As Scribble Jam gets bigger and bigger every year, we would like to enlighten you on how it came to be the entity that it is today. The event is named after a Cincinnati, Ohio base Graffiti magazine. "Scribble Magazine" is put together by Nick & the TSC crew. He hooked up with Mr. Dibbs and wanted to throw a party with Old School type events. The 1st one was meager. It took place on a cold Monday in March 1996, outside at Annie’s down by the Ohio River. There were probably a couple of hundred kids there, mostly graffiti artist. The original 1200 HOBOs, Mr. Dibbs and DJ Skip spun, while a few b-boys got busy. There was also an open mic for the MC’s to participate in. After the 1^st one, G-Fresh joins in to help organize with Nick and Mr. Dibbs and help the event move to the next level over the next couple of years.

In 1996 we held three Scribble Jams, one in March, the 2nd in June with a MC Battle, the 3rd in August where we had a B-Boy Contest. They progressively got better and the attendance increased even though all of the Jams in 1996 were on a Monday. We had a few vendors selling their wares of underground hip-hop supplies. Word of mouth though is a powerful tool. Those who came spread the word on what we were doing to increase participation next time. We had a large following from Chicago coming down every event. Kevin Beechum from "Caught In The Middle" magazine was essential in Chicago's attendance. G-Fresh started spreading the word through the industry and got a lot of support from some labels, who sent promotional items for the event.

GRAFFITI: More Graffiti Artist (names coming soon) came down and did some nice pieces on the walls surrounding Annie’s.

DJ’s: Then 1200 HOBOs original members DJ Skip & Mr. Dibbs

MC BATTLE: The June Scribble Jam featured the highly touted MC Battle. It was the best of our local Cincinnati talent going heads up. The Empire (organization of MC’s, 1200 HOBOs and miscelleanous people) had a lot of its’ MC’s competing. It made for a challenge since a lot were cool with one another, and some from the same group. From the 1st battle we knew it would be interesting. Doug Mellow vs. Mellow Dramatic ended in a draw with a need for a tie breaker. Doug Mellow laid claim to the most crowd reactive line "I make you pass out like Marcus Camby" but still lost the tie breaker because the judges felt he had kicked some written. The favorite to win was Mallachie (nka Mr. Vendetta). He easily advanced through the rounds. The other two favorites were Dame Boogie (nka Plead Tha Ph5th) and Holm Skillet. All were from the Empire. Both Mr. Vendetta & Plead Tha Ph5th were featured on the now classic 1st 1200 HOBO’s mixtape "Tapes, Skills & Techniques" with freestyles. Holm Skillet was laying down underground lore and was featured on "Cincinnati" by MOOD signed to Blunt Recordings / TVT in New York. The 3 came head to head due to an uneven bracket arrangement. The 3 had to kick a rhyme about the 4 elements of hip-hop. Plead Tha Ph5th and Mr. Vendetta advanced. The two comrades went head to head for the title. Plead Tha Ph5th had the edge until his ill-fated line about Mr. Vendettas father being deceased slipped out. A heavy ooohh issued forth from the crowd. Mr. Vendetta took it with a grain of salt and finished off an apologetic Plead Tha Ph5th for the title.

B-BOY CONTEST: The 1st B-Boy Contest laid the ground work for the fantastic battles of the future. There were a lot of local B-Boys like Mephisto, Holm Skillet, Pase La Rock, etc... and few from out of town. Forrest Gump, a former Rock Steady Crew member who had relocated to Akron Ohio and formed the Ill Style Rockers, came and wowed the crowd with some tight techniques and tremendous power moves. Nino from Chicago also added flavor. It was an individual competition and we let the old school breaks roll while B-Boys took the linolenum. After the free for all the judges narrowed it down to Forrest Gump and Nino. They went until they couldn’t go and Forrest Gump was pronounced the winner.

