Wildstyle

Wildstyle is the brainchild of Kevin Beacham, that's me. In '86 I moved from Fort Riley, KS to North Chicago, IL. I was worried I wouldn't find Hip Hop like the scene we had in Kansas (yes, Im aware that may sound weird but we had a good thing going in Kansas, lots of Hip Hop!!). When turning on the radio all I could find was House/Dance music and I thought I was in a world void of Hip Hop, truth be told my eye may have begun to form a tear...though it never came in to fruition so it's excusable...ha.Anyway, when I started school there (Junior Year High School) I found many people involved in Hip Hop. Everytime I mentioned I rhymed someone told me that I had to meet Doc Rock (later known as Shakespeare of the crew His Majesti). Finally his younger brother arranged a meeting after school and we traded rhymes. I kicked my "lil" rhyme with some sing-song harmonizing, styling, and light battle rhymes. He then proceeded to kick one of the hardest rhymes I ever heard next to LL Cool J, Tla Rock and the other greats of that era. From that day forward I viewed rhyming and more importantly, battling (even though we weren't battling I still was very competitive whenever rhyming with someone) very differently.With this new mind state I set out to find some people to form a crew with. There was this cat in my math class who was one of the coolest cats you could ever know...ha. His name was Vernon Manor. He dabbled in rhyming and went by the name Def T (eventually upgraded to Guillotine). He had that smooth but deadly style. He also had a partner that he rocked with named LA The Mutilator. We started rolling together and dominating ciphers around school and youth center dances. Def T gave us our original name which was Rose Productions. At first I didn't know where the name came from but it had a ring to it. I liked the fact that a Rose was this "soft and delicate" thing but we were just the opposite so it was like our Trojan Horse so to speak. Plus we really needed a name and I couldn't come up with anything. However, eventually Def T became less serious about MCing and started to fade off the rhyme scene (although he remained one of my best friend for years to come). We also learned that the crew name came from his Barber, Rose, who he considered a wise man who was prone to drop knowledge on him while giving a trim, which I think is kind of hilarious, but whatever....Anyway, before Def T left the group he hooked us up with one of his other friends from Kenosha, Shannon a.k.a DJ Flawless (later known as Madd Maxx). We would go to his house and make lil demo tapes. Finally one day in '88 in the parking lot of the McDonalds on Martin Luther King Drive (one of a few local late night weekened hang out spots) me and LA were struggling to think of a new name. Finally it hit me, WILDSTYLE. I thought it was perfect. We had a unorthodox and unique style of rhyming. Plus I had a strong connection to the Old School and Hip Hop traditions which was relevant to the classic film of the same name. We both agreed it worked and from then on we were WILDSTYLE.WILDSTYLE was operational on the scene in the Northern Chicago suburbs (North Chicago, Waukegan, Zion, Kenosha WI, Racine WI, etc...) from 1986 until 1990. During that time we made a name for ourselves locally by rocking ciphers, giving a high energy live show, creating popular local demos, producing other local acts, and perhaps our favorite, winning battle after battle.Over the course of '88-'90 we wrote and/or recorded a little over one album worth of material (about 21 songs). Some were home demos and others were done in professional studios. We were approached by many people who were going to take us on to "big things" but of course they never happened. Eventually the strain of feeling like we were as good as a lot of the crews whose albums we were buying and videos we were watching caused the crew to have disagreements on how our career should be handled and eventually we just stopped working together....I don't ever really recall breaking up, just drifting apart...Expect more details on the crew, pictures, demos, lyrics, and hopefully some video to all come sometime in the pretty near future