America’s largest independent hip-hop gathering falls victim to economic and internal pressures. Will this king of Midwest festivals rise again?

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Scribble Squabbles

Fans like Mildred Fallen and organizers like Mr. Dibbs cite G-Fresh’s departure after Scribble Jam 2000 as one of the reasons for the event’s decline. G-Fresh was instrumental in organizing the event from 1996 to 2000. As a music producer, DJ and popular radio personality, his business sense and industry connections helped bring in artists from all over the country in the Jam’s early years.

According to G-Fresh, he made executive decisions about the festival during those first several years. “I was the leader, and everybody knew it. Everybody knew I ran it,” he says. G-Fresh says he helped manage the battles (especially the emcee battle most fans came to see), landed the venues and arranged performers for the concerts. However, Mr. Dibbs maintains that both G-Fresh and Kevin Beacham were the two guys that made it work.

But G-Fresh, Accurso and Tony Heitz (who joined the team to help with the festival’s  finances) had a contentious falling out after the 2000 festival. While pursuing other musical business interests out of town, G-Fresh stumbled upon rumors that he was taking more than his fair share of what little profits the festival generated. People were saying that he “stole” money from Scribble Jam.

He suspected that the rumors had originated with Accurso and Heitz. G-Fresh says that when he confronted them about it, they argued about his contributions to the festival and whether his larger share was justified and, having not come to a mutual understanding, G-Fresh cut ties with Scribble Jam. “I can’t do business with people that want to be talking behind my back, and I said ‘I’m stepping,’” G-Fresh says. “And that’s what I did.”

G-Fresh tried launching an alternative festival called “Squabble Jam” in 2001, but it didn’t gain traction. Vendors and sponsors actually believed Squabble Jam was a joke, like the many gags G-Fresh and Mr. Dibbs liked to play on local radio and the humorous tracks they released locally. G-Fresh says Accurso, Heitz and Beacham denied him the credit he deserved for Scribble’s success when they talked to press and other artists.

Even despite the rift, Scribble Jam continued to rise in fame and prestige after G-Fresh left. But recent incidents in Cincinnati and the economic recession have finally pushed the Jam to the brink and over.

Festival in Flux

Scribble Jam was never the site of anything more than roughhousing or an occasional broken bone, but the parking lot of Annie’s has hosted other hip-hop events that haven’t been as peaceable. In July 2009, a double homicide occurred at Annie’s. It was the latest of several shooting incident connected with their weekly Sunday hip-hop event. In the aftermath of the homicides, Peter Georgeton, the operator of Annie’s, put an end to hip-hop shows at the club.

Accurso isn’t sure what would have happened if they had still planned to hold Scribble Jam at Annie’s in August. “We would have been thousands of dollars into it at that point. We would have lost a lot of money if we had to cancel or move the venue now.”

But the 2008-09 recession did what interpersonal drama and violence never could. Major sponsors like Scion decreased their financial commitments in ‘09. The organizers also predicted far fewer of their attendees would be able to afford the event, especially since so many of them had usually traveled from out of town to participate.

Beacham refused to downsize the festival to a smaller production that left out some of the elements of hip-hop. “Then it wouldn’t even be Scribble Jam,” he says. Accurso agreed that if they couldn’t generate the funds to put on a festival that lived up to previous festivals, they shouldn’t do it at all.

Beacham and Accurso say that the recession was the tipping point among other challenges threatening the festival. Like other medium-sized music events, the Jam has had trouble finding affordable but popular mid-level artists. Bigger commercial names that could attract ticket sales in the tens of thousands are plentiful, but too expensive for the Jam to book.

“My favorite emcee is actually Jay-Z,” Beacham says. “But I know we can’t afford [him].” Less expensive artists can only draw crowds of a few hundred. The middle ground Scribble Jam requires – artists like Aesop Rock or MF Doom – is a dwindling pool of performers.

Competing events have also taken a serious toll on Scribble Jam. Hip-hop festivals like Rock the Bells, which Beacham and Accurso think got their touring idea from Scribble Jam, have taken a large bite out of their audience — though Rock the Bells features only rap, not other elements like graffiti and DJing. Mr. Dibbs also blames Midpoint, a local music festival that started in 2003, for draining a lot of the city’s money and attention.

Accurso says that the participatory energy of Scribble Jam has also waned, explaining that the up-and-coming battlers, whether they be emcees, B-Boys and B-Girls or DJs, are often not as good as they once were. “The people in the battles are almost like an embarrassment for us sometimes,” Accurso says. “Why did you just get up on stage and do that to yourself?” he laments.

The Jam’s audience has changed, becoming dominated by spectators rather than participatory hip-hoppers. Accurso believes the audience is becoming bored with hip-hop itself. Others share his sense of disillusionment.

Fallen’s last Scribble Jam was in 2007. She says that much of the crowd seemed to be there just to be seen. She recalls one particularly impressive performance where she says Atmosphere and others were absolutely rocking the stage but the fans just stood there, “catatonic.” When the festival came back in October 2008, she didn’t bother to go at all.