1997 was a story book Scribble Jam. To us and many it was classic. Here’s why. We undertook a little more for this Scribble Jam, moving it into a full scale production. We spread the word hard and heavy. It was in all the trade magazines and all the record labels knew about it and supported it in one way or another. We had booths setup for vendors, more than last year, we had magazine coverage, and enough record label promotional material to choke a horse. We also planned a concert that featured signed and unsigned talent such as: Holm Skillet/Cincinnati, MOOD/Cincinnati (Blunt Recordings / TVT), Mud Kids/Indianapolis (Surf Records), RubbeRoom/Chicago (Chicago Indi), E.C./Chicago (Wicked Ent.), 5 Deez/Cincinnati (Dimensia Recordings), Solar/Cincinnati, TightKnit/Cincinnati, All Natural/Chicago (All Natural Records) & Storm Children/Cincinnati (Truth Music Progeny).

GRAFFITI: All of the old school elements, that many may think are older and dustier than their Grandma’s high school year book, were in effect. Graffiti heads such as Scribe, Qwest, East, Aero, Dase, Kwauze, Fokus, Espo, Jeka, Sizemek, Jase, T-Dee, Merz, Mokas, Brisk, etc...from crews TSC, SADK, FS, BSK, NASA, etc.. came from all over the country: Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Columbus, Detroit, Louisville, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Dayton, St. Louis, Minneapolis, New York, Kansas City, Salt Lake City, Oklahoma City, California and of course Cincinnati. Pieces were artistically developed over ever possible wall surrounding Annie’s and on the backs of the buildings. Stickers stating "Hey Toys Please No Tags" were available. Spray can tops of various sizes, Scribble shirts & the actual magazine which the event is named after were sold at the main Scribble booth.

DJ’s: The world renowned 1200 HOBO’s DJ crew picked up from the night before at "B-Boys Underground" WAIF 88.3 FM in Cincinnati where they set up 7 turntables for synchronized slicing of records which had ions dancing. This marked a first where all but 2 of the DJ crew were present and working out live for the first time. Mr. Dibbs the aloof leader lead the way with laserific cuts while the supporting cast of DJ Skip, John Doe, DJ Jerm, Jay and DJ Sure Shot added flexes to make any record collector wince and make any "I thought I was dope" DJ’s bottom lip look like it weighed a ton. Cutting and Scratching were the aspens of their game. Mad Flex from New York who spun for the B-Boy Battle & Penis from The Molemaen of Chicago who spun for the MC Battle added spice with phat selections for their respective events. D**n, those DJ’s made my Day!

MC BATTLE: We recruited heavily for the MC battle this year and we got some nice MC’s, some we didn’t even expect. The MC Freestyle started off with an elimination round which saw 51 mc’s amputated down to 18 for head to head combat. Some mc’s freestyles appeared to take on the shape of Charles Manson in front of the parole board. In other words as Jesus said to Satan each of the 3 times he was tempted "It was written". Not to distract from the contest because as the mc’s involved, the crowd, the judges, and a slew of dead poets stated after the dust cleared, this may have been the best MC Battle of the year, or maybe ever. Key contenders were Juice & Rhymefest of Chicago many a winner of poetical endeavors, last years Champ Mallachie of the highly visible Empire, Dose One of Skillz Scavengers, a 1200 HOBO MC & a regular at B-Boys Underground on air freestyle sessions, Choc of the Mud Kids from Indianapolis, Duece Leader & Crash of Dare Devil Micronauts from Louisville, All Star from All Natural Camp out of Chicago, Eclipse of the Trifiling Nitwits (Super Powers) from Cincinnati and Emineim out of Detroit. From the early rounds the favorites came to the forefront dropping gems on opponents to the crowd's delight. There were probably a record tie-breakers. Hip-Hop quotables were prevalent. One that stands out in my mind which occurred during the best and most difficult to decide battle was Emineim’s quip of Choc’s "using his facial tissue to make it a racial issue". He finished in his choppy style of delivery with "... now your mad and all your boys want to jump me, but go home and tell everyone you got beat by a honky". Dose One dethroned Mallachie of The Empire in a early round killing any notion of repeats. Eclipse represented for Cincinnati by ousting Ill Joe from The Empire by stating that "Your belly is so big your shirt use to say M but know it says Empire". Eclipse bowed out gracefully to Juice under the line "So your name is Eclipse, Things about to get tight, I’ma make it darker than Grace Jones after midnight". Juice and Rhymefest were the masters of punchline rhyming which left the crowd ooing and competitors wishing that they were spectators. Emineim brought a similar flavor and had the battles best punch line when he told Juice "You couldn’t make the crowd throw up their hands up if they swallowed their fingers". Ever contest has it’s politics and this magnificent one wasn’t exempt though it didn’t take away from the event. The semi-finalists Juice, Rhymefest, Dose One & Emineim advanced inside to the arena where it boiled down to Juice and Rhymefest. Rhymefest pulled what some would call a gallant show of sportsmanship or a cop out by not battling friend, rhyme partner and fellow Chicagoan, Juice for the title. The Style Wars must go on! Emineim battled Dose One as 3rd and 4th with Emineim advancing. Juice defeated Emineim to take the spoils.

