All About Scratch Dungeon Crew

By Neil Schloesser
Contributing Writer

Don’t Get Confused, Just Check Out the VFW This Saturday.

“The dungeon is an idea, a sound, a group of people, a name, um, and at this stage in the game it’s kind of turning into a brand but not in a bad way, um, it’s just a natural progression of things.”

“We’re professional amateurs.” (Laughter)

“[The Dungeon is] a group of individuals, it’s a not a thing, not a gang, it’s not a group, it’s not like a rock group or anything like that, it’s a grouping of individuals that have completely different ideas about what [to] do, and somehow, someway, it’s all melded together into one.

“And to expand on that, you know, with the individuality, I wouldn’t call the South Moorhead Scratch Dungeon a hip hop group, I mean hip hop is something that some members of the group do but when you think of it you know like, (Censored) and (Censored) are Scratch Dungeon Crew, they are down with the Crew, and what does (Censored) do, whittle wood and dress up like a Viking?  He could give a f*ck less about hip hop. (Censored)  could give a f*ck less about hip hop, even on the musical side, when (Censored) and (Censored) come out, what do they play? That’s not hip hop, it’s a derivative of hip hop, so therefore they live, you know, the hip hop lifestyle but the things that come out publicly as far as performance-wise is very much hip hop.

“What we do publicly, but when you know we’re all hanging out and having a time with each other hip hop doesn’t really have to do with it at all.” 

“The reason why the Dungeon is the way it is….we survive on each other….it’s a grouping of people that has kind of over the years grown into a into a family-like structure, you have crazy Uncle Earl over there and your little sister over here, it’s that type of structure.”

“Queen of the ass bugs.  He spent his day munching on testicle cords.”

“You are living hip hop as a musician.”

“And you are a musician.  You are living a musician’s life”

“As a practitioner of the art of hip hop you must live that life or otherwise what you are doing doesn’t make any sense.  Why don’t you talk there for a bit, (Censored)?”

“As for me, ‘What is the dungeon?’  I mean the Dungeon is like (Censored) said, it’s a collective of friends whether they are musicians or they are artists or they are cooks…”

“Pornographers.”

“…a cat, whatever they do, it’s just a gathering of friends which has over time pretty much melted into more than a friendship and more into a family, we all rock, the South Moorhead Scratch Dungeon, like (Censored) said about (Censored) and (Censored), he’ll make prints and stuff for the show but I couldn’t see (Censored) getting up and spinning record tables or spinning a rap or beat-boxing.”

“You guys are almost like a co-op without being a co-op, you’re really just like a collection of artists.”
“Yeah, it’s just a bunch of people who get together and a few of them do this music that everyone seems to really like who are in this circle of friends, or family I guess as we like to say quite a bit.”

“My brother is my brother and my sister is my sister, in the end like I wouldn’t say it was the main idea, like the driving force, but it was kind of like when we started forming the crew because the crew is built, you know, there’s different crews within you know, the umbrella, and uh once the crew started to becoming formed like a super group, it was the idea to almost become almost like self sufficient you know where we have our own artists, we have our own, you know, promoters, we have our dj’s, we have our own mc’s, we don’t need any of this outside world.

“...because if you can’t rely on (Censored) to say you f*cked up, or (Censored), ‘What the f*ck were you doing last night?’ That’s what you have to worry about, you don’t have to worry about some weird random dude that all of sudden came and f*cked everything up. In that I think it’s important to know that we work very well with other people outside of the Crew and the Crew is not by any means closed, any artist can work with any other artist, any person can associate with any other person, that sort of thing, it’s not like we’re a doomsday cult.”

“Exactly. Well, just the other day when I was hanging out with (Censored), me and him were doing some free styling stuff and he was just like ‘Oh jeez are you sure you should be doing this? The Dungeon’s not going to like it.’ 

“I said ‘Well f*ck the Dungeon (laughter). My roots and my seeds might be planted there and that’s my crew but I said I can work with whoever the f*ck I want you know, I don’t care, if I’m having a good time or you’re doing a million dollar track, I don’t really give a f*ck. I’m going to work with who I want.”

“That’s the fun thing about the collective, making fun of each other, you know, telling each other to f*ck off, but at the end of the day you are rooting for one another.”

“Doing the wiggle worm.”

“Well there are two dungeons. The basement is THE dungeon, and there is the whole…”

“The whole is like the house but I mean if we’re rocking something out in the Dungeon, obviously we’re going to be in the basement where all the music is.”

“But to refer to all of us as one is the Dungeon, like ‘Who you down with?’  ‘I’m Dungeon.’  It’s kind of the in-house sort of slang we’ve created, like if I walked up to somebody that didn’t know the Crew and called them a turkey they wouldn’t really understand what the hell I was talking about but if you call a Crew member a turkey, man, whooo, a stiff rebuke coming to you.” (Laughter)

“There isn’t a second Dungeon?”

“There have been people who have set up things in their basement.”

“But this is still the spiritual home?”

The Scratch Dungeon’s, but [others] have their own studios.”

“This seems to be the main greeting and meeting, where you’d rally your troops before you go to war.”

“The crew has changed dynamic over the last, say, year and a half, we kind of switched up the format because that’s the idea, keep it fresh, why rely on something that works, destroy that, amen, if it works, great, but it worked, it’s not still working, but in that you rely on techniques and things you know how to do.

“With this new idea it’s relying on some of the things that have made us memorable to people in the city. I mean because when you see an all-Scratch Dungeon show, it’s a memorable thing when you got people who don’t usually get down and your energy is shooting out towards them. They pick up on it and I’ve seen middle aged women ‘Hey, that’s pretty cool,’ and like that’s very good because then you’ve expended your energy for something positive, you made that person move, you affected them.”

One hundred twenty-five free cupcakes provided by Angel Cups. First come first serve. 

“Maybe I’ve been drinking since noon. Maybe I’m a little tall on the tea. You’ve seen this before. Get used to it.”

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If You Go

What: Saturday Night Annihilate
Where: Fargo VFW Basement
When: Sat, Oct 2, 9pm
Info: 701.235.8243