New Hampshire hip-hop pioneers Granite State keep it ‘reality’ on their debut, ‘The Breaking Point’

New Hampshire isn’t synonymous with hip-hop music, but when Brian Ladd (aka Bugout) and Doug York say they want to change that, it’s clear they’re serious. Together, the two lifelong friends make up the Exeter based hip-hop group Granite State. Be sure you don’t “get it twisted” though—this isn’t a pipe dream from some hack kids in the sticks.

Their debut album “The Breaking Point,” def(t)ly channels the universal battle of finding your place in life into a disc full of bangin’ beats, catchy hooks and nimble lyrical flow. The Sirius Satellite Radio channel “Hip Hop Nation” picked their song “Gone With the Wind” for their prestigious “Top Five Hit List,” and fans from Australia, Europe and around the United States continue to fill their e-mail inbox and MySpace page with praise. The journey to make music almost broke them, but instead of giving up they turned their fight into an impressive musical debut that’s more likely to break them onto the national hip-hop radar.

“I had to have been 7 years old when I heard some people rapping outside when I was sweeping at my grandmother’s house,” York says of his first exposure to rap. “It just intrigued me. Everything they were talking about, and the way they were doing it.”

Between the regular after school ritual of watching “Yo MTV Raps!” and the rap music they snagged from their older brothers, York and Ladd fell hard for hip-hop.

“I started out rapping by writing down other people’s lyrics to songs that I liked,” York says in the husky voice that gives his lyrics a smooth musical swagger. “If I couldn’t remember the words, the next line or whatever, I’d make up my own rhyme to it, and it slowly evolved into writing my own stuff.”

Ladd lives up to his handle when he talks about rap. His eyes are ablaze (and yes, bug out) behind his glasses and his arms move wildly when he talks about what the music has meant to him. Passion spills out of him as easily as his rhymes.

“We went with hip-hop because you could say whatever. You got this vibe, this feel to it that rock bands were just not doing. Hip-hop just said so many different things,” says Ladd, who eventually saw a commonality of experience in the lyrics, despite the fact that he didn’t live in a NYC ghetto or sell drugs. “Eventually I realized that it doesn’t matter. You can see whatever you wanna see outside your window.”

Being fans of hip-hop in the mid 1990s didn’t exactly endear York or Ladd to many of their peers here in the classic rock stronghold hold of New Hampshire.

“Being around here, we kinda became outcasts in a sense,” York says. “ A lot of people were looking at us saying, ‘Why are you wearing your pants baggy? Why are you doing this, why are you doing that?’ And that’s exactly what hip-hop was in society—it was outcast. These are the outcasts talking about how they’re outcasts in society, and we’re the outcasts in our own town, we had that mutual bond. That just drove us to it even more.”

“Darker Than Blue” kicks off a lighthearted bouncing beat and soulful horn lines that belie the darker undercurrents of the lyrics running through most of the record. The melodic keys and the hand claps that drive “What Up B?” can’t help but make you feel good, even as the song documents some troubles. “Starting Line Up” has an adrenaline-pumping, chest-thumping freestyle feel, and it’s a clear highlight. For a “local” record, the tracks stand up against anything out there today. Beats are provided by Granite State’s long time pals DC the Midi Alien (of Portsmouth), and the 24-year-old promotion/DJ/producer whiz Statik Selektah (Patrick Baril), who grew up with the guys in Exeter, too.

Coming up with this material didn’t happen overnight, though.

When they were young, Bugout and York devoured albums by Nas, Biggie, Rakim and Jay Z, among others, soaking up the style, the lyrics and the message. They honed their lyrical chops, rhyming in friends’ rooms and impromptu freestyle battles. By the time they were out of high school, each had been performing solo (Doug York as Catch Wreck at that point) and as a group with Statik Selektah. For a while they lived together in a Boston apartment while they tried to break into that scene, but it eventually fell apart and Ladd retreated to New Hampshire while York took off for college in New York City.

Their mutual attempt to snuff their passion for the music didn’t last long.

“I’m working this dead-end job—I’m seeing my brother and what he’s going through, and he just had a kid and he’s working every day,” Ladd says. “The way (York and I) looked at it was, our window of opportunity was closed. Literally. Like, closed, shut down. And I went down to NYC and I said, “Let’s get this window open.’”

Like a scene from Ayn Rand’s “Anthem,” 25-year-old Doug York suddenly woke up and saw his fate in the faceless hordes of New Yorkers shuffling off to work day after day like cattle to the slaughter. It was 2004, and he was doing his own shuffle amidst a younger crowd carrying backpacks to class down a giant stairwell on his street. The suits would head one way, and the backpackers another. One day, he couldn’t ignore the writing on the wall any longer.

“Everyday I’d walk down those stairs with the kids with the backpacks,” York said, “and I would say, ‘That’s the life I’m going toward, from the left side of the street to the right side.’ It would drive me crazy. It would make me miserable seeing all those people with their heads down, walking like robots to the subway. I said ‘That can’t be me, I can’t do that.’ I will never, ever, ever live my life like that.”

Bugout moved to the Bronx with York. The two huddled around a stereo listening to a CD full of beats from their pal DC and immediately got to work funneling their pain and frustration into song.

“We were at pretty low points,” says York, “We were like fuck it, let’s come together and form a group, let’s come together and call it one thing and get it done. And we said we were gonna give it a year, and if we don’t get something out in a year, then we’re gonna give it up.”

Happily for Granite State, it doesn’t look like they’ll have to give it up anytime soon. People have been buying discs and showing up at shows (including a sold-out performance with Statik and others at the Ioka Theater in Exeter last September). And thanks to MySpace and Sirius, the message is spreading around the globe.

“Everyone goes through that grind and that struggle. We just try to capture that the best we can,” says Ladd.
“We’re not trying to make any bullshit music,” adds York. “We want to make good music that people can relate to, and give them something.”

The fellas are keenly aware that calling themselves “Granite State” might not hold cred elsewhere, but they couldn’t care less. They’re making it part of their mission to put “The 603” on the hip-hop map. Their pal Statik Selektah is doing his part, working with 50 Cent and G-Unit, Capitol Records and plenty of other heavy hitting hip-hop cats with his promotions company. DC the Midi Alien’s beats are in high demand from many of Boston’s hip-hop acts, too. And after listening to “The Breaking Point,” it just doesn’t seem so far-fetched that New Hampshire could become part of the hip-hop lexicon.

Granite State isn’t afraid to break the mold a bit, either. For whatever reason, independent rappers don’t usually tour, but this year Granite State is taking off on a coast-to-coast run before heading to Europe, Japan and Australia. “Taking it one fan at a time,” they say.

“I call what we do ‘reality rap,’” says York earnestly. “That’s what we spit, that’s the songs that we create. No matter where you are, no matter what background, anybody can relate to at least one of the songs on the album. So many kids talk about keeping it real, and they don’t. We keep it reality.”

Granite State plays at “The Breakout Event” at The Frank Jones Center in Portsmouth on July 8 with Papoose, Statik Selektah/Showoff, Termanology, Monkey Biz and more. The show is 18+ and tickets are $25 at door and $20 in advance at Bullmoose Music and Diversity Hair in Portmouth.
www.showoffhiphop.com
www.myspace.com/granitestate