Cameron Knight

cknight@enquirer.com

It’s been two decades since “Cincinnati” was chiseled into the annals of hip-hop history when three local fans created Scribble Jam, arguably the most legendary hip-hop festival and contest in the world.

The artists topping today’s hip hop charts were all too young to drive when Nick Accurso and Mr. Dibbs, DJ Brad Forste, decided to throw a parking lot party at Annie’s Bar in 1996. Nicki Minaj was 13. Future was 12. Drake was 9 years old. Rhianna was 8. Even Beyoncé was only 14.

“It was really just 25 or 30 people,” Accurso said. “They kind of let us paint on the wall. We had some break dancers, we had Dibbs, and a couple other people.”

It was meant to be a launch party for Scribble Magazine, Accurso’s magazine project showcasing graffiti artists.

The next year, they decided to try it again.

In front of a crowd of about 500 this time, a young, then-unsigned rapper from Detroit entered the Emcee contest. During the finals, he traded words with MC Juice.

They passed a microphone between each other, wiping sweat from their eyes between rounds. The crowd cheered their punchlines from picnic tables.

Eminem lost to Juice that day, but the next year he’d be signed by Dr. Dre. In February 1999, he’d release “The Slim Shady LP,” which went triple platinum by the end of the year.

For the third wave of battle rappers, DJs, breakdancers and graffiti artists that rose up after hip-hop spread into the country from the coasts, Scribble Jam was the pinnacle. This was cemented by battles between rap giants like Eminem, but also the promise of a true hip-hop experience. The unheard of $10,000 top prizes offered some years didn’t hurt either.

“We were maintaining the graffiti aspect and the b-boys and the DJs. It wasn’t like we focused on one thing, and that was the biggest thing. We didn’t want to lose what made hip-hop hip-hop when we fell in love with it.” said Tony Heitz, who became a full partner in Scribble Jam in 2000, after doing venue promotion around the city.

He explained that hip-hop music during that era was starting to move toward commercialization.

“You had Puff Daddy dancing around in shiny suits and everybody’s blinging out, and part of what hip-hop was started on was kind of getting lost,” Heitz said. “You lose some of the pureness of the art form when you get to that point, and our goal was not to lose any of that.”

Accurso, Heitz and Forste weren’t alone in this belief, and each year more and more people flocked to Cincinnati to be a part of what was happening.

“We started to actually realize that we had a really cool music festival going on that was more about participation that just going to see acts,” Accurso said. “Realistically, this was the only type of event to ever go on like this since the '80s, since New York.”

At its peak, 7,000 people attended Scribble Jam. In 2004 and 2005, 50 percent of that attendance was from outside Cincinnati.

International attendance also grew throughout the festival’s 12-year life, demonstrated best in 2005 when Justice, an emcee from Australia, came to the battle and won it all.

Heinz said he was proud to bring classic hip-hop legends like Big Daddy Kane and Master Ace to Cincinnati, but was also blown away some of the once-in-lifetime performances that Scribble Jam spawned.

“The first time Adeem did his solo performance and he was in the middle of Annie’s backlot on a picnic table and he had a crowd of people walking in circles like he was a messiah. That’s the furthest thing from what he would want to be called, but even the guys from the Living Legends Crew that were in town performing that night were blown away,” he said.

The 2004 performance of Glue, a group made up of Adeem and DJ DQ, has been preserved on YouTube with the caption: “Glue sets the crowd on fire at Scribble Jam in 2004. If you were there, you remember this quite well…” Thousands of people march around the table while the bespectacled rapper from New Hampshire delivers his lines.

Heitz admitted that some local emcees, DJs and dancers felt they weren’t given enough stage time by the festival, but that the majority of Cincinnati hip-hop artists and fans showered the event with support.

“It meant the world. It meant exposure. Not only were they able to participate in something … a lot of them got one-on-one face time with their heroes,” Heitz said. “It was nothing without the people that came for it and supported the event. It would never have gotten to the level it did without the true hip-hop fans that came out for it.”

Despite a large and growing fanbase, Scribble Jam wasn’t making any money and when sponsorships dried up during the 2008 economic downturn. Accurso, Heitz and Forste decided to shut it down.

“It only had to do with money,” Accurso said.

He said Scribble Jam cost about $100,000 to put on each year, and a large portion of those costs fell on him and his partners. He said some years they each might go home with $1,000 to show for their work.

“We were making a little bit of money from video sales and pennies on the dollar from the door, but after the event was over there would be days where Nick and I are paying out of pocket to cover the expenses on money we lost on the event,” Heitz said.

Rumors have sprung up several times over the past eight years that Scribble Jam was coming back, but nothing has materialized.

In 2014, Accurso started a Kickstarter campaign as a way to let the fans determine if Scribble Jam should come back. He set the goal for $100,000.

“I don’t want it to be small, I don’t want to do a small time one because anyone can do that,” he said. “If we’re not going to do it correct, and have it as big as at least it was in 2008, I just feel like it wouldn't serve its purpose.”

The campaign only raised about $35,000. Like all Kickstarter fundraisers that don’t meet their goals, the money went back to the donors.

In the meantime, Scribble Jam lives on. Having the benefit of starting in the mid-'90s when consumer video was widely available, many of the legendary battles (including Eminem’s performances) have been preserved online.

A search of “Scribble Jam” on YouTube yields over 31,000 results. Not bad for an event that started nine years before YouTube existed, and only lasted three years after the site’s launch.

Forste, Mr. Dibbs, remains a DJ heavily involved in the local music scene. He couldn’t be reached for an interview for this story. Heitz and Accurso are both working professionally in fields outside of music.

They said they are still open to the idea of bringing Scribble Jam back, but they acknowledge they don’t have the energy they did when they were in the early 20s when the festival started.

“The funny thing is, of course, now, we would obviously be able to do it 10 times better because now we’re all professionals and we understand how to get sponsorship dollars and run the event,” Accurso said.

The group has even turned down offers from others to buy the rights to Scribble Jam.

Heinz summed it up simply. He said they’d rather Scribble Jam continue to live as a legend than to see it resurrected as something that doesn’t live up to the original vision.