Santa Cruz rapper Ross Rock prepares his first record
Everyone expects a certain degree of bravado in hip-hop, but what if a rapper has too much? That was the question local rapper and Slop Opera crew-member Ross Rock, whose real name is Michael Ross, considered when working on his recent song “Lurk,” which has generated over 6,000 views on YouTube since getting uploaded last Halloween.
Ross figured that all the typical rapper bravado about being the ultimate lady’s man, and how every woman wants to be with them, would, if grossly overstated, flip the cliché. His song paints the picture of a protagonist who actually repels women, coming off like a stalker.
“You have to have some sort of cockiness to be an MC, but ‘Lurk’ is extreme and just goes against the grain of the other stuff I was hearing, ’cause I’m rapping about being proud of being a stalker, a creeper, or whatever,” Ross says.
The idea came to Ross a little while after he made the beat. He liked it, but thought it sounded too much like gangsta rap à la Brotha Lynch Hung. He didn’t want to pretend to be a gangsta rapper, so he imagined a different way to complement the darkness of the song: make it creepy.
Ross re-worked the beat, substituting some of the loops with live instruments, which further removed it from its core gangsta rap sound. This isn’t the first time Ross has worked with live instrumentation in his beats. Ever since he’s been working more heavily on his solo material the past year or two, he’s been trying to build his own loops with instruments rather than sample other’s records.
“I really like the best of both worlds. My goal when I make music is to have a live sound to it, but not so live that I’m steering away from the hip-hop sound either, where it just sounds like a live band with a rapper on it,” Ross says.
Before solo material became Ross’s focus, he was more heavily involved with Slop Opera, a nine-member crew that was a major force in the Santa Cruz hip-hop scene in the mid-2000s. More recently, members have been moving away, so the group has been less active. Their songs were much more of a throwback to the 90s hip-hop sound when beats were simple and revolved around samples—and, obviously, crews.
“We were influenced by the golden era. Our beats sounded original, but they also sounded like traditional hip-hop,” Ross says.
“Lurk” leans more into the realm of the live band sound, while some of Ross’s other songs fall more into the classic hip-hop sound. Already,
Ross has about six songs ready for a solo album, and he hopes to release it later this year.
The musicians that play on “Lurk” were from a backing band Ross played with briefly called Gas Pedal. They also played on a couple of the other songs Ross has already recorded. Now, Ross performs on stage alone, with a DJ. But he misses the group dynamic of Slop Opera and even Gas Pedal.
“I really appreciate what a group is, on point with each other, doing backups for each other, all that energy on stage, it’s one of my favorite things to watch,” Ross says.
Even before Slop Opera formed in 2004, Ross had been showing his style off to the Santa Cruz hip-hop scene. He had a very distinct style: rapping really fast.
“I was really known as the person who did that in town. I’ve been doing it literally since 1999 when there were five other rappers in town, and I was the only one with a rapid-fire flow,” Ross says.
“Lurk” is a great example of the diversity Ross is striving for. There are still some verses where he raps incredibly fast, but there are slower repetitive parts, as well as some melodic, almost singing parts to counter it. It’s like each section has a different rapper in it.
“When I was younger, it was me talking a breath of air and going. It was the equivalent of a rock song where there’s just a raging Jimi Hendrix solo going six minutes through the whole song. I think now I keep it interesting by not just doing the same thing,” Ross says.
Ross Rock performs Fri, March 22 at Zelda’s in Capitola.
