I've found myself in the unlikely position of playing guitar for a newly formed Hip Hop crew here in Melbourne. They have been doing this for years and are a bunch of well established personalities upon which I've been invited to hang with and jam due to a random encounter with a very cool guy called Link. I'd met him two weeks earlier then ran into him at Bimbo's with Jesse.

"Hey, do I know you? Didn't we meet like two years ago?"..
"Uh.. no, we met two weeks ago, we were both drunk",
"Oh! Cool man, grab a seat!".

We started chatting and he found I was after a band, "I'm trying to put an organic crew together, you should jam with us". I said "OK!".

It's been cool, we head out on Tuesdays to a big band house full of instruments and bongs, it's cool being in the atmosphere of a 'crew band house' again. So far I've been good, not shying away from the situation or becoming too intimidated, which is tricky because there's 12 of them and they've been friends for donkeys years.

Except there was this one spot where I was handed a guitar by one of the lead MC's and asked to play a groove. I didn't know what to play so shied away.. suddenly everything stopped. Like a needle screeching on a vinyl record and all faces were on me.. he says,

'If youre gonna be a member of the society you dont and it's on you to play something, you play something. If we throw the ball at you its on you and you better not drop it allright? If i say play some cool shit, you play some cool shit, and if i say break down, you play some cool shirt thats a bit cooler than what you just played, and if you drop the ball you dont want to be on stage with me because i will rip you apart, if you're one of us and i wont put up with that from the society! so play something, play it slow, and play it NOW'.

I was packing shit, and there was no time to think, "FINGERS GO" I shot the message through my alarmed nervous system. Suddenly a groove started to play itself. I made a mistake, it sounded good. I repeated it. Faces started smiling, then they all started rapping. PHEW.

From there on I loosened up. The truth is I'm not a great guitarist, but I'm good at jamming on grooves. I got with the program and started jamming some funk chords. Songs were made on the spot. "I kill cunts for fun", "I'll pay you tomorrow mah man" etc. It's hard to describe how solid and fluid these guys are, and how witty as well. I was amazed but loving it. Discussions broke out about who was the best rapper, mos def, talib (no), biggie, tunafish, etc. Joints and beers were ingested. I was messed up but loving it.

It's strange I was SO out of my comfort zone, and managed to not let it get to me, sure I felt it, but the excitement and intensity made up for the temerity of being in such a scenario.

Jam is on again on Tuesday so I better start jamming..

(I've downloaded 25 classic Hip Hop albums and taking a crash course on Hip Hopopology)