B-BOY BATTLE: B-Boys are hard on the Boulevard. Anyone attending last years event was pleased. This year they had to be in ecstasy. There were about 8 crews: 2 Cincinnati (House of Representatives & SoulTek), 2 Chicago (Self-Explanatory & Chicago Champion Crew), 1 Columbus (Wreck Shop), 1 Louisville (BattleCats & Marea), 1 unknown whereabouts crew (Midwest Royal Force), 1 New York crew (Forrest, Burnizm & Dre Live) last years defending champions. From the warmups we knew this was going to be explosive. Mad Flex set it off like Harlequin 4 with vintage, vintage breaks. The winner Chicago crew Self-Explanatory brought a live floorshow to display with one member busting 3 flares to a windmill to halos and other ill combinations. One kid was spinning on his head for about 2 minutes and took his shirt off in the process. Forrest Gump, Burnizm & Dre Live put up a valiant effort with more eloquent up rocking maneuvers that true b-boys had to applaud. The best battle may have been the unsanctioned parking lot battle. Now that was Old School. Disrespect was claimed when the Columbus crew, Wreck Shop, had remarked for Burnism to leave the linoleum because he was to old. Forrest single handedly served the crew on the asphalt in a battle for names. Forrest informed me of his intent to have a shirt made with "Wreck Shop" on it, burn it all on video tape and mail it to them. Respect the architects!

PERFORMANCES: Due to a slight miscommunication we lost an hour and a half setting up for the show and therefore a few groups got axed (Solar, Mud Kids and All Natural got their set cut short). Despite that the show was pretty phat. The show was intermingled with the finals for the MC Battle and B-Boy contest. "The MC’s here were like icing on cake" Breaking Bells - Crash Crew. Performances were Phat. 5 Deez opened with a set of music with a jazz vibe backed by the production of Fat Jon & J Rawls (Lone Catalyst). The Storm Children featuring Rising Sun & Mephisto was on next. Hands down by the indication of the crowd, they had the best performance as people approached the stage as pulled by a magnet. Must have been their performance and those G-Fresh produced beats (shameless plug). TightKnit kept the electricity flowing with their performance. RubbeRoom dropped a sonic boom on the crowd followed by Holm Skilit who had the second best response from the crowd. Mood performed minus a member and E.C. from Chicago added spice with a very solid performance. Organizers offered apologize to All Natural who’s set got cut short and to the Mud Kidz and MC Solar. G-Fresh & Mr. Dibbs said they get first dibbs on next years performance.

The Survival of True Hip-Hop lies in the continued support of events such as the one described and the few others in the United States and abroad. True Hip-Hop is a dying breed among the commercialization of our street art. "It can be done, but only we can do it". Hip-Hop culture continues to reach next generations amiss the mutated predatoristic forms of commercial & gangsta rap. Style wars reign supreme in the minds of true heads and serves as an education to all who ventured out for the festivities. Keep in mind, support for Scribble Jam & events of it’s kind must be supported. As 98 comes around block off the days for Scribble Jam 98. It can only get better. In closing, for anyone attending the event there is only one thing in mind, SCRIBBLE JAM 98.

