The Fli Boiz Wednesday, Sept. 24

[September 24th, 2008]

[PO-HOP POSTURING] In deep Southeast Portland—out past fast-food drive-thrus and 7-Elevens—synthed pings emanate from a small house, where a soundproofed room serves as headquarters for Hi Rollerz Records and the Fli Boiz camp. Inside, a beat-previewing session is taking place for 80’s Girls Mixtape Vol. 2, a follow-up compilation to Illaj and Mikey Vegaz’s original 14-track project from early last year.

Two musicians are sitting inside their sparsely decorated studio: Illaj (the singer-producer and occasional rapper) in Dior eyeglasses, Mikey Vegaz (the rapper) in Knicks shorts and a pair of house slippers. Together, they are the Fli Boiz, and their music represents a new generation of hip-hop, born of sounds spanning the past 30-plus years of the music’s history. Intentionally leaked tracks from the forthcoming 80’s Girls Vol. 2 meld Lil Wayne’s slang-packed, molasses flow with T-Pain’s voice-modulation echo and outer-space inference from the Pharrell/Kanye/Lupe canon.

The duo’s uncanny resemblance to the Cool Kids, two ’80s-enamored MCs from Chicago who have recently hit the big time, is difficult to deny. But where the Kids avoid the bling of hip-hop’s hedonistic side, the Boiz embrace it. YouTube videos of the duo find them, through saturated purple clouds of cigar smoke, suffused in swag among lip-glossed girls, champagne bottles and cash. Though Vegaz says it’s a true representation of the duo (“When you see us out at the club, that’s how we live,” he says), the music isn’t paying all the bills. Vegaz admits to working for his father’s wholesale car business, and Illaj sells his beats to other artists to make ends meet.

Hustling like this, the duo has potential for mainstream success—Illaj is confident and comedic (“I play air guitar quite well,” he says when pressed about his talents). Vegaz is a higher-pitched, more urgent MC to Illaj’s laid-back lucidity and Luther Vandross smoothness (the latter covers Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight”). The pair has one foot in the door of rap game success, a feat applaudable in today’s marginal music market. Selling a none-too-shabby 1,000 hard copies of their first album, Fli Rock 1, the MCs are anxious to keep the momentum of their “movement”—albeit one with origins behind a Dairy Queen drive-thru—going strong.