Asheville’s black hip-hop artists and venue bookers seek common ground

Around Asheville, local music promoter Duke Finley has earned the name “Party Man” for organizing house and apartment parties over the past decade. But he’s encountered difficulty when it comes to securing shows for local hip-hop artists in the city’s performance spaces.

“I can’t get any venues. I’ve tried. I’ve called and left emails,” Finley says. “[A lot of] the venue owners don’t like hip-hop. Hip-hop, you know, you get all that B.S. — guns, fighting and smoking in their venue. That’s one reason why it’s kind of hard for local acts like myself.”

Finley says an occasional lack of respect for the environment by concertgoers negatively affects hip-hop’s standing among venue bookers, making it less likely for musicians within the genre to get shows. That means fewer gigs for black artists like CJ Harrison, who raps under the name YE. Harrison has had some success: He praises The Boiler Room for giving “everyone in the city” an opportunity to perform and is thankful for Timo’s House and its support of local hip-hop. He says The Orange Peel is also welcoming and that The Grey Eagle recently started working with more area rappers.

“The people who are trying to do better, they’ve got a vision to do something. … Everybody deserves a chance, in my eyes,” Harrison says. “We just want to show our talents, but you’ve got to open the door for me.”

Crowd control

Most of the time, however, Harrison says that door remains shut. He feels that many local venue owners are scared of the crowd that hip-hop attracts, despite the influx of money from entry fees, drink sales and artists’ willingness to provide extra security and meet bookers’ requests. Though fights break out at any style of music show, he says that when one occurs at a hip-hop event, the genre is unfairly discriminated against. Harrison cites a party at the now-closed Olive or Twist a few years ago when an altercation between four or five people ended hip-hop’s presence at the venue.

BUSINESSMEN: Local music promoter Duke “Party Man” Finley, left, and Justin Ferraby, operations manager at The Orange Peel, chat at the venue’s bar. Ferraby says he welcomes emails and calls from local hip-hop artists and is willing to give them a chance. Photo by Cindy Kunst