After last year’s highly successful second annual Paid Dues festival, rapper and promoter of the festival MURS, in association with Guerilla Union (Rock the Bells, Cypress Hill Smoke Out) have announced its return.
Paid Dues showcases exclusively independent hip hop artists, as evinced by their lineup. Performing at the festival will be: Sage Francis, Little Brother, Jedi Mind Tricks, Dilated Peoples, Living Legends, Hieroglyphics, Visionaries, Boot Camp Clik with Black Moon, Kool Keith, P.O.S., A-Team, Mac Lethal, Fatlip & Omni, Yak Ballz, B. Dolan and Isaiah. MURS will be hosting the event, and there will be a suprise guest appearance.
“What we’re trying to do with Paid Dues as we go into our third year is: Number one is focus. Being that it’s a festival birthed on the west coast we wanted to tailor the bill to appeal a little more to the region so we brought on local staples such as the A-team, Omni and Fatlip. To knock it out of the park we added the three major west coast crews Living Legends, Hieroglyphics and the Visionaries,” stated Murs.
“The second thing we are doing is expanding by grabbing more artists outside of the traditional indie hop family (ie Def Jux, Rhymesayers, Living Legends) so we approached Dilated Peoples and Little Brother. We also wanted to show some love to the decorated veterans of the independent hiphop scene so we reached out to Boot Camp Clik and Kool Keith. Third and most importantly we wanted to give back to the awesome fans who’ve supported us over the past two years to make the is the biggest and best Paid Dues yet. My partner Chang says third year is always the greatest and it seems to be like he’s going to be right, again.”
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“We are very proud to have partnered with Murs to build a true platform for independent hip-hop artists and their communities. The third annual episode combines the best and brightest artists from a myriad of labels, most of whom have new music or projects that can take advantage of our Paid Dues promotional platform,” added Chang Weisberg of Guerilla Union. “The Living Legends, Boot Camp Clik, Hieroglyphics and Murs all have special projects they will be showcasing for 2008. Sage Francis is working on his Strange and Famous label initiatives and I can’t wait to see Kool Keith and Yak Ballz! We are especially excited that SanDisk has partnered with Paid Dues to continue their efforts to educate and empower conscious music fans by encouraging our DIY audience to capture, share and distribute content by ‘Waking Up Your Phone.’ It is a very strategic partnership that will help shape the distribution of content that all these artists are capable of producing and sharing with their communities via mobile, on-line and social networking. As always, I’m sure Murs has a couple surprises up his sleeve. Murs for President in 2008. I think he could give the current candidates a run for their money–lyrically speaking at least.”
