Adam Boskey, ne DJ Bozak, has been perfecting his art of moving butts in clubs and radio stations around Champaign-Urbana for as long as he has summoned the courage. From humble beginnings torturing turntables and mixers in his parents’ basement, onto the dimly lit stages of the C-U nightlife circuit, and further, into the limelight on the national stage — DJ Bozak has indeed been one of C-U’s premier table turners.

“I knew for sure I wanted to be a part of DJ culture after seeing what DJ Premier was doing with it,” Boskey says. “An issue of Rap Pages magazine in 1996 pretty much cemented things.”

Most underground hip-hop heads have been asked the question: “What I should listen to?” Even on a steady path of slinging burned CDs, hours spent on Wikipedia, and a slew of names you might not remember, you still may not be able to grasp the “classics” of indie hip-hop. Leading you back to the start — dejected in your Nike Dunks — unable to lay claim to your bragging rights.

So what becomes of the budding backpacker? Somewhat knowledgeable, but unable to find some of the records his or her friends talk so much about. Any indie music scene can prove to be hard to get into, namely because of the constant come-and-go passing of styles, names, and movements within it.

After sitting down to a round table discussion amongst cousins who first introduced me to decent hip-hop, we managed to hewn an agreeable list of tasty sounds that will get you started.

Crate diggers in training, grab your headphones, and away we go.

“Sometimes I feel like hip-hop has me runnin’ in place.”

True. But, the ability to move minds and bodies keeps you from standing still for too long.

I admit: as one of the fresh-faced youth that came to Champaign-Urbana in 2002, and having been exposed to the hip-hop scene here for the lot of my college career (5.5 years and going strong!), I can say that the way Text describes his passion could be readily applied to hip-hop heads in this town. But, with a very hopeful outcome, if the current trend of albums and releases continue.

If you haven’t come across the Broke Rappers Coalition, or BRC, then you may want to stand in their path for a little while, if for nothing else but to catch Text performing. His most recent release, Jameson Dreams, is anything but a drunken romp through 13 tracks. Text weaves a web that dodges between full-on rhythmic confessional, to lyrical onslaught with several of his BRC brethren.

Alright kids, time to do some soul searching, and perhaps some well-needed crate digging.

French producer Onra is a mysterious individual, to say the least. In the greater league of vinyl jockeys and drum machine addicts – suffering through the leagues of paper cuts and musty basements – he came as a relative unknown, only having released albums as collaboration efforts alongside other relatively unknown French hip-hop producers (Quetzal, Fonky Family).

That is, until one of his releases landed stateside.

In the course of his first solo venture, Chinoiseries, Onra conjures the ghosts of the greats, as if he had been producing alongside them in their prime.

Thirty-five years ago, something big started.

With the critical, overflowing mass of disenfranchised people packing themselves into already overcrowded neighborhoods, something had to give. The outcry was deafening, but no one listened. It was too dangerous of a call for help to heed. Individuals were too deep in the measures of suffering that was created for them.

That is, until we learned to speak through the synthesized drum, 16-bar verse, and party-rocking with a message. In an unseen explosion of samba-infused, fat laced, four-finger ringed, record scratching, shell-toed fury, hip-hop broke out as a answer to America’s question of what occurred in the South Bronx and Queensbridge.

Thirty-five years later, the big thing that got started only made itself bigger. But, is big always good?