Unsigned and Hella Broke: The East Bay’s Dirt-Hustling 1990s Hip-Hop Subculture

Editor’s note: This story is part of That’s My Word, an ongoing KQED series about Bay Area hip-hop history.

“I’ll never lose that spirit, but I don’t miss being on the street from morning to night,” says Corey “Sunspot Jonz” Johnson.

Johnson is talking about his years of “dirt hustling,” when he sold stapled and Xeroxed copies of his zine Unsigned and Hella Broke and cassette tapes by his rap group Mystik Journeymen on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley. Anyone who either attended UC Berkeley in the 1990s or frequented heavily trafficked storefronts like Blondie’s Pizza and Leopold’s Music undoubtedly has memories of being approached by a friendly teenager who moonlit as a rapper and tried to sell you a homemade tape. It was very nearly a rite of passage during an era now romanticized for birthing the Bay Area’s underground hip-hop scene.

Sunspot Jonz may have given the Unsigned and Hella Broke era its name, but he wasn’t the only one on Telegraph Avenue. Others who gathered there to sell their wares included the Berkeley duo Fundamentals, Kirby Dominant, Fremont rapper/producer “Walt Liquor” Taylor and his group Mixed Practice, the Cytoplasmz crew, Queen Nefra, and Hobo Junction, the crew led by the dextrous rapper Saafir. They duplicated their songs onto blank cassette tapes, added modestly illustrated J-cards and sold them wherever they could, from sidewalks along Telegraph and outside of local concert venues to newly launched message boards on the nascent internet.

At the time, the sound of the Bay Area underground was typified by warm and muddy tones generated by basic four-track recording equipment, with deliberately abstract lyrics. Its homespun quality stood in defiantly uncommercial contrast to the slick “gangsta” style that defined mainstream rap after the arrival of Dr. Dre’s 1992 opus The Chronic. Its ethos posited hip-hop as not just a popular musical genre, but a vocation that required personal commitment and sacrifice.

“Nobody in Living Legends had a job. Nobody had kids at the time. Nobody had anything but to do this every day,” says Sunspot, who rapped and produced beats in Mystik Journeymen alongside L.A. transplant Tommy “Luckyiam” Woolfolk.

Mystik Journeymen eventually built a modest yet far-flung cult following, traveling overseas and laying the groundwork for an international DIY touring circuit that others would duplicate. In 1996, the duo co-founded the group Living Legends, alongside Berkeley rapper The Grouch, L.A. rappers Murs and Eligh; San Jose State student Scarab; Fresno rapper Asop and DJ/producer Bicasso, a graduate of Cal Poly Humboldt. (Arata was briefly a member before returning home to Japan.) On Dec. 5 at the UC Theater in Berkeley, they headline How the Grouch Stole Christmas, an annual concert tour organized by The Grouch since 2007; Oakland icons Souls of Mischief and Kentucky trio Cunninlynguists support.

But for Sunspot, reminiscing about his formative years on Telegraph Avenue elicits complicated feelings. His drive and passion back then put “a battery pack in our asses,” as Fundamentals rapper/producer Jonathan “King Koncepts” Sklute appreciatively notes. Yet it also was an extreme result of surviving as a starving artist.

“Do I miss being on the street?” asks Sunspot, whose many 2025 projects include releasing a solo album (Bad to the Bonez), organizing his annual “Hip Hop Fairyland” back-to-school bazaar at Children’s Fairyland through his Hip-Hop Scholastics nonprofit, and publishing a children’s book he wrote and illustrated (Werewolves Want the Moon for Christmas). “I would literally wake up, scrape together money I had to get on the bus or BART from East Oakland to Berkeley, and unless I sold a tape, I wasn’t getting two things: I wasn’t getting lunch, and I wasn’t getting a ride home, because I needed to make enough for the bus fare home.

“I am done with those days.”

From high school to the Avenue

The roots of Telegraph Avenue as a brief yet memorable hub for local hip-hop entrepreneurs lie in the University of California, Berkeley. Located at the northernmost end of Telegraph, it’s an unofficial gateway for students to the rest of the Bay Area. At the dawn of the 1990s, as the culture blossomed both locally and nationally, small groups of youth in ciphers joined the annoyingly loud drum circles and couples furiously making out on park benches that typified the daily Sproul Plaza backdrop.

