Honoring Hip-Hop Collective Native Tongues in the Bay Area

UPDATE, Aug. 30: This event has been canceled.

After more than three decades in the hip-hop game, the Bay Area’s own DJ Platurn understands how it’s all connected. East Coast or West Coast, lyrical-miracle emcee or gully gangsta rapper, the intersection of community and creativity in hip-hop runs deep.

Ahead of this Sunday’s Native Tongues Appreciation Night, a semi-regular event in San Francisco honoring the legendary East Coast-based boom-bap rap collective of Queen Latifah, The Jungle Brothers, Monie Love, A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Busta Rhymes and others from hip-hop’s “golden era,” Platurn makes those connections clear.

As a founding member of the Oakland Faders DJ collective and originator of the live series The 45 Sessions, Platurn’s work in the Bay has often overlapped with members of Native Tongues on the East Coast. He’s not alone, either.

Dante Ross, appearing Sunday, played a major role in the careers of Queen Latifah, Busta Rhymes and De La Soul during while working at Tommy Boy and Elektra Records in the 1990s. Ross also signed a young kid from Oakland who called himself Del the Funky Homosapien, and worked closely on Del’s first two solo albums for Elektra.

“He’s the dude who kind of started Hieroglyphics’ major label presence,” Platurn adds, noting that Hiero, the East Bay boom-bap hip-hop collective, is often viewed as the West Coast extension of Native Tongues.

Also appearing Sunday is Prince Paul, who with De La Soul produced the defining early Native Tongues album 3 Feet High and Rising. He’s also worked with artists from the Bay Area — most notably Dan The Automator, in the group Handsome Boy Modeling School. And DJ Rasta Root was the DJ for A Tribe Called Quest’s late MC Phife, who lived the final years of his life in the East Bay.

It’s because of these connections, as well as the wide-reaching influence of Native Tongues — a bunch of MCs who made it acceptable to be heady and overly lyrical — that Sunday’s event is significant, with its onstage visuals, stories and music.

“We wouldn’t have… Kendrick Lamar and Tyler The Creator,” he says, “if it wasn’t for these dudes actually making it acceptable to just be an intellectual in this rap shit.”

“Their influence,” Platurn adds, “is instilled in hip-hop history.”

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED.

The Bay Native Tongues Appreciation Night, with DJ Platurn, DJ Shortkut, Prince Paul, DJ Rasta Root and Dante Ross takes place Sunday, Aug. 31, at Public Works (161 Erie St., San Francisco). Tickets and more details here.