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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, March 12, 2004

Visionaries respected for diverse sonics

By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

Hip-hop collective the Visionaries, whose just-released CD is "Pangaea," gets spinning Saturday night at Pipeline Café.
The Visionaries are upfront about why they've never signed with a major label in nine years of existence.

Simply put, no one's invited them to the corporate party yet.

Reasons why are still unknown. The aural landscape created by the Los Angeles-based, politically- and socially-conscious hip-hop collective on its just-released third CD "Pangaea" features impressive turns at the tables by scratch-n-beat junkie DJ Rhettmatic, and some inspired sampling choices that include Spanish guitar and a hint of reggae.

 •  The Visionaries

with Emirc, DJ Delve, DJ XL

6-10 p.m. Saturday

Pipeline Café

$10, $15

589-1999

This is an all-ages show

While lyrical flow from all five Visionaries emcees (2Mex, Dannu, LMNO, KeyKool, Zen), at times, comes off as a bit stiff, one at least gets a definite sense of passion, intelligence and consciousness in the crew's choice of topics (terrorism, human corruption, unity) and way with a lyric.

As respected in (if not as well-known outside of) the L.A. hip-hop underground as peers Dilated Peoples and Jurassic 5, the Visionaries' cooly diverse sonics have won them opening slots with Common, Gangstarr, Busta Rhymes, De La Soul and Linkin Park, among others.

The collective's reputation for a solid live show should assure a good turnout for its early-evening Pipeline Café appearance tomorrow, before the club kids arrive for DJed Chingy and Usher.

Reach Derek Paiva at 525-8005 or dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com.