Back then, “[Telegraph was] the magnetism point of the entire Bay Area, of something for young people to go and do,” says Bret “Karma” Sweet of Fundamentals. “If you went to Telegraph next week and you would see all the streets are blocked off because there’s [a street festival] where they can sell things for Black Friday, that’s how Telegraph used to be every day, especially weekends from 1993 to 2001.”

Amid a confluence of developments around the Bay, from Oakland’s Digital Underground on KMEL-FM and Billboard charts to Festival at the Lake in Lake Merritt, there was the emergence of The Afro House, a South Berkeley student co-op established in 1977, as a spot for house parties. And there was the Justice League, a crew of 20-30 DJs and MCs that included Beni B (who formed the prominent independent label ABB Records in 1997) as well as UC Berkeley students Hodari “Dr. Bomb” Davis, Davey D, and Defari and Superstar Quamallah (the latter two became ABB artists).

A year after Davis graduated in 1991, he began teaching at Berkeley High, and drew national attention for leading its African American studies department. He was prominently featured in the controversial 1994 PBS Frontline documentary School Colors, which led media outlets such as the New York Times to blithely criticize his activism on integration and race relations. But Davis also launched Live Lyricist Society, an academic club where students could practice hip-hop elements such as DJing, B-boy dancing, and MC’ing. (Its name was inspired by the Robin Williams movie Dead Poets Society.)

In 1992, “I’m walking across campus on Berkeley High School, and I noticed that these kids are freestyling on the courtyard. … They’re doing it in the middle of the day, which was a problem for other teachers, because it meant that whole groups of people would be late to class,” says Davis. Eventually, he offered his classroom as a space for the students to practice their craft. “We never kicked anybody out because they were weak. The point was to get people’s skills up,” he adds.

As students in the Live Lyricist Society club, Fundamentals’ King Koncepts and Karma fondly recall campus visits by rap stars that Davis invited, like Outkast and the Wu-Tang Clan (with help from Justice League crew like Davey D, by then a well-known journalist and radio host).

“When Wu-Tang came, it was damn near a riot. [The organizers] had to do it outside because there wasn’t any indoor space that could accommodate that amount of people. They had to do a signing and a talk in the courtyard,” remembers Koncepts. “But the only people who knew Outkast at that time were people who were clued in. … We were ciphering with them in the hallway.”

Broke-ass parties at the East Oakland warehouse

Meanwhile in East Oakland, Sunspot formed Mystik Journeymen, after spending two years at college in Hawaii. He cycled through various collaborators before meeting Luckyiam on a trip to L.A. “Tom always has my back, no matter how psycho and stupid and childish my ideas would be,” he says.

Mystik Journeymen opened for the likes of Broun Fellinis and Conscious Daughters, earned a “Demo Tape of the Week” nod in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and were mentored by Rono Tse of Disposable Heroes of HipHoprisy. As the Journeymen’s local reputation ascended, Tse helped the duo get a publishing deal at Polygram, which allowed them to buy equipment and studio time at Hyde Street Studios in San Francisco. The deal should’ve led to a London Records contract. Instead, Sunspot says, “Polygram was, like, ‘We don’t know what to do with you,’” and released the group from its contract. “We weren’t ready. The way we were going to make it wasn’t gonna be by making songs all perfect for the radio. The way we were going to make it is by making songs from our heart.”

Tse also found the duo a unit at 4001 San Leandro Street, a warehouse in East Oakland. Sunspot and Luckyiam began throwing “Unsigned and Hella Broke” parties to pay the bills. Famously, they charged $3 and a package of Top Ramen noodles for entry. “They had no money. That’s how they were feeding themselves,” says Koncepts, who remembers “literally being at 4001 eating Top Ramen. Like, somebody would cook it up.”

As the 4001 San Leandro Street parties grew and, later, moved to Jackson Street Studios, the Journeymen attracted acolytes. One of them was Corey “The Grouch” Scoffern, an Oakland youth hungering to network with fellow hip-hop enthusiasts. He met the group during one of its performances at Yo Mama’s Kitchen.

