A chat with Cleen
In furthering my own musical understanding of this valley, I must converse with artists from all walks of life and media. Today, I had the pleasure to chat with Cleen, a touring, independent Hip-Hop artist who has been rapping in the Antelope Valley since his junior year of high school in 1993.
Jesse Davidson:
Whether it’s local or major artists, who inspired you to start rapping?
Cleen: I would come home from school and I would watch “Yo MTV Raps” and on BET, there was a show called “Rap City.” I was absolutely obsessed with what I saw. There was a lot of people of mostly my parents’ age who didn’t consider Hip-Hop to be real music because there were no live instruments. I’m not sure if that’s what drew me to it. The rappers at the time were approaching the genre from a different way. My house could have been on fire and I wouldn’t have looked away from the TV.
JD: For those that don’t know, can you give an overview of what the Hip-Hop scene in the AV is like?
C: The rap scene in the AV isn’t that different from any other place. Whether it’s a big city or small town, the scale of it might be different. There’s definitely different types of rap and atmospheres. There’s certain promoters out here that will throw a club night, which is mainly popular styles of Hip-Hop. There’s a lot of neon lights and guys that want to front at the bar by popping bottles. I came up in the Punk scene out here playing at the Britisher and other spots. I’d rock the club gigs too and had songs that accommodated both environments. Sometimes, the club would look at me like I was too lyrical. On the other shows, it would often be an underground rapper followed by a Punk band. At first, I was really hesitant that the Punk fans would embrace me. They embraced me whole-heartedly and I couldn’t be happier or more thankful. The HipHop and Punk fans park
their cars in the same garage.
JD: That’s awesome. From your perspective, what would you say are the biggest misconceptions about HipHop, for those unfamiliar with the scene?
C: When I first started coming up, I encountered a lot of ignorance and narrow minds. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a white dude and I didn’t get raised in a ghetto. I was raised right down the middle in my upbringing. So I’m around either friends or family, they have a certain opinion about Hip-Hop because they only see the negative of it. They won’t listen to a Hip-Hop radio station but they’ll see news story from someplace about a fight at a rap show that ended in a shootout. They don’t consider there are nerds and bookworms that rap about the pyramids in Egypt. For example, back in the day, my sister wanted to come to my shows but she didn’t want to go alone. So she’d say “I have a couple friends free on that day but they don’t like Hip-Hop.” I’d tell her, “If her friends just want to come and hang out at the bar for a night out, that’s fine. They don’t have to pay attention to me.” They’d see the show and be legitimately blown away and say things like “Wow, I don’t really like Rap but I like what you do. I can understand what you say.” Sometimes, people already have their head in the sand. If you can get them to broaden their horizons a little bit, you can introduce them to something they can end up really liking.
JD: Music is a great gateway to broadening horizons. Speaking of which, do you feel music/art can bring the AV closer together. If so, how?
C: I definitely think it can happen but whether it will happen, are two different things. I think getting people to embrace something new they aren’t familiar with is harder than it sounds. For example, if you can get some people to an art show and you have a Hip-Hop performance there as well, maybe don’t say a Hip-Hop performance is happening. Otherwise, people could decide to stay home. If they come and check it out, they could say, “Wow, this is actually pretty good. This doesn’t sound like the shoot ’em up or popping bottles stuff I hear on the radio.” There’s a line in one of my songs that says, “The beat is supposed to keep your attention but the MC is supposed to keep it.” There are universal subjects that, if you can incorporate them, people who don’t normally listen to Rap when they hear it, they can hear something they might actually like it.