Baltimore Soundstage May 11th 2017

By: Ron Senyo

BBS Redefining Hardcore HipHop

Denver’s own BodyBag Syndikate perfectly blends traditional HipHop with the gritty edge of HorrorCore. Within a genre that is mostly known for its sometimes “gimmicky” image, BBS takes the rule book and sets it on fire, focusing on writing bars more than catchy hooks.BodyBag Syndikate is the new wave of this music style, and like the great ones before them, BBS gives a no fuck attitude, but still stays grounded with what matters most. The music and the fans.

Empire Extreme sat down with Franky Grudge and Anthraxe Killah after their set on the first day  of thePsychoMania Tour. 

Empire: Are you guys excited about starting the first day of the tour?
AK: Hell yeah, I’m popping my tour cherry on this tour. This set tonight was my first tour performance. We done some one-off shows. I feel like I got devirginized properly.
FG: Ya he did pretty good, I’ve done some tours before, but this is our first tour with BBS. First night of the tour. Our first national touring with our new record “infection”. We had a really good crowd response, I’m super hyped for the rest of this tour.
Empire: You guys are from Denver, How’s the scene out that way?
AK: It’s pretty cool there’s a lot of competition between artist and stuff like that, not a lot of love shown to one another. But I feel that’s starting to change for the better in that aspect. We owe it to Denver because without a big strong backing from your hometown for these national acts to come through, we would have never been here.
FG: The underground is very competitive, but that’s what cultivates groups like us.
Empire: Is there a lot of this type of genre out that way?
FG: There’s a lot of straight up HorrorCore groups out here, like murder rap type shit. You also have a lot of conscious rappers and more hip hop artists.BBS kind of meets in the middle of all that, its hardcore, but we keep it real too. We try to incorporate a lot of hip hop into the HorrorCore scene. We feel that nobody has crossbred those to the level that we would like to see. A lot of HorrorCore acts are more catering to Juggalos, and it’s not like we don’t do that we have music for juggalos too but not all the way.
AK: It’s dope tho cause they see were juggalo affiliated, and you know juggalos are frowned upon from people on the outside. But we appeal to the more hip hop side and write bars and are more lyrical. Everyone just thinks of ICP but non juggalos don’t even know good artists like Twiztid and G-Mo Skee.
Empire: I seen that you guys won the Juggalo Jam, how was that process?
FG: Ya, we won the Psychopathic Radios demo jam last year to win a spot on the Juggalo Gathering. We did like everyone else went sent in our 3 songs and sat around the computer and nail biting like everyone else who entered that contest. We murdered it, Killed that contest. There was another artist on that called Mr?E who’s out of California, super talented underground artist. He was the only one I was worried might knock us out. But we won the contest end up going the gathering, we were nervous because we didn’t know if anyone would come to our set, or if the juggalos weren’t going to receive us well, because we are juggalos ourselves and thought we would be just another run in the mill juggalo group. We packed the tent from front to back and got so much love.
AK: We met some people here in Baltimore on the first day of the tour that were like I seen you guys at the gathering, and they came out just to hear us too. We’re upside some heavy hitters on this tour and we’re like the nobodies on this tour and for us to get love on the fist day across the country is surreal as fuck.
FG: it’s insane, first day of the tour and kids are walking up to us already with BBS gear on, it’s unreal and super cool. During the set tonight were playing songs off our new record that just came out and it almost caught us off guard because I can hear the crowd singing our songs, brand new songs word for word and it’s a brand new record, and we’re in Baltimore. When a kid you never met before comes up to and has BBS tattooed on his face and he’s not even from Colorado. It’s not even just dudes it’s chicks doing it too.
AK: BBS tattoos are our inspirations, especially female face tattoos, those are sexy as fuck. And most women don’t get face tattoos and when they do it’s more girly stuff like flowers.
FG: Somebody’s daughter is walking around with a BBS tattoo on her face, it’s pretty fresh.
Empire: What do you guys think about the juggalo march? And possibly going to it or performing?
AK: I would have loved to do the show, I’ve been a juggalo my whole life and I’ve been a gang member, but to me Juggalos are not a gang. We hit them up to try to get on it but haven’t heard anything back yet.
FG: From the moment we heard about the March, we were pushing to get on it, and just be behind it. It’s something we really believe in. I’ve done time and got skipped out of parole and screwed over at the parole board because of my “gang” affiliations with the juggalos. It’s a cause that we full heartedly want to back up from the jump. Even if we can’t perform we want to be there to March and be behind it. We been hitting up jumpsteady to get on the gathering but with all the politics behind it.
Empire: Ya the juggalo split with ICP and Twiztid?
FG: ya were trying to make it clear we don’t give a shit about all that bullshit. We’re BBS and we’re here to do our job. I’m a juggalo I still listen to both sides of the music. Young Wicked is our homie, don’t get that wrong. Everyone knows we’re from Denver and Young Wicked is our boy. We wouldn’t be on this tour if it wasn’t for him, but People say that just because we are boys with Young Wicked that we automatically have his back, which we do. If some one tries to mess with him there going to have some face tatted assholes to deal with.But at the same time BBS as a band entity, that shit doesn’t have nothing to do with us. This is our job, all the bullshit going on between all that has nothing to do with us. We represent juggalos and want to make fresh music for them to enjoy and have something new.
AK: Rap beef and just that, and its kinda needed in HipHop, so when it comes to fools dissing each other, it’s well needed.
FG: shit is fucked up within the juggalo community and I single handely blame social media like Facebook stuff like that, it’s too much gossip. It put everything out on blast for the whole public to see. Both sides are going to be infected about it. This industry needs some bad guys and everybody hates us anyway so we’re BBS and we don’t give a fuck.
Empire: Anything like to say to your fans?
FG: We love and thank you for giving us enough support to go out on tour with Twiztid. That’s fucking awesome. Hope to see you at the Gathering. Thanks for listening and thanks for showing love.
AK: And if your’e not a fan yet, your new to BBS, check out our social media pages. DEAD GANG, DEAD GANG

BodyBag Syndikate will be on tour with Twiztid, G-Mo Skee, Young Wicked and Gorilla Voltage throughout May and June.

https://m.facebook.com/BodyBagSyndikate/

https://bodybagsyndikate.com

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Ron

Ron has keen eye for new talent, a love for the underground, and a tremendous passion for music of any genera. You’ll probably bump into him at a horror convention or some seedy club checking out the next need-to-know band.

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