Posted on: August 29, 2007 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

Easily the largest public display of underground hip-hop in the US, Scribble Jam is viewed by many in the community as the gold standard in showcasing only the freshest, most innovative new emcees and producers. Founded by Scribble Jam Magazine and Mr. Dibbs (of Atmosphere), the event has called Cincinatti, OH its home, with tens of thousand hip-hop heads across the country making the trek annually. Growing almost exponentially every year, the festival has come quite a long way since its inception in 1996, where it was merely a small parking lot party that held as few as fifty people. Past performers have included the likes of Lyrics Born, Masta Ace, Wordsmith, Blueprint, Brother Ali, Slug, Eyedea, MURS, Dose One, Eminem (!) and Sage Francis.

This year’s Scribble Jam introduced the newest competition to the circle: the Producer Battle. Nonsense Records artist X:144 made his mark as Scribble Jam’s first Producer Battle Champion. Known as the featured emcee of the group X:144 & SPS, he showed Scribble Jam’s hip-hop enthusiasts a leap beyond his gift to gab. Hip-hop’s contemporary depiction of a young Herbie Hancock, his abilities surpass merely being a emcee or DJ. X:144 founded the production company Transparent Dark, laying down beats for MF Doom, Mars Ill, and Psyche Origami. Recently his talents were tapped to complete remixes for Brother Ali and Busta Rhymes. X:144 & SPS released their debut album “M.E.” in 2006, receiving 4 out of 5 stars from URB magazine, accolades from Okayplayer.com, along with other local and international publications.

Not his first battle champion title, X:144 was named Bangin’ Beats Producer Champion in 2005, as well as winning the Lounge Battle competition earlier this year. Already garnering a lot of respect in the underground hip-hop community, he was asked to write a blog for the DJ equipment company Numark called “Adventures in Crate Digging”. Samples of the beats X:144 used to destroy the competition are soon to be distributed to the press community.

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