More News

But Chiles recalls one inebriated resident who was not as receptive as the rest, yelling at Chiles, ‘‘You need to get out of my face with that music.”

‘‘I was just like, man it would be a statement if I said my name was ‘in your face,’” Chiles said, whose stage name since that day became ‘‘Enyaphace.”

‘‘So I came up with the phonetic spelling kind of. It means ‘Every one needs young adults preaching ‘his’ arrival constantly and eagerly.’”

Originally from Washington, Chiles, 28, has lived in Capitol Heights for two years. Chiles said go-go was the music of choice growing up, fueled by local groups such as the Northeast Groovers and the Backyard Band. But it was Chiles’ upbringing that would root his musical path in religion.

‘‘I’m a kid that grew up in a church family,” Chiles said. ‘‘My parents would listen to Fred Hammond and Commission; those are two main gospel groups we heard a lot in our house growing up. Lyric-wise I was always touched by them, or Stevie Wonder, just different artists like that.”

Chiles combined his love for hip-hop and contemporary gospel music when he released his first gospel hip-hop album in 2000,”The Learning Process” and toured eight months visiting cities such as Los Angeles, Atlanta and Philadelphia with former Denver Broncos player and motivational speaker Steve Fitzhugh. Fitzhugh runs his own youth center in southeast Washington, called The House.

Chiles said it was hearing Fitzhugh speak on tour that inspired him to get involved with the youth in his community. He currently works in Largo as an area director for Young Life, a Christian-based youth mentoring group.

Now Chiles raps for the hip-hop and rock fusion band ‘‘ACross Life.” He celebrated the release of the group’s second album, ‘‘ACross Life Live” during a July 18 release party held at Temple Hills’ Church of Love Faith Center. Chiles said the group’s first album, ‘‘The Marathon” is currently on iTunes and the second should be available on iTunes by the end of August.

Chiles said there are many hip-hop artists who are ‘‘false flagging,” meaning when Prince George’s County performers are asked where they are from, they say they’re from Washington, D.C., rather than say where they really live, such as Capitol Heights.

‘‘I think I’m definitely one of those people who are optimistic,” Chiles said. ‘‘When I go places I’ll say ‘Prince George’s County’ and people will be like, ‘Where is that?’ ‘‘Well we’re right outside of D.C.’ Everywhere I go I try to put Prince George’s County on the map.”

Chiles said that to some performers, claiming the District as their home carries more clout than claiming Prince George’s County.

‘‘I think that Prince George’s County is, I guess, known to be like ‘That’s those bammas who got money,’” Chiles said. ‘‘We got a reputation of being stuck up and arrogant which isn’t true in all instances.”

Getting scientific

Absorbed in making the Hip-Hop Database the best Web site it could be, Tyrone Norris of Berwyn Heights had yet to realize his lyrics and likeness could grace the same Internet pages he helped build.

Now Norris, known as Mental Stamina and one half of the duo Rosetta Stoned, is one of many county residents making a dent in the Washington area hip-hop scene and slowly carving a hip-hop identity for Prince George’s County.

Norris, 25, lived in Fairmount Heights for 10 years before moving to his current home of Berwyn Heights and met his future band mate, Chris Carr of Washington, who now lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., at an open mic night in the District following his graduating Riverdale’s Parkdale High School in 2000.

In 2006, both Norris and Carr formed Rosetta Stoned, named for the tablet discovered in the late 1700s covered in Egyptian hieroglyphics and Greek language.

Norris said that like the language on the tablet, his lyrics are sometimes hard to decipher and he likes to insert references to philosophers and scientists in his lyrics. Norris said he often uses narrative in his raps, and referenced a rap he wrote about the viewpoint of life from a melting snowman with a bleak outlook on life.

‘‘My kind of philosophy on it is you got more lyrics in one hip-hop song than you’d have in one rock song,” Norris said. ‘‘Why are we still rapping about the same three topics? There’s so much stuff in history you can just pull from and that’s one of the things we try to do.”

Norris said Rosetta Stoned goes out of its way to embrace diversity, doing shows with reggae, metal, punk and funk groups. Norris said the indie hip-hop scene has become more diverse over time, noting he’s gone from being one of the few black people in a venue to seeing people of all races and ages.

Norris and Carr are working on releasing the 18-track album, ‘‘I Bet You Can’t Pray When You’re Dead,” and just finished touring in May with club music group ‘‘Yo Majesty”of Tampa, Fla., and the electronic rock group ‘‘Does It Offend You, Yeah?” from the United Kingdom.

