Current TV’s profile of RA Scion: Janitor by day, Rap star by night
July 6th, 2009 by travis hayThe folks over at Sound magazine and a few other friends of mine posted this video to their Facebook profiles and I thought it merited sharing here. The video is a profile of Ryan Abeo, aka RA Scion of Common Market. The video shows a glimpse into a day of the life of RA Scion as he goes from being Ryan, a maintenance worker for a property management company by day, to RA Scion, the socially-aware rhyme-spitting MC fronting Common Market by night. It’s a good five-minute view if you have time.
One of the reasons I wanted to share this video is because it shows the human side of a prominent member of the local music scene, which is something that I feel is rarely done. Sure Common Market is probably one of the top two or three local hip hop groups making music in Seattle today, but like RA says in the video, he’s not going to be quitting his day job any time soon. That’s probably the case for most every successful local band or hip hop group you enjoy too, from Blue Scholars to Schoolyard Heroes. Yes, they are successful locally and yes they have been able to reach thousands of people with their art, but they also have jobs, families and lives outside of their music and sometimes they sacrifice those parts of their lives in order to bring us their art.
Unfortunately, the stories outside of the music are the stories that often don’t get told by myself and many of my peers in the local music media. It’s a shame too because those stories are often what helps shape the music we enjoy so much. Sure it is cool to write about how awesome a certain show was or how great a new record is, but, well, the musicians who bring us the music we love are people too and the stories outside of their music just don’t get told as often as they should. I think this video, in part, helps do that and I hope more local music media (myself included) will make an effort to tell these types of stories too.
Music journalist Travis Hay drops some knowledge and insight about local and national music news, offers reviews and offers a place for conversation on all things music.
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