Feb

20

Props Props

with Rich Medina & Akalepse

Wed February 20th, 2013

10:00PM

The Gallery

Minimum Age: 21+

Doors Open: 10:00PM

Show Time: 10:00PM

Event Ticket: $10

See More
happy hour
event description event description

FREE before 11pm, $10 after
 
$5 well drinks & $3 beer from 10-11pm!
 
This is a general admission event in The Gallery at LPR.

the artists the artists

Props

Rich Medina (Jump N Funk) and Akalepse (Truth & Soul) are obsessed with records and playing them for people. When they DJ they bring you that raw, outside the Top 40, heavy, fun, sexy, soulful and honest music they are both known and respected for. These guys are avid record collectors, each with a heavyweight stash of over 20,000+ records, so of course you’re going to hear things you don’t know… that is the point. But not the whole point, they play classic tunes right next to obscurities, always pushing the listening audience a little in a sincere effort to break new records and reintroduce slept on tunes simultaneously. The party they do together is called PROPS, it is a soulful music lover’s paradise.

Rich Medina

Choice defines the man. Rich Medina has made a life based on one choice that has transformed the listening experience of millions. DJ Rich Medina lives, breathes, and revels in sharing the type of music that make a listener remember his soul. It is this awareness of soul that brings listeners back time and again to hear Rich spin: heads nod, bodies sway, emotions expand and coalesce. DJ Rich Medina uses the decks to guide his people away from the ordinary and into the realm of their imaginations. His intelligent blends bridge unexpected song selections that build a collective consciousness of intoxication. Without even realizing it, DJ Rich Medina lures you in and makes you forget who you were before the music began. Medina spins you into the now, into the moment, into the vital essence of who you are. Medina credits his family’s Baptist faith as the groundwork and source of his musical inclination and intuition. Music was always a form of celebration and rejoicing. The first time Medina heard Diana Ross’s 1976 hit Love Hangover, in the family living room, he knew he wanted to be a DJ.
 
When he’s writing music, whether in collaboration with other musicians or a personal project, Medina always aims to inject a universal notion of the need for change. Rich Medina holds DJ residencies at prominent venues throughout the country. Most notably he is a defining DJ at his Little Ricky’s Rib Shack parties at APT in New York City. Every Wednesday night Rich draws a crowd that waits patiently in line to experience the Medina funk flow, and for the last decade Medina has been a fixture on the Philly nightlife scene. Saturday nights on a bi-weekly basis, DJ Rich Medina is host of Jump N Funk at the prestigious Martinez Gallery. It is through such residencies that DJ Rich Medina is able to cultivate his audience and hone his craft.
 
Always evolving as an artist, DJ Rich Medina transitions into the role of pre-eminent spoken word artist at clubs the world over. Rich writes words that convey messages of change and agency, self-determination and hope, and he is also the embodiment of those very same qualities and emotions. DJ Rich Medina, renaissance man, articulate performer and a down and dirty DJ who can go head to head with the best, is an artist who will transform the average experience of any club or venue and give his audience a night of music and words to remember.

Akalepse

To really get a sense of who and what Akalepse is you have to check the track record. Steady at work with the records since 1993 when he first put the needle on one, Lepse is the definition of dedicated. This dedication, passion, and integrity are the difference you hear when you hear him play or hear something he produced. Coming up in hip-hop’s Golden Era where it truly was your skill set that your reputation was based on, he honed his craft the only way that can really create an individual of his caliber – hard work. Couple this with humility and an endless respect for music and you start to understand how and why he’s become so respected in soul, funk, and hip hop circles the world over. Maybe more impressive, this success has been achieved solely on his own terms and strictly based on his talents.

 

Coming up as a Battle DJ, Lepse learned early the importance of moving the crowd. Back then, if you didn’t impress the crowd, you got yanked off the stage, and this sets a certain standard. With this show-and-prove attitude and through battling and doing basement / backyard parties in Long Island–where Lepse is from–he got his first gig as a tour DJ, DJing for Parrish Smith when PMD’s manager saw him rock a party. It’s been a lot of the same introductions to opportunity ever since: someone hears Lepse play and off the strength of his DJing, he’s invited to play somewhere else. Never being one for the hype, Lepse has moved through almost two decades of DJing depending only on his impeccable ear and his skills.

 

When Lepse moved to Brooklyn and started really pushing his mixtapes, it opened up the doors to what is today his worldwide fan base. Selling more mixtapes than most indie labels sell albums, Lepse began landing steady work and getting booked for shows off of the pure quality of his mixes. His tape “Eviva” landed him a ton of gigs, perhaps the most notable being a Monday night residency at NYC’s most esteemed venue for DJs to play at, APT. In a matter of weeks he was asked to take on a residency Wednesday nights there as well, this lasted 8 years until the club closed it’s doors forever. Successes like these, plus keeping things thorough at every show propelled Akalepse on stage with the likes of KRS-One, Cypress Hill, Kenny Dope, DJ Spinna, Lord Finesse, J-Rocc, DJ Scratch, & Just Blaze to name a few.

 

To maintain the momentum, Lepse always keeps the music fresh and interesting. An obsessive record digger, Lepse has at his command a library of 20,000+ LPs and 45s–all making him better at what he does. “I really don’t think of myself as a record collector. I am a DJ,” Akalepse explains in an interview. “Getting more records is like learning more words in a language. It gives me the ability to be more articulate as a DJ.” However, You could have all the rare records in the world, but not be able to do anything with them if you don’t have that ear for quality, inventiveness, and feel. Akalepse has these things in spades. So much so that Brooklyn’s own Truth & Soul records, the funk/soul imprint that is responsible for monstrous acts like Lee Fields and The Expressions and El Michels Affair, hired Lepse five years ago to bring his expertise to the label. Now Lepse is a jack of all trades for the label, from Label Manager to Head of A&R to house DJ.

 

Today you can find Lepse continuing to bring that raw, heavy, fun, sexy, soulful and honest music. His ability to run the full spectrum of soul music has officially become what he’s known and respected for. Akalepse and Philly-bred DJ Rich Medina run the worldwide respected weekly party PROPS in Manhattan, playing classics right next to “Are they really playing this out?!?”-type obscurities. This night, like many of Lepse’s other parties before it is about pushing music forward and promoting culture. In that way, it’s reflective of the choices and moves he’s made, and the high regard in which his craft is kept.

similar artists

SHARE THIS