For first time, Uptown brings hip-hop to Broadway stage with two homegrown artists

After at least 15 years of hosting concerts, Saturday’s show will be the first time Uptown Columbus has brought hip-hop music to the Broadway median stage – and two homegrown products are among the acts.

Uptown Columbus, the nonprofit organization promoting the downtown area, usually offers a range of popular music, including rock, country and blues. But now, Uptown president Ross Horner figures local concertgoers are ready to welcome this hip-hop sound, mixed with electronic dance music, also known as EDM.

“You have to know time and place and artist and context, and a lot of that’s been taken care of,” Horner said. “… I think this is the right time and the right place, and these are the right artists for us to bring here to get the diverse crowd we’re looking for.”

The lineup of three Atlanta-based acts is highlighted two Hardaway High School graduates: Adam Venable (known as the rapper Obeah) and Ryan Rulon (known as the multi-instrumentalist Memory Cave), along with the electronic band Modern Measure.

On Friday, Uptown will have the last of its Spring Concert Series with an Allman Brothers tribute at 7 p.m.

Performing in the first hip-hop and EDM concert hosted by Uptown Columbus “means a lot to me,” said Obeah, 34, who graduated from Hardaway in 2002. “When I was a kid growing up in a relatively conservative white family in the South and given the image of hip-hop, it was pretty tough for me.”

He heard people doubt he could make a living as a hip-hop artist.

“So I’m proud of that,” Obeah said.

He also is proud of his hometown becoming more progressive.

“Columbus has a lot of promise and cool stuff going on, but you’ve got to take risks to grow,” Obeah said. “… Columbus has a lot of artists that are relatively unknown, but their voices should be heard. Taking risks and doing events like this will give opportunities to a lot of amazing artists who don’t really have that stage now.”

Rulon, 37, graduated from Hardaway in 1999. He has played in Columbus venues, such as The Loft and the former Rhino’s (now Nonic) and the former Eighty-Five (now Circa), but this concert will be coming full circle for him.

As a teenager, he played on the Broadway median, not on the Uptown Columbus stage, but under a tent with other alternative rock artists.

“So to come back as a professional on the big stage, that’s pretty neat,” Rulon said.

Helping bring a new to this venue, Rulon said, “adds an extra layer of coolness to it.”

The idea for this concert was born at a Rotary Club meeting last year, when Obeah’s father, Mike Venable, updated Horner about his son and invited him to a performance. So they went together to the 2017 Imagine Music Festival at the Atlanta Motor Speedway, where Obeah joined Daily Bread among dozens of artists on six stages.

During that three-day festival in September, Horner was one of approximately 75,000 fans, and he came home committed to bringing such a vibe to Columbus.

“I was looking around and seeing all this diversity, just all types and walks of life at this event,” he said. “… It was more than good people-watching; it was a really good feeling. We were smiling from the moment we got there to the moment he dropped me off.”

Horner thought such music would be perfect for the “Hype Party” on the eve of Sunday’s UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale) Mountain Bike Eliminator World Cup event, attracting professional riders to Columbus from all over world to compete in America’s only urban mountain bike race.

Then adding graffiti artists and bike tricks to the lineup, Horner said, “makes this into more of an event.”

And folks can listen and watch for free, starting at 7 p.m. Saturday for the concert and noon Sunday for the races.

Motivated by the music and the scene, the next step for Horner was securing as the headliner Obeah, whose fame includes recording with DJ Lord and performing with Public Enemy. Connecting with Obeah’s agent, Colorado-based Whit Hawkins (whose wife, Rebecca Callaway, is from Columbus) allowed Horner to complete the lineup.

“It helps that Adam is local and he was able to bring us a couple of other artists who are also top notch,” Horner said. “It will give us a good chance to see what this music provides and if there is a market for it here. Sometimes, older people say hip-hop isn’t accessible. But this isn’t straight hip-hop. It’s accessible, good-feeling, upbeat music.”