Articles: Sub-Culture, Urb, Scribble, Hits, Gavin, Caught In The Middle, etc..

Bigger and Deffer. We formed a Scribble Committee to tackle the gargantuan task of putting on a 3 day event for the Scribble. Friday night was a meet and greet Concert at Ripley’s Alive featuring: Akil & The Industry/Dayton (Industry Records), Megahertz/Columbus (Fondle’em Records), Lioness/Cincinnati, Rook & Bishop/Pittsburgh, Ill Code/New York & Kansas City, MO and the Sebutones/Canada. Saturday were the events: MC Battle, DJ Battle & B-Boy Contest. Later that night was a concert featuring IsWhat/Cincinnati, Lone Catalyst/Columbus, OH & Pittsburgh, Atmosphere/Minnesota, Mud Kids/Indianapolis (Surf Records), All Natural/Chicago (Ch’rewd Ent.), & Storm Children/Cincinnati (Truth Music Progeny/Taylor Records). Sunday featured a Party in the park.

Prizes, Heat, groups that got cut out.

GRAFFITI: (info coming soon)

DJ’s: 3 HOBOs SPS, DJ Skip & Sure Shot. DJ Precise from Chicago, T-Dog from Virginia, DJ Drastic from Columbus. (info coming soon)

MC BATTLE: Winner ADM. Runner-up Slug. MC’s. Juice, Rhymefest & Eminem didn’t show. Nor did the 88 Hip-Hop MC’s show. Damion Eric, Mr. Vendetta, Ideal, Anacron of Project Blowed fame, Concept, All Star, Duece Leader & Crash of the Micronauts, Profound. (info coming soon

B-BOY BATTLE: Crews. Winner Phase II. Runner-up Desctructicon (Self-Explanatory)

(Pictures, Sound, Video coming soon)

Articles: (MORE (98 INFO COMING SOON)

SCRIBBLE JAM 99

Info Coming soon.

SCRIBBLE JAM 2000

Friday Night

The air was thick in what was soon to be the 5^th annual Scribble Jam. Having watched it grow into the event that it is today makes one marvel. The weekend opened up with a concert at Top-Cats featuring underground acts and DJ's from all over the country. John Doe of the 1200 HOBOs opened up doing a set with T-Dawg from D.C. Due to the overwhelming crowd we had to delay the performances slightly to make sure everyone was in. An All-star casts of performers representing various areas and styles of hip-hop commanded the crowds attention. 5 Deez (Cincinnati), Iskabibbles (Greenhouse Effect, Illogic & Plead Tha Ph5th from Cincy & Columbus), 502 Headz (Louisville), Truth Music Progeny (Storm Children, UnKut, Abiyah & Supapowers from Cincinnati) & Atmosphere (Slug, Eyedea & DJ Abilities). The Nobodies from North Carolina came without their group members having any identification and led to an altercation after the club let out that evening.

