got his glasses smashed.
What's up with Wiscompton? It's just playing on the ridiculous market of the WISCONSIN shirts. People will buy Badger and Wisconsin apparel and never get enough, so we just put WISCOMPTON on the shirts and we sell them at shows. It's helped provide for gas and food. We find it hilarious the way people react to it. Whatever the hell it means, we don't know. It's Compton, the home of gangsta rap, crossed with Wisconsin. It's such a crazy paradox. We just like the reaction it gets.
Along the same lines, what's a lyric or wordplay that you're especially proud of? Lyrical miracle, spiritual miracle. Just think about that one for a while.
IF YOU GO:
10 Year
Anniversary Show
With Carnage, The Last Hope, Me and You Crew, R.O.D.
Hosted by Gary Knowledge
High Noon Saloon
Saturday, July 5, 10 p.m.
$10, all ages
