The LA Times’ SXSW Blog:

But the festival’s biggest surprise was the Blue Scholars, a Seattle group making its first SXSW appearance. They’ve been the toast of Seattle’s burgeoning hip-hop scene for the last few years, and for good reason. Their politically conscious lyricism, delivered smoothly and eloquently by Geologic, features political protesters and soldiers returning home from war. The group recalls the early days of hip-hop with one DJ and one MC. Check them out for yourself here .

The question that confronts local hiphop is this and this alone: Can it save hiphop as a whole? If this is not its mission—to maintain the form’s founding political principles, pleasure principles, and aesthetic values without waging a war on the mainstream (the error made by LA’s underground scene)—then our scene will crumble and vanish.