Horner described the difference another way: “Most of it has a great message. It’s nothing about running through a brick wall; it’s about helping somebody over a brick wall.”

Mike, who publishes Columbus and the Valley and Valley Parent magazines with his wife, Jill Tigner, considers this concert a turning point for entertainment in Columbus.

“It really lets me know things are changing here,” Mike said. “That’s hardly the genre of music that would have been featured in a very public place like the Broadway stage in downtown Columbus. It signals that a lot of different kinds of people are coming here now.”

All of which is more reason to be a proud father.

“I’m very proud of Adam and proud of him for reaching out and grabbing his dream and doing it in his hometown,” Mike said.

Obeah understands why some music lovers would be reluctant to attend a hip-hop concert.

“The sad reality is that hip-hop culture is associated and pigeon-holed with negativity,” Obeah said. “But now, there are famous (rappers) with more positive messages, like Logic and J. Cole and Chance The Rapper and some Kendrick Lamar. Overall, the message and the way they’re living their lives is positive.”

Although he cautioned, “I’m an adult, so I write about some adult things children shouldn’t hear,” Obeah emphasized this concert still will be a family-friendly event.

“It will be more PG than G, but I can tailor my performance to the audience,” Obeah said. “… My stuff isn’t filled with foul language, so I can literally edit that out as I’m performing and people wouldn’t notice the difference.”

This concert also will break new ground for Obeah. He spent the past several months in what he called “hibernation” to remold himself as a solo artist after gaining renown as a collaborator. Most recently, he spent the past couple of years playing around the country with Atlanta-based Daily Bread.

“This will be the first big show I’ve done with that solo push, so it’s something really cool to do with a group from Atlanta that tours nationally (Modern Measure) and one of my good friends from Columbus (Rulon), who should be famous. … His talents are all the way across the board.”

At the Columbus event, concertgoers can hear some of Obeah’s new material from his album “Life is But a Dream” that will be released in September.

“I would say it’s more diverse, more of what I used to do but also more different styles, more melodic stuff, playing around with some different beats,” Obeah said. “I might even do reworks and different versions of pop songs on the radio.”

On stage with Obeah will be DJ Rashod Ali, who was his roommate at Kennesaw State University.

Although the duo Memory Cave includes producer and engineer Jason Kingsland, who won a Grammy for his work on India Arie’s “Testimony Vol. 2, Love & Politics,” Rulon performs alone.

Rulon described his music as pulling from “a lot of classic Eighties R&B and funk, around the time soul evolved to include more analog synthesizers. I collect a lot of stuff on vinyl that I dig through. Those records inspire bits and pieces, and I slow it down — really, really slow — and I find something totally new. Then I write and arrange my own instrumentation and kind of turn it into something unrecognizable.”

The result is what he calls “dream funk, ethereal and spacey, but something you still can dance to.”

Rulon has his own record label and record-pressing business, The House is On Fire. The new Memory Cave 7-inch single, with “Sioux Falls” on the A side and “Demolition Day” on the B side, will be available at the show.

Horner hopes this hip-hop and EDM concert is the start of more to come for this genre on the Uptown Columbus stage.

“I would love to see something like this take off,” Horner said, “where Adam and Whit come here and say they want to put on their own festival and we’re the conduit to put it on with them.”

What: UCI Mountain Bike Eliminator World Cup and Hype Party

When: Hype Party is Saturday, starting at 7 p.m., on the Uptown Columbus stage, featuring hip-hop and electronic dance music concert with Obeah, Memory Cave and Modern Measure, plus graffiti artists and bike tricks. Bike races scheduled from noon to 6 p.m. Sunday, featuring 19 professional and 25 local riders on the 400-meter course.

Where: 1000 block of Broadway in downtown Columbus.

Admission: Free.

More info: UptownColumbusGa.com.

This story was originally published May 31, 2018 at 3:45 PM with the headline "For first time, Uptown brings hip-hop to Broadway stage with two homegrown artists."