“Hip-hop was like a subculture at the time that was growing and becoming what it is today. But it wasn’t there yet,” says The Grouch. “I didn’t hear of any unsigned artists following their dreams and putting their music in the world out on their own. And that’s what I discovered when I was introduced to Mystik Journeymen.”

1995 proved to be a breakthrough year for local underground rap. Mystik Journeymen dropped their first official project the previous year, 4001: The Stolen Legacy, then followed with Walkmen Invaders, both on their Outhouse imprint. Walt Liquor’s group Mixed Practice dropped Homegrown: The EP. Hobo Junction dropped Limited Edition, which generated an unexpected national hit in Whoridas’ “Shot Callin’ and Big Ballin’” after L.A. label Southpaw Records picked it up for distribution. (According to Bas-1 of Cytoplasmz, it was Hobo Junction rapper Eyecue who coined the phrase “dirt hustling.”)

The Grouch completed his debut, Don’t Talk to Me, after Sunspot jokingly threatened to “beat him up” if he didn’t finish it. The Journeymen captured the energy of it all in Unsigned and Hella Broke, a photocopied zine they assembled on an occasional basis between 1993 and 1996.

At its inception, this byzantine movement drew middling industry support. For rap fans that associated “Yay Area” rap with street-oriented mobb music like the Luniz’ “I Got 5 on It” and E-40’s “Sprinkle Me,” these indie acts must’ve seemed like the kind of local yokels that follow in the wake of bigger artists’ success, and whose art seemed insubstantial by comparison.

“I met MC Hammer at this [SF mastering studio] called the Rocket Lab,” remembers Sunspot, “and he was, like, ‘Who you guys signed to?’ And I was, like, ‘No one. We’re just doing it ourselves.’ And he was, like, ‘Okay, y’all ain’t doing nothin’.’ And I was, like, whoa. These motherfuckers really discount us because we’re not trying to be hoe-ed or slaved out to some label.”

Resourceful creativity meets police harassment

But for those who took the time to listen, the Journeymen’s tapes as well as similar releases by San Francisco’s Bored Stiff (Explainin’), the South Bay’s Dereliks (A Turn on the Wheel Is Worth More Than a Record Deal) and others were soulful, imaginative, and engrossing. On tracks like “Call Ov Da Wild” and “Runnin’ Through the Swamps,” the Journeymen explored their inner mind’s eye with bracing honesty, and earnestly questioned the meaning of life with ruddy melodies and slangy verses. Their music captivated thousands of local youth that couldn’t relate to the G-funk beats and thugged-out dramatics dominating mainstream rap and were inquisitive enough to seek out alternatives.

Fundamentals’ Koncepts — who also enjoyed the likes of E-40 and DJ Quik — had just graduated from Berkeley High when he and Karma made Thirty Daze and a Plane Ticket, a title inspired by Koncepts’ impending move to New York to attend NYU. “I used to find it real cringey, because I’m baring my soul from the perspective of a 17 year-old kid,” says Koncepts, who now works in the music industry and runs a label, Key System Recordings. (Full disclosure: I contributed liner notes to a Key System project.) “But I think it’s really sweet. My whole life was about to change.”

With little in the way of media attention, save for brief items in magazines like Rap Pages, 4080, and URB or alt-weeklies like the Bay Guardian that didn’t capture the scene’s growing depth, Telegraph Avenue seemed like a great place to boost much-needed awareness. It was a near-daily open bazaar, with crowds of students, tourists, and even the occasional naked person navigating streets filled with shops and street vendors. The best spot was on the corner of Durant and Telegraph, right next to Leopold’s Records before it closed in 1996.

“This is the economics of it,” says Walt Liquor, who sold copies of his group Mixed Practice’s Homegrown. Today, he’s a soundtrack producer and artist manager with several IMDB credits, most recently the Lifetime Channel movie Terry McMillan Presents: Preach, Pray, Love. “I would go to Costco and get a whole brick of 90-minute TDK tapes for 100 bucks. Let’s say I get 100 tapes. I’d just sit there and dub them shits. I’d record them in my bedroom, having fun with my homies … and selling them for $10 a pop.”

