Luck Sick of the South Bay Area hip-hop crew Sacred Hoop

The first time I met Luke Sick, I strolled through the backstage doors at the Maritime Hall in San Francisco after swindling a pass from a friend and duping the stoned security guy posted to keep people like me out. Luke was leaning up against the wall directly inside the door, a plastic cup full of gratis vodka and orange juice in his hand, his eye on the lookout for a joint that we all smelled.

He had come off the stage shortly before that, where he and his crew, Palo Alto’s Sacred Hoop, had performed their cut off the Cue’s Hip-Hop Shop Compilation for that album’s S.F. release party. With Vrse Murphy making beats, DJ Marz on the wheels of steel, Luke and a partner in rhyme, 99^th Dimension’s Z-Man, dropping rhymes, Sacred Hoop kicked a tight set to relatively empty hall. It was all good though. There was free booze in the backstage area, a joint in the air, and some girls hanging around. I hung out with Luke only briefly, but was very impressed by the crew’s live show and have since become a big fan.

The last time I met Luke Sick was just last week, when he called The Synthesis in to do an interview in preparation for Sacred Hoop’s upcoming show at Duffy Tavern. It was early, he was hungry, and the interview turned out to be much more of a conversation than a Q&A with any sort of structure.

But then, Luke and Sacred Hoop aren’t really all about structure.

Sacred Hoop started back in the early 1990s (that’s as near as Luke could remember on this particular morning; he says he suffers from CRS—Can’t Remember Shit) when Luke, after kind of running out of musical options in the Bay Area, moved out to Arizona and hooked up with beat-maker Vrse Murphy—who he hardly knew—through a mutual friend who introduced Luke to the fat beats that Verse created. At the time, Vrse was also rhyming, and Luke was DJing. The mutual friend who had introduced Verse and Luke, DJ Fondouglas, eventually jumped in and took over DJ duties, Luke began only rapping, and Verse stuck with producing beats. That was the first incarnation of Sacred Hoop, and the three moved back to the Bay Area. Fittingly enough, after Sacred Hoop released the Retired EP, DJ Fondouglas left the band, and was replaced by The Space Travelers’ DJ Marz.

Luke knew Marz from his mix tape, which Luke says he was constantly bumping, even before he met the young DJ. Marz is also down with the Cue’s Hip-Hop Shop crew, and that is a facet of South Bay hip-hop that Luke is also familiar with. Sacred Hoop had some stuff with two other Cue’s regulars, DJ Quest and Eddie Def, so Luke says hooking with Marz just seemed kind of natural. With Marz in the crew, the fresh beats of Verse and the thuggish flow of Luke were coupled with mad turntable skills.

To get the word and music out, Sacred Hoop runs its own label, Miasmatic Recordings, on which the Hoop is the only act. The label was started by Luke, Vrse and their homie Oak D, who handles all the business affairs of the label.

"The name Miasmatic comes from the word Miasma," says Luke. "It’s this befogging atmosphere that rises from the stench of dead bodies, and causes plague and shit. That’s pretty much what we’re all about… that and drinking."

With three releases—Bring Me The Head of Sexy Henrietta, Retired, and the forthcoming Last Days of The Hump Hut—Miasmatic is more than serving its purpose for Sacred Hoop. Regularly referred to by BAM’s Billy Jam, and mentioned now and then in the SF Weekly and the Bay Guardian, Sacred Hoop is building a name for itself, and its fledgling record label. But it is through hard work, raw skills and playing live that has gotten Sacred Hoop as far as they’ve gone. How far is that? Well, the group is about to ink a minor deal with a European label called Oxygen (T-Love, Curtis Mantronic) for a Sacred Hoop compilation that will contain some old stuff and some new stuff.

"I don’t even know what it’s going to be called yet. They haven’t even picked the songs," says Luke, who admits that the record itself isn’t all that big of a deal. However, he says, what’s important is that the release could lead to bigger and better things. "[Oxygen’s] main focus is to be shoppers to major deals that go through them so they always get a piece of the pie. We’re gonna try that with this one record and see what happens. Hopefully, we’ll get to fly out to Europe and play some shows."

What a more established independent label might be able to do for Sacred Hoop’s future releases is make sure that their product stays stocked on the shelves in record stores. After my introduction to Sacred Hoop that weekend at the Maritime, it took me a while to find a copy of the Retired EP, just because, when the stock ran out, that was that. Only recently has the band been able to reprint a thousand each of CD and vinyl copies of Retired. But that’s how Sacred Hoop makes records when they have to pay for all of it themselves.

"The way we chose to do it was with absolutely no advertising. It’s all word of mouth," explains Luke. "I’m really surprised at how well things have gone, but sometimes I really wish we had buckled under and borrowed money from people, but we never wanted to owe."

And they don’t. Sacred Hoop has done it all themselves, and though it’s easy to make the jump from thinking of these guys as semi-successful DIY hip-hoppers to darlings of the Bay Area hip-hop underground, that is not a status that the Hoop enjoys, or even wants, according to Luke.

"Definitely not. We want to be The Beatles, just as big as we can get. Shit, it’s just music and if we can make some money off it, that’d be pretty cool," expounds Luke, who just can’t be serious about the underground. "Why would you be?! It’s just a click too. It’s just like a mini-industry, people stabbin’ each other in the backs the same way. It’s still all egos and everybody’s scared ‘cause it’s ‘art.’ People are afraid to actually be themselves. When we were coming up, we got no breaks. We haven’t played at Cat’s Alley. We’ve never been asked to do Future Primitive. The underground is the same bunch [as the industry]—it’s a click, there’s popular people and there’s dorks. We didn’t want to wait for them, so we just started doing all kinds of shit."

And it seems to be working. Though Sacred Hoop isn’t blowing up any radio dials or clocking underground cred coast to coast, they are making a slow and steady impact on the Bay Area hip-hop scene, and that is what is getting name out there. In the meantime, Luke and the Hoop do what they have to do to get by, and most importantly, get by having a good time.

"We want to make a living, but we’re all really patient. We do a pretty good job of taking care of ourselves in different ways, not necessarily working side jobs, but you know, hustlin’ in a way, just through people we know… any way we can get free shit… just any way we get by with out doing shit—that’s our motto. We do a good job of that, and the people around us who support us know it. Everybody’s patient," says Luke, who doesn’t have—and doesn’t plan on having anytime soon—a day job. "Nine to five sucks. All jobs suck, dude. People tellin’ you what to do sucks. I like just sittin’ around, man."

Luke likes to party too, and along with the rest of the Sacred Hoop crew, is looking forward to coming to Chico this weekend. He’s partied here before, and for about 20 minutes, he and I exchanged Chico party stories before we parted ways.

"You’re getting’ me pumped. I’m gonna mix a greyhound," he laughs as I hear the refrigerator door open and close, and then the tinkle of ice cubes in a glass through the telephone’s receiver. "Here to the generation gap!"