News

Party Boy

Continued from page 3

"The dude who was knocked down didn't even talk shit, he just kind of said, 'What the hell?' as he was getting back up. Well when he gets back up the dude who got tackled punches him hard in the face and knocks him to the ground again. Then as he is getting up the other dude runs over like a gorilla and kicks him in the chest and kicks the shit out of him. Me and Devin start telling them to cut the bullshit and Devin helps the dude who was beat down collect his things. And I basically try to stop the madness when all of a sudden another innocent dude just trying to get past the melee bumps into our promoter guy who hesitates for a second but then gets amped up and starts screaming on the dude. Then the biggest of the drug addled motherfuckers runs up and punches dude into a wall and just beats him senseless, breaking his own wrist in the process. At this point one of the girls tells him to stop and the big dude slaps the shit out of the girl. At this point I am dragging Devin the opposite way trying to hail a taxi...

"That shit made both our stomachs turn cuz it was just so completely fucked up."

Sonzala and the Dude skedaddled back to the hotel, and the next night the Dude had the club hopping, but this incident shows what life can be like when you're traveling around foreign cities on the fly.

It also shows how great Sonzala's blog can be.

"Doing the blog, I finally did something for myself," he says.

Shortly after his first post, an interview with Scarface, on December 31, 2004, Sonzala realized self-promotion was the key to taking his passion for music to the next level.

"I'm still fairly low key or whatever, but I used to be the type of dude who didn't even care if his name was on something, like, I barely said my name on Damage Control, and I still don't say it that much," he says.

But Houston hip-hop was on the verge of taking over the airwaves, and somebody had to step up and give it a push, and Sonzala would've been damned if that was going to be some carpetbagger.

"I realized, 'Look, I've got to start getting my shit known in the circles where it needs to be known, because I don't need nobody else coming down here and doing the shit,'" he says.

On March 26, 2005, he wrote: "If rappers in this city would realize how far their music actually reaches and would focus on getting to other parts of the world and really spreading this sound, we might have something here...I'll tour manage. Holler at me if you're real."

Since then he's used the connections he's made over the years to take Texas artists to Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Toronto, Whistler, Kristiansand, Oslo, Aarhus, Copenhagen, London and Amsterdam.

"It's not a ton of money," he says, "but it's decent and, shit, it opens doors for myself and all the music."

And no one can argue with that.

"The things that HoustonSoReal is trying to do are really things that are going to last, just not maybe something quick -- you know, throw a nice party, make a couple of bucks -- but something that will leave a lasting impression on people's minds about the scene and the music," says Bun B, who traveled with Sonzala to Kristiansand. "Matt's here preserving Houston's legacy."

Why else would a cadre of local rappers agree to perform for free when Sonzala helped organize a live taping for the British Broadcasting Corporation in July?

"The BBC thing was amazing," says his wife Melissa, "the fact Matt could get all these big names in Houston to show up and do it for free, just because he said, 'You should. It's good for you.'"

And it was also good for the crowd. A few hundred hipster-hoppers got to see DJ Semtex, a one-armed radio host from Manchester, using his teeth to twiddle knobs between sets by the G.R.i.T. Boys, Trae, Devin the Dude and Bun B.

"Matt is really right now one of the few people I can speak on in the rap industry who's really not in it for the money," says Bun B, "and I know a lot of people say they're in it for the art or whatever, but I've seen almost every artist, promoter, DJ, journalist, what have you, compromise himself at one point or another, and I can honestly say I haven't seen Matt do that. Everything he's done, his intentions have been pure. And that's really why, that's why I roll with him. There's a lot of other stuff I could be doing on the days I do things with Matt to probably make more money, but it probably wouldn't have more meaning behind it."

When Rapid Ric threw Bun B's "Get Throwed," a quintessential bit of Southern rap, on the turntables at Sway, the beat bounced around the Moroccan-themed club and the crowd of scenesters rose to its feet, clumping together in the middle of three candle-lit rooms. It was almost 2 a.m., two hours before last call in the City, and the tired never-never-sayers gave one last push before calling it a weekend.

Sonzala milled about in an oversized Trae T-shirt, snapping photos for the blog, while Summers chilled out in a grungified letter jacket, doing the low-key networking thing. Energy levels were waning, but the duo had done it again. Not their best showing, but definitely not a bust.

Fewer than 30 people showed up before midnight, but at the peak there were 70 on the floor -- a good mix, definitely not "all dudes dot com" -- and the City was reminded that Texas can bring it.

"I knew that at the end of a long weekend, that the party wasn't going to be as big as normal," says Sonzala. "And I saw Sunday night, when we went out, fucking the whole city was exploding. People were out everywhere. So I knew that Monday night wasn't going to be a huge night. But that was a good party...People who were there had fun and it was enough people to make it worth doing."

He covered his expenses, proving, once again, that he knows how to throw a party 1,500 miles from home.

"It could have been a little bigger," he says, "but it was still pretty cool. The next thing I want to do in New York is a Geto Boys night with DJ Domination and DJ Ready Red."

But not before taking Chill and Rapid Ric to Oslo, Trondheim, Amsterdam and London.

Gotta keep moving.

keith.plocek@houstonpress.com

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4