As Black youth solicited passersby, formed impromptu ciphers, took food breaks at Blondie’s and hung out all day outside on the street, police scrutiny inevitably followed.

Before he passed away this year on August 18, Living Legends’ Asop recalled how the police harassed him for selling copies of his tapes Who Are U and Demonstration. “I remember the police started running us off Telegraph Avenue,” he told me in a 2001 URB magazine story. “I had a box of tapes once and some money in my pocket, and it was just like I had dope. They handcuffed me, took my stuff and my money and let me go.”

Karma of Fundamentals was also arrested, thrown in jail, and forced to go to court and pay a fine. “The reason why they would do that is because the other vendors who were selling tie-dyed shirts or necklaces or whatever would go, like, ‘Hey, these guys don’t have a permit,’” he says.

Despite the hassles, Karma says he eventually sold thousands of tapes on Telegraph as well as on the internet, a grind that earned him a measure of respect. “Imagine being these kids who keep dreaming that one day they’ll know our name,” he says. “Even the guys who used to pick on you in high school are rolling down [the street and seeing you] and bumping your music. And they’re playing it for you.”

‘We couldn’t be eating ramen forever’

The formation of Living Legends in 1996 symbolized the scene’s emerging professionalism, moving from word-of-mouth house parties to more official event venues like La Peña Cultural Center. The Grouch, for one, welcomed the growth. “I feel like it’s natural. I feel like we couldn’t be eating ramen forever,” he says.

However, the music changed as well, shifting from the murky production and raw lyrics of the mid-’90s tapes to the clean keyboard bounce and DJ Premier-like chops that typified indie-rap toward the end of the decade, as evoked by standout Legends projects like The Grouch’s 1997 album Success Is Destiny and Mystik Journeymen’s 1998 album Worldwide Underground. Local companies like TRC Distribution catered to the rising tide, allowing local acts to press 12-inch vinyl and CDs with finished artwork — a marked upgrade from Maxell blank cassettes and hand-drawn covers. With more industry structure, the number of artists calling themselves “underground” and “indie” multiplied.

“That’s when I learned that saturation isn’t always great,” says Sunspot. “If we’re going to be underground, we need to be underground superstars. We need to be next-level underground.” That led the Legends to pursue larger venues like San Francisco’s Maritime Hall and, later in the 2000s, the national Rock the Bells festival. Still, his older fans often yearned for the “Top Ramen” glory days.

“I had an ex-girlfriend tell me, ‘Please never do a show in an arena.’ When it’s sacred, people only want you for them. They don’t care what that means for your career, or your longevity. They want you to be in the same box you always stayed. But the thing is, we are all artists, and we’re gonna evolve,” he says.

Today, original copies of Mystik Journeymen’s sundry demo tapes, Fundamentals’ Thirty Daze and a Plane Ticket and Hobo Junction’s Limited Edition trade for up to hundreds of dollars. For collectors and rap scholars, the Bay’s underground era yielded a rich source of creativity. However, its cult status means that many people don’t know or appreciate how much those artists contributed to local music history.

“When I look back on it from 30 years, every single hip-hop household name has been built by a major label, and if there’s one or two exceptions like LaRussell, that speaks to my point,” says The Grouch, who rues that the streaming economy tends to reward major label stars. “We were not able to touch on a household name level, and so that affects business, and the power you have in the industry.”

Perhaps it’s ironic that the heroes of the Bay Area underground, who once valued their distance from the music industry, now struggle to be taken seriously as artists because of it. But it’s also an opportunity: the ’90s Bay Area hip-hop underground is now ripe for discovery by anyone looking for an alternative to the rap mainstream. As the Grouch puts it, “I still say we’re the most underground, independent crew to ever do it, you know?”

As for Sunspot, who now operates as a multi-disciplinary artist and cultural strategist, he continues to carry the ethos he honed on Telegraph Avenue, applying the same formula to his current projects.

“I’ll never lose that spirit,” he says.