Let me start off by emphatically stating, We Love you Hip Hop, we love doing the events with various b-boys, choreographers/dance crews, emcees, DJs, graffiti artists etc. who all embody the true spirit of your roots. However we also love cool air, especially during the “heatwavetastic” months that we’ve been experiencing as of late. The problem is, we’ve found that you don’t share those same feelings for our friend Air Conditioning.

To say that Rogue Squirrel has been active in the hip-hop community, over the past 4 years, would be putting it lightly. We’ve busted our asses in the community, like a band of gypsies traveling from town to town, we too have gone far and wide to show our love. From New York to Nashville, we’ve gone great lengths to, not only get our name out there, but to also show solidarity with a culture that is very near and dear to us. Through all of this there has been one common theme throughout many of these events, a lack of air conditioning or fans.

Now you may be saying, “Quit being spoiled, there are people in this world who live and work in the hot sun all their lives, you only spend a couple hours in the heat ya big babies.” and to you I say, shut up. We know there are people in worse situations than us, and in the grand scheme of things, this is minor—but this is entertainment. Also I understand the science of it all, in that when you get a large group of people, exerting massive amounts of energy things will heat up substantially. Even with that established, it seems that whenever we go to hip-hop events, they take the concept of heat to new levels and it’s no longer an anomaly as we used to think, it’s the standard, an expected part of the process if you will.

We did an event recently that we thought was great, enjoyed it quite a bit in-fact, there was an energy from the crowd, the DJs, and emcees that was palpable to everyone in attendance. The only problem, it was F*#KING HOT, like super hot, the windows were foggy, and my cold drink was lukewarm within 15 minutes of taking it in there. I’m not exaggerating, I really think my shoes were sweating, it was that hot… not my feet, my fracking (any Battlestar Galactica fans in the building?) shoes! Even with it being in the high 80′s/low 90′s outside, it felt cool in comparison to what we had inside, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never gone outside in the middle of summer to escape the heat. We followed it up with another event the weekend after, and again great event. Awesome, b-boys, poppers, music, everything. But yet again it was crazy hot, not as hot as the aforementioned event, but hot nonetheless.

So let me ask you hip-hop, why do you hate AC so? Look I know most of our mom’s yelled at us for trying to cool off the entire neighborhood, but we’ve grown up now and can turn on the AC whenever we want to. You have the power, use it! Maybe it’s because you think it’s not “underground” and we’ll accuse you of selling out if you lower the thermostat, well let me just assure you that we will not, in-fact we’ll thank you. If you still have reservations how about at least a few industrial sized fans and aptly placed iced blocks?

At least think about it.

Seeing and being involved in a few different eras of different art forms, it is safe to say that there is a fine line between biting and being inspired. Inspiration is the process of being motivated to do or feel something, especially something creative. When an artist, no matter the genre, is inspired to do something, the thing that gave them their inspiration serves as their permission or their “green light” to create. Inspiration is the “why.” Inspiration is the heart. Inspiration is the story.

In the early days of hip hop, biting was a huge crime. There are several synonyms for biting: style stealing, swagger jacking, copycatting, and sharkin are a few. In short, biting is copying somebody else’s idea, work or style and passing it off as your own; the professional equivalent would be plagiarism or infringement. Contrary to popular belief, in 2011, biting is still a crime.

One of the ways that biting has survived is by being passed off as “paying homage.” In rap, a rapper can get away with reciting a line that another rapper has said if they pass it off as paying homage to the rapper that originally said it. There is a fine line between biting and being inspired because there is a skill in being able to flip somebody else’s line while putting your own spin on it, but everybody isn’t good enough to pull that off.

In fine arts, some art teachers use pastiche as a method to help students develop their ability to pick up on details. According to the Oxford online dictionary, pastiche is an artistic work in a style that imitates that of another work, artist, or period. When doing a pastiche, the student is to pick a work of another artist and do his best to reproduce an exact copy of the work. There is a fine line between biting and being inspired because a good pastiche means the student did a great job of copying. Pastiche is a good exercise for developing artistic techniques but it does very little for the streak of creativity.

Bitten material lacks the “why”, heart and story. A produced work has to have a hint of originality to make it credible. I’m sure there has been a time where someone has came up with something on their own merit and down the line found out that what they came up with has been done before. There is still credibility in those situations because one person didn’t hijack the other person’s idea, one person just though of something before another person. “No idea’s original, there’s nothing new under the sun, it’s never what you do, but how it’s done.” – Nas People are going to come up with similar ideas. The execution of those ideas is the important factor that will show what is bitten and what is not.  There is a fine line between biting and being inspired. If it’s true then the inspiration will show.

What better way to celebrate the launch of our new website, our new gear and the independence of our country than by having a sale? Can you think of anything? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Use the discount code: RDWHTNEW anytime, through July 20th, and get 10% Off + Free Shipping when you spend $50 or more in our Store.

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DMV artist A-Class wears a black & white RS Mic Rogue Squirrel throw back in his victory against Madness in Grind Time New York’s “Most Hated” Tournament. Watch as A-Class represents the DMV well with a unanimous decision. Visit our media page to view the video.