MC Aug Dog
Fri March 15
Paris Theater
“Basically, hiphop has saved my life at many different, crucial points,” explains August, a Portland emcee who also goes by the names Aug Dog, MC Aug, and A.U.G. “Some of the virtues and concepts I strung together from listening to Wu-Tang records, KRS and Rakim, Public Enemy, really inspired me back in the days when I was younger and listened to mainly punk rock That’s where I get most of my lyrical influence–from the punk rock side of things.”
Aug is detailing his long road into hiphop, starting as a troubled, punkrock skateboarder kid who sold weed in the early-’90s, to his journey to San Francisco, where he really developed as an emcee, back to Portland with his girlfriend and kids. As he tells me his story, he starts to spit it like a rhyme: “I totally lost it and ran to Burnside. The stars were filled with shooting stars, and the reality was integral and timeless, and all the cars were either cop cars or g-rides. I kicked the illest rhyme of my life walking over that bridge. That was when I first saw it was my destiny.”
He continues, “But punk rock is a very vibrant form of music that I don’t think the mass populace will ever understand. That’s something I really appreciate about it. The real punk rock is what I see embodied in hiphop as well. There’s not really much difference between all these things.”
Back in Portland, after helping promote hiphop shows for Mr. Brown Presents in the Bay, he hopes to do nothing less than be recognized–as an emcee and a promoter. “I want to be here for a long time,” he says. “What I want to do with hiphop in Portland is the same thing that was accomplished for skateboarders at Burnside–to create something so we all can have a medium to perform better. There are very few artists who get remembered or stand out. I just want to maintain.”
Aug maintains by having a smooth flow–his freestyles are impressive, usually without flaws or stumbles, and he avoids the typical, below-the-belt battle banter, preferring to rhyme about family, spirituality, or social issues, rather than rehashing the same old dis tactics. “Instead of spending my energy trying to dis somebody, I sit down, smoke a bong, and write some of my ideas from the abstract stream of consciousness–which is basically the freestyle form of writing,” he says. “A lot of emcees want to tear people down to build themselves up. My lyrics often explain that those who hate us have a weakness. I’m actually stupid or high enough to believe that I can blow up the evil empire, or think that I can help make a difference. Without that very special stupidity, all is lost to corruption and apathy. My rhyme is about maintaining honor and redefining wealth as experience, instead of monetary.”
Aug is adamant about this sentiment, and keeping true with hiphop’s elements, saying, “When artists lose that, they fall the fuck off–when they turn into Eddie Murphy and they’re just surrounded by a bunch of managers and people and all these phony-ass A&Rs, that’s who they become. You are who you’re surrounded by.”