Blueprint released a novel called What A Night last November. It details numerous tour stories from the former Rhymesayers and current Weightless Recordings artist and provides readers an insider look into the mystifying world of traveling and performing around the world. Everywhere from New York City to Athens, Ohio is represented and every occurrence from the triumphant to downright crazy night makes its way into the 144-page book.
Print may now be able to write a sequel to his latest story collection and perhaps he would do it hesitantly.
On Wednesday (July 22) while en route to the next stop during the tour to support the April release of his latest album, King No Crown, the Columbus, Ohio native, along with DJ Rare Groove and road partner Supastition, generated another wild story. The three were involved in a serious vehicular accident while traveling between Kansas City and Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
“We got off the main freeway and got onto some smaller back routes in Iowa and maybe no more than an hour in there was a stop sign that I missed but as I got closer to it that’s when I noticed it and I slammed on the breaks,” Blueprint says during an exclusive interview with HipHopDX after the incident. “As I’m sliding out there we look to our right and we see this car coming at us without breaking or anything and he hit us pretty much full-speed. He ended up hitting the back corner of the van at 60 miles per hour and hit us so hard that the van spun around twice and flipped twice and ended on its side.
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“Once the accident was over, we were looking around and asked if everyone was OK and everyone was OK,” Blueprint continues. “We were kind of trapped for a second trying to get out and we saw people running towards us with their phones and that’s when we kind of knew it was serious and asked us for help. We eventually pushed the door open and we climbed out and that’s when we saw how bad it was.”
The crash didn’t claim any victims or serious injuries but what it did eliminate was the trio’s mode of transportation for the remainder of the tour. Stranded in Iowa and due for a show in Wisconsin on Thursday, Print and his team were running out of options. It was then that he turned to his fans for support. And it worked.
Blueprint Turns To His Fans For Help
Taking to his website, Blueprint spilled his guts over a detailed blog post about the accident and asked for support in order to procure another van to finish his tour.
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“I was hesitant about even telling people about this because sometimes, as an artist, you don’t want to look like you can’t be successful without people giving you something,” he said. “It’s OK to create something then have them pay for it. That’s cool. I thought long and hard about it and I was really on the fence about doing a Go Fund Me for it. I talked to my mom about it and through that conversation I was reminded that the van that was totaled actually was pretty much bought by my fans. I had done Soundset a few years ago and I had a merch table. My Adventures In Counterculture record came out and pretty much the whole festival I had a line at my booth and I made enough money that day to buy a van with it.
“When I thought about it like that, I asked, ‘Would my fans support me in this instance? Maybe I’ll just give them a chance and see if they would be interested in supporting,'” he adds. “I’m doing a 10-week tour and it’s not like I’m making a lot of money because we go to so many smaller markets and it’s largely dependent on keeping the expenses low and owning your own van is a big part of that so it made sense to me to let everyone know what was going on.”
In under 18 hours, Print received the $5,000 he was asking for from over 200 individual donors via the Go Fund Me post in order to purchase the new van. Currently 243 donations have raised almost $8,000 and that number is still climbing. Even with this quick recovery, Blueprint says he still feels guilty for causing the accident but fortunate that everyone was able to walk away unharmed.
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“I was considering canceling the rest of the tour, but you never know about the people who want you to continue who are inspired by you,” he says. “I was beating myself up about [getting in the accident] the day it happened. It took until later on that I started realizing the magnitude of what we walked away from. Today when we went in and cleaned out the van from the junkyard and just seeing how it looked like a completely different vehicle than the one that we remember. It looked like a bomb hit it or something and that’s when I felt less guilty and more fortunate that I was able to walk away.”
Blueprint has not found a replacement but plans on getting one as soon as possible. He recently detailed on his website that his friend, Bobby Silver was willing to meet up with him in order to lend him his van and then fly back home. Print says the gesture put him in “disbelief.” The “King No Crown Tour” is still slated to retain its initial schedule, aside from having to reschedule the Oshkosh, Wisconsin performance.
Regarding upcoming musical releases, Print is says he finished a collaborative EP with Aesop Rock that is slated for release later this year. He also says a new Soul Position album (with RJD2) is in the works for 2016.
View the full remaining tour schedule below:
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7/26/15 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Thunderbird Cafe
7/27/15 – Freeport, NY @ Bamboo
7/28/15 – Manchester, NH @ The Shaskeen
7/29/15 – Portland, ME @ Asylum
7/30/15 – Boston, MA @ Middle East Downstairs
7/31/15 – Buffalo, NY @ Studio at The Waiting Room
8/1/15 – Columbus, OH @ Double Happiness
Contributions to the tour van fund can be made here.
