The Best MC You’ve Never Heard Of

If you go to any corner of San Francisco, heads know who TopR is. If they haven’t seen him rip a live show or heard him turn a freestyle circle into a pit of “ohhhhs” and “damnnnns,” they’ve seen his name scribed on the window of the MUNI bus or in two colors painted on that wall off Broadway. Infamous as the drunkest rapper capable of catching wreck whenever or wherever, TopR is the definition of a true MC. He never kissed ass or played into the politics of the rap business; instead, he lived hip-hop the way it started — getting respect in the streets. It’s not some triumphant freestyle battle, 8 Mile type MC story. There is still more to be told, and with two projects slated to drop later this year the time may be coming where people in every city know who TopR is. Where’s the bar?

Where are you from originally?
I’m originally from Long Island, New York, and I moved to Santa Cruz, CA, right after the sixth grade. I lived there until I was about 15, then I left home because of problems with my family. That’s when I started squatting in San Francisco and going to open mics, rappin’ and shit like that. I consider myself from San Francisco, I’ve been there pretty much since then, nonstop. That’s where I call home.

Were you introduced to hip-hop when you were in Long Island?
When I was four or five my god-brother was a total B-boy graffiti artist cat, and he used to baby-sit me. So I used to go to his house, and his room was all B-boy’ed out, but he would always play me rap music. When I moved out to the West Coast he kicked me down his Run DMC tapes and stuff like that, so that’s what I used to listen to. When I moved to Santa Cruz they had this drug store that used to open up tape cases for people, and I would just rack up hella tapes. That’s how I started my collection.

When did you first start rapping?
I started rapping in ‘88 when I was about 12, and I was awful. I couldn’t really do it that well. I used to rap at school and get dissed by everybody, but I was the only one to stick with it. When people fell off, I kept going with it. By the time I was squatting out in Frisco I was getting pretty tight, and I used to go to open mics at the Upper Room with my homeboy Mohammed, the dude from The Real World. He used to throw these open mic sessions at the Upper Room above Burger King on Market St., and would never let me rap ‘cause he was like, “Who is this weird punk rock kid?” Finally they let me on the mic once, and I just ripped it, and ever since then he gave me a lot of respect. I met Boac and Boots through Mohammed, so that’s how the Earthlings got together.

What was the scene in Frisco like at that time? And how is it different now?
Fools were freestyling on the street more. Everyone as a scene was all together, and there weren’t as many toys. Like the people who were about it, were about it. It was before everybody started rapping, and the underground scene was still underground with cats selling tapes on the street. More people started doing it because they realized they could do it themselves. I guess the difference with that is now anyone with a computer in their dorm room, who doesn’t have any knowledge, can start rapping and put out an album in a year. That’s why you have so much wack shit because cats don’t really know what they’re doing, and that’s why you can’t sell tapes on the street anymore because people don’t know what they’re buying.

Do you think San Francisco as a community is supportive of hip-hop?
It’s torn because so many wack fools are doing it. And in San Francisco there has always been a big rift between the Mob cats who are doing the mob style music, and the real hip-hop cats. And now since there is so much weird, experimental, kinda toy hip-hop guys putting stuff out, the mob cats give even less respect to the real hip-hop shit, because they see it just as a bunch of white boys making some weird shit. I’ve always been lucky because I get along with cats from both sides; because when the mob cats were doing freestyle stuff on the streets in the early ‘90s, they remember me from back then.

Do you consider yourself a battle rapper?
Yeah, I came up battling. That’s where I earned my stripes and got my respect. People saw me as a freestyle battle rapper. They didn’t really have organized battles in Frisco in the ‘90s; it was like somebody on the street, or at a party rapping. Now the organized scene is different because it’s all biased because of crowd participation and shit. But back when I battled you looked someone in the eyes, and the person who lost knew they lost.

On your album Burning the Candle at Both Ends you talk more about life issues than typical battle rap stuff. How as an MC do those two sides differ?
Writing is writing. As you get older, and I’ve said it time and again, battle rapping is all fun and games on the street, but when you start writing songs, being the dopest gets stale not only as a listener but as a writer. If you’re using music as a form of expression, you’re going to express stuff that’s on your mind, or in your heart that’s been bugging you, and writing brings that out.

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