Project Blowed

Twenty tracks documenting the open-mic night that started at the Good Life Café on Crenshaw in 1989 and moved to Ben Caldwell’s KAOS Network in Leimert Park in late 1994. The rule was simple: if you couldn’t hold the crowd, they chanted “please pass the mic” and you were done. Getting blown off stage is where the name comes from.

Aceyalone and Abstract Rude produced this compilation. The roster reads like a census of LA’s underground before the rest of the world caught up — Freestyle Fellowship, C.V.E., Ellay Khule, The Nonce, Medusa. The Pharcyde came through the same Thursday nights before Dilla ever touched their music. Ava DuVernay performed here with a group called Figures of Speech before she became a filmmaker, and later directed This Is the Life, the documentary about the Good Life scene.

The line from this room to everything that followed is direct. Nocando, a Project Blowed battle prodigy, co-founded Low End Theory in 2006 with Daddy Kev. Flying Lotus played those nights. Brainfeeder came out of that. The entire LA beat scene — the one most people associate with Stones Throw and Alpha Pup and the Airliner on Wednesday nights — traces back to a health food store on Crenshaw where you weren’t allowed to curse and the audience decided if you stayed on stage.