Saturday

The doors at The Ritz Night Club almost opened on time. Once again the line was thick. The parking lot was full of cars from all over the nation. All ethnicity's coming together for Scribble Jam 2000. Once inside the DJ's starting spinning and the breakers started breaking. While this was going on, out back Graffiti artist from all over the country were laying down some phenomenal pieces. They were painting the back of the Ritz Night Club. Vendors were out back as well as the Barbecue. Interstellar from D.C. performed 1st, ending a nice performance on a freestyle note. Shortly after, the B-Boy / B-Girl battle began. Nine crews in total with an all girl crew (except one guy) from Florida called "F**k Yo Momma", need I say more. The preliminary rounds were teasers. A lot of skill was displayed building up to the finals. DJ Top Speed & DJ Abilities had the honors of keeping the B-Boys & B-Girls moving on the floor. "F**k Yo Momma" was a lively bunch but went out to a much, much improved Jedi Imperialz crew from Nashville. The Battle went on until the semi-finals intermission and Artful Dodgers from Detroit took the floor and rocked it while judges tallied votes. The battles continued on with a new intensity. The most memorable part, which will be called "Taking It To The Head" where the two crews battling had a different member on each side do a different variation of head spin. It must have been about 12 consecutive head spin moves before they finished. The crowd went psychoticly wild. Scribble Jam 2000s B-Boy / B-Girl Competition went to the Junk Wartz from Minnesota. The action doesn't stop. Right after that battle, Code Red from Louisville did a hot track with T.M.P. artist Storm Children, UnKut & Supapowers called Bubblin' Wine. It had the whole crowd jumping. Now it's time for the DJ Battle. There were good competitors like Lynn Swan, DJ Spryte, Ragz and a few more. However, the focus was on 2 time Defending Champ DJ Precyse from Chicago and DJ Abilities from Minnesota. As expected, it boiled down to Precyse & Abilities. In the finals both had extraordinary sets. Abilities 1^st set was phenomenal. He ending by playing a vocal segment "now who is the faggot DJ" and followed that up with "DJ Precyse". Abilities had the record skip and fade out saying DJ Precyse. Precyse showed why he was the 2 time Scribble Jam champ. He rocked over Jay-Z & UGK - Big Pimpin with a beat juggle, then he cut flawlessly and vigorously over the instrumental. Abilities had a few minor scrubs in his last set and succumbed to DJ Precyse who achieved Scribble Jams first three-peat.

Now we are ready for the MC Battle. There was a lot of high hopes for last years winner Eyedea (Atmosphere), to repeat. He had just won the Rock Steady Anniversary MC Battle a couple of weeks prior. There were a lot of past competitors & winners returning (Adeem, Duece Leader, Skandal Da Ruckus Man, Optimus Prime, Unseen & many more). There were actually 91 MC's trying to compete for the prize! We gave all our previous winners & semi-finalists a bye in the elimination round (Mr. Vendetta, Dose One, Adeem, Slug & Eyedea) though not all competed. In a nutshell the elimination round was quite lengthy. After laboring through the elimination process 16 MC's where ready for battle. One of the highlights was an upset of Eyedea by Brother Ali of the same Atmosphere camp. It was close, Eyedea called Brother Ali an Albino Ape, but Brother Ali made a reference to Eyedea not having a tape out and won the crowd and the Judges. Lark, a female MC, was the 1^st female to advance into the competition rounds. Prime ripped through Sub-Con in one of the funniest rounds where Prime called Sub-Con a Bigfoot, dirty lumberjack, Chewbacca & an extra from Star Wars. Some how the last rounds were sped up which allowed each MC to go one round only. After the dust cleared the 4 MC's where Adeem, Blueprint, Brother Ali & Zol Zan. Blueprint defeated Adeem and Zol Zan took out Brother Ali by stating he had the Michael Jackson disease. Blueprint had a shot at bringing the title back to Ohio but Zol Zan (Sage Francis of Non-Prophets) won the Scribble Jam 2000 MC Battle. Unfortunately something always leaves a black eye on positive events. A cat from Wisconsin was beat down severely by Cincinnati Police officers around 2:45am after the event was well over. Witnesses claim the cat was beat mercilessly. It's a shame and all hope is that the victim is doing ok after the melee.

Sunday in the park

Sundays Jam in the park at Burnett Woods went over lovely. Food, drinks, music and people, what more can you ask for? Maybe some DJ's cutting it up and some more breaking taking place on the Gazebo. More performances from Espionage (Cleveland), Re-Al Entertainment (Detroit), Earatik Static (Chicago), Sounds Peace (N.Y & London) and Team Demolition from Virginia. The crowd was thick, supportive and everyone seemed to have a good time. They still do it out in the Park

Sunday Night

The wind-down party was just that. More phat performances at Top Cats: Mass Hysteria (Chicago), Sebutones & Sixtoo (Canada), and Anticon members like Dose One, Sol, Slug, etc…

4 elements reigned supreme that weekend. People from all over came together, peacefully for the most part, to partake in what was suppose to have died out years ago; HIP-HOP. Scribble Jam 2001 August 10^th-12^th in Cincinnati, Ohio. Ralo G-Fresh.

Squabble Jam 2001 Info Page

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