With the return of a native son, Lake Tahoe has more hip-hop in its step.
After building a career the last decade in Seattle, Brian Augustine, who goes by Speaker Child onstage, has moved to the Kings Beach community where he grew up. He plans to book concerts in addition to performing.
Speaker Child’s first show since coming home was Friday, Aug. 31, at Whiskey Dick’s Saloon in South Lake Tahoe. That will be followed with a Thursday, Nov. 8, performance with headliner Andre Nickatina in the Crystal Bay Casino’s Crown Room. Speaker Child opens the show at 9 .m.
“Now that Tahoe is my home base, I am going to be putting on a lot of shows, and Friday is my homecoming show,” he told Tahoe Onstage. “I am going to be booking shows across the lake and I’m going to keep this going. I will bring in artists from around here and from the surrounding areas.”
The Whiskey Dick’s show included Rell Money from San Francisco, Dee Day The Scorpion from South Lake Tahoe, luv from Kings Beach and Homage from Carson City.
In late August, Speaker Child signed a three-album contract with Andre Nickatina’s 75 Girls Records. He has a distribution deal with Empire, is promoted by Fresh Air Clothing and he has a Pandora station. His second album, “High On Wheels,” will be released in the coming months.
“Signing with 75 Girls is going to help me continue to push and keep writing new material and step up even further because now I have a team, a label, behind me, that’s going promote the album.”
Producer David “D-Sane” Severance, the first music contact Speaker Child made in Seattle, connected him with Roc Phizzle, who produced the first Speaker Child album, “Mind On My Business.”
Later, he helped put together Andre Nickatina’s “Hot Wings” session.
“I recorded the audio and filmed video all in one day,” the artist said. “He really liked how I made things happen, so he booked a show for me in Eugene, Oregon. Then I continued to play shows with him and we continue to work with each other.”
Speaker Child describes his style as “bringing back the dope beats and laid-back flow popular in the ‘90s, adding skateboard swagger and California vibin’ to the mix.”
“I learned a lot up in Seattle,” he said. “I met a lot of people, made a lot of connections. I want to bring hip-hop to Tahoe and bring the community together.”
— Tim Parsons —