Rosetta Stoned has played shows in places such as Manhattan, N.Y., Washington, D.C., Chapel Hill, N.C., and Miami.

‘‘A lot of the crowds were dance crowds, making it hard at first,” Norris said. ‘‘Our stuff is stuff you kind of digest and think on, but the punk influence and the high energy helped it go over well.”

Norris said that though he lives in Berwyn Heights, he finds the scene mostly on U Street in Washington. Norris said there is no established hip-hop scene in Prince George’s County, noting that out of more than 100 shows he performed in 2007, his only in-county performance was at Greenbelt’s New Deal Café.

But Norris added that places such as Mount Rainier’s Artmosphere Café are a step in the right direction.

Norris said one of the few D.C. establishments he could stand behind in bringing hip-hop music to wider audiences is Asylum in Adams Morgan. Norris holds a free show the first Thursday of every month at Asylum where artists are encouraged to experiment with improvisational music. Norris said most D.C. clubs, such as the 9:30 Club and the Black Cat, feature very few, if any, hip-hop acts and most venues are open to people 21 or older.

‘‘There’s not a place where you’re a youth to see a really good show,” Norris said. ‘‘Once you hit 21, it’s like ‘Now you can see something.’ It’s like until you’re 21 you just don’t have any options. You can go to a go-go. Those are your options until you pass 21. That’s one of the big reasons why the scene in this area has been so stagnant. We don’t really embrace the youth, we don’t cultivate the youth.”

Norris said one of his bigger goals is to get the youth more involved with hip-hop but said his biggest problem is finding venues that are free to the public, willing to house youth under 21 and are not as strict about censorship.

‘‘Kids curse more than adults,” Norris said. ‘‘If you’re trying to get them in the environment, you can’t sterilize the situation first. That’s one thing about hip-hop. It’s about expression.”

Norris’ latest project, the Food Chain, is a network of 12 Prince George’s County and D.C. music acts and a database for local artists, journalists, designers and business owners to spread the word about their craft.

‘‘We’re all doing stuff to promote each other’s individual efforts,” Norris said.

One Food Chain artist, Cole Policy, has lived in Greenbelt since 2003 and in College Park prior to that for five years as he attended the University of Maryland, College Park.

Also known as ‘‘Seez Mics” and one-half of the hip hop duo, ‘‘Educated Consumers,” Policy remembers attending rap battles known as ‘‘ciphers” in Washington in college and coming back in the wee hours of the morning feeling his time was well spent as he witnessed his peers stumble out of campus bars and fraternity houses.

‘‘It was better than sitting around and getting drunk but it wasn’t quite as boring as going to school,” Policy said. ‘‘I really enjoyed the people I was meeting as a result.”

Policy, who originally grew up in Kensington, formed Educated Consumers with friend Jason Fields of Philadelphia in 1999 and the two have released three albums and two singles.

The group just finished touring with Minnesota-based group Eyedea & Abilities, has performed in smaller cities such as Wilmington, N.C., and Burlington, Vt., and has seen its music reach as high as No. 11 on the College Music Journal charts. CMJ polls 600 college radio music stations nationwide to see what hip-hop they’re playing.

‘‘We want to plant the seeds in these smaller towns so we can build up a following for them,” Policy said.

Policy said few local hip-hop acts live in the District and instead live in the suburbs of Prince George’s County or Montgomery County. But, because there are so many acts and a wide fan base, it is harder to book performances at popular D.C. venues such as the 9:30 Club.

‘‘It’s a very transient city,” Policy said ‘‘Some of the fans that we’ve had over the years have moved out because that’s just the nature of D.C. People don’t move here and stay here for the rest of their lives.”

Eventually, Policy wants to earn enough money from performing to be a full-time hip-hop artist, run his own label or at the very least be a go-to hub for up-and-coming artists. Policy said hip-hop listeners can find their music at local stores such as DJ Hut in the District’s Dupont Circle and online at sites such as AccessHipHop.com, UndergroundHipHop.com and his own Web site, EducatedConsumers.com.

‘‘The best and worst part about the Internet is everybody can get their stuff out there but at the same time there’s a thousand voices yelling on top of each other,” Policy said. ‘‘The only way to get put on is to tour with a bigger act.”

E-mail Natalie McGill at nmcgill@gazette.net