HipHopClub.Biz/DELICIOUS VENOM

There is a power in hip hop that is easily understood among hip hop heads, but for those that haven’t quite grasped the depth of hip hop culture, it can be easily confused with mainstream rap and misunderstood simply as staccato lyrics about money, sex and drugs. It’s true, hip hop is about life and can include the material things mentioned above, but there is an entire hip hop culture that encompasses the essence of life through the creativity of different artistic elements.

One of these elements is carried out through the emcee or more commonly known as a rapper. The art of the emcee goes beyond keeping a beat or rhyming, talented emcees are wordsmiths with the ability to bend and shape language into meaningful and thought-provoking entities.

Delicious Venom offers songs that can inspire and captivate your thoughts bringing your consciousness to a higher level with lyrics like, “Give our people a voice to make choices amongst our spirits resurrected from the depths of underground scenes to obscene dreams come to life as demons of redemption. Perceptions of life are crisscrossed within our people, corruption causes blindness in front of our own eyes, we need to rise up and one day we’ll believe,” from Spoken Venom, the introduction to their demo CD, The Injection.

Delicious Venom is a dynamic Hmong hip hop duo consisting of brothers, Tou SaiKo and Knowstalgic Lee, that delivers passion and meaning through the poetry of their lyrics. Although their music is mainly hip hop influenced, their innovation and the depth of their creativity makes it difficult to box it within the limitations of any single genre.

Like their music, these guys are anything but typical. When asked to describe their music, Tou SaiKo responded straight-faced that, “it’s a swollen bowling ball lit on fire inside of an igloo. It rolls around in circles every two hours with smoke blowing out of its holes.”

It’s almost impossible not to ask about the origin of the name Delicious Venom. On the other hand, it becomes self-explanatory after meeting the guys and listening to their music, because only in the irony of such a thing as Delicious Venom can the life spring of something extraordinary exist.

Each brother brings a unique flavor to the group. Tou SaiKo describes his brother by saying that, “Knowstalgic brings an appealing, versatile and fluid flow. He has a zany playfulness that can really engage the crowd.” Whereas, Knowstalgic comments that, “Tou brings a passionate intensity with profound and emotional lyrics filled with poetry and raw emotion.”

Together, Delicious Venom is nothing less than a pure injection of rapture for the senses. Their music is filled with messages that go beyond being just entertainment as Tou SaiKo explains that, “hip hop is a tool for me to express myself. I want to share my suffering and experiences so that other people can deal with their own issues,” he adds thoughtfully that, “there’s a richness in the Hmong culture that affects the way we write. We are a fusion of cultures and being Hmong is like a natural enhancer – it will just come out in our music.”

Nevertheless, Delicious Venom delivers live shows that can’t be matched – they bring entertainment to an all-time high. It’s almost impossible to know what will happen on stage, except that Knowstalgic will daze you with unexpected things like squeezing between the legs of a chair as he did during the Equillibrium show with Denizen Kane and Doug Kearney at The Loft. Or that Tou SaiKo may grace you with a freestyle poem about an audience-offered topic while jumping over a chair as he did at the opening night of Wing Young Huie’s Ethnocentrism Photo Exhibition.

Live or recorded, they’re equally amazing. The ever-surprising creations of Delicious Venom are truly positive gifts to the community. Audiences can’t help but to be drawn to them as their songs show careful formation with a depth of experience and consideration for living.

Get infected by Delicious Venom! Their next show will be at The Annex Nightclub 528 Hennepin Avenue in downtown Minneapolis. Thursday, February 17, 2005 18+ Doors Open at 9:00pm. $6 cover charge.

Knowstalgic will be doing a solo set during the “Commingle Hip Hop Fashion Show” at Fine Line Music Cafe318 1st Avenue North in downtown Minneapolis. Wednesday, March 2, 2005. Fashion Show begins at 7:30pm. $12 in advance, $15 at the door.

Hmong Today sat down to chat with Delicious Venom and here is what they had to say:

HT: Why did you want to pursue hip hop?

Tou SaiKo: I got in trouble a lot when I was younger and got locked up. At the time, I was really inspired by the way Tupac could express himself through his songs. I felt an urge to express myself through hip hop.

Knowstalgic: I’ve always been into the English language – it was implanted in us early and I’ve just always been amazed at all the things you could do with words. That’s why I write.

HT: Do you prefer performing or recording?

Tou SaiKo: Recording is more intricate – it’s like going to work. Whereas performing is more like play.

Knowstalgic: I enjoy both. It feels real good after recording a song and the production is fun, but when you step on stage – it’s like a whole new world. The energy from the crowd takes you to a zone. It’s a high you just can’t get anywhere else.

HT: What would you like to accomplish with your music?

Tou SaiKo: We want to get past the mentality that music is just entertainment. We want to create quality music that can cause social change and that is appreciated, but not “trendy”.

Knowstalgic: Sometimes it’s self-satisfying, sometimes it’s for a greater cause – music can be used for so many things. I guess ultimately, right now, because hip hop is so new to the Hmong community and there are no roads paved – we’d like to pave those roads for aspiring artists.

HT: If you could only see in one color which would it be?

Tou SaiKo: Sepia, because it’s dreamlike and it’s got an immortality about it. There’s no death in Sepia – it’s beyond death.

Knowstalgic: Green. I see everything as being natural where everything balances off each other.

HT: If you were an automobile, which would you be?

Tou SaiKo: I would be a Toyota Eclipse with a Cadillac hood ornament and a see-through muscle engine that’s dented.

Knowstalgic: I’d be a stolen car. Stolen by a thief on a high-speed chase where there would be a road block two miles ahead with cops ready to shoot the driver, but I’d be ready to break through the blockade