Minnehappiness: Last of the Record Buyers featuring Medium Zach

Dang! I apologize for not giving you guys a heads up about this special night. It was special for a number of reasons. Mainly, though, the night featured the founder of LOTRB, Medium Zach, and marked his 10 year anniversary as a beat-maker (word? That's definitely not a coincidence. Read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell). Zach had an extensive library to get through and a couple of times he had to rush through things he wanted to play. But he definitely dropped plenty of gems including some of his earlier works. There was even an unreleased joint that Brother Ali rapped over that uncovered the history of some familiar verses. He brought us from the beginning at the age of 16 to stuff that's still not released including a couple of snippets from the upcoming Big Quarters album. I also learned that he's been working with some local non-hip-hop acts. I forget their names and there isn't anything on his myspace. But be on the lookout.

I also learned that I've been trippin' by not signing up for BQDirect. There were multiple joints that Zach dropped that I've never heard before and assumed they were still waiting to see the light of day. Nope. A lot of them were, "This was on BQDirect November/June/September..." I'm signing my sleepy ass up as all y'all should! -------------> click to link to their blog and sign up on the left-hand side

An excellent feature of the night are the questions that the attendees can ask via host Brandon All-Day. I asked a couple of questions and Zach answered all of them very frankly.

1) Do you like to dig alone or with someone? If with someone, who? He does like to dig with people and I'm blanking on the crew he enjoys to go digging with. I apologize for my short-term memory.

2) What's your favorite city to dig in? Not only did he tell the crowd what his favorite city to search for records in was but he also named an unknown record shop that I quickly wrote down. Haha! I'm not telling y'all! Y'all should've been there! By the way, we're doing this road trip in the summer, Tommy!

3) What's your "guilty pleasure" to listen to when you're by yourself? He admitted that he listens to himself when nobody's around because it's awkward to listen to himself when others are nearby. He also said it as though it was more of a studying of his work as opposed to really enjoying it.

4) (I didn't ask this) How'd you get to be 'Medium'? When Zach started working with the Interlock crew people kept on getting confused between the two Zachs (Zachariah aka Big Zach aka White Jesus aka New MC). So since Zachariah is a tall dude, Medium Zach got stuck with 'little' Zach for a while. It was alright for a while until Zach got credited for some joints on an Interlock record and the credit was "lil' Zach." Zach wasn't feeling that but didn't do much about it until he ran into a friend at Hymie's. The friend referenced his credit, asked him if he liked it, and then asked him how he felt about "Medium Zach." It stuck.

It was a great night. I only wish that my boy Tommy could have attended not only to drop some jewels but also to experience it all.

Sidenote: as I was leaving I ran into Tasha from Black Blondie. She plays the keys, sings and looks pretty. I asked her when their album was finally dropping. It's coming April 14!!! I can't wait! The release party will be April 17 at the Triple Rock.

Oh, and Benzilla (a beast!) dropped some lavabangers (copyright, Lazerbeak). And it wouldn't be a LOTRB without Bold Illin' doing a little jig and bringing that soul-sample goodness.