“Rap isn’t synonymous with hip-hop,” says DJ EVS (real name Evan McGinnis), of the three-piece Mission Infinite. “I think KRS-One [a social/political rapper, cofounder of Boogie Down Productions] defined it best: ‘Rap is something you do, hip-hop is something you live.’ Rap is the style of how you compose your words, the rhyming and rhythm. Kind of like scat. Hip-hop is how you talk, how you wear your clothes, more of the lifestyle.”
It doesn’t surprise McGinnis that most people lump rap and hip-hop together. “I think people will see what they want to see. Since mainstream rap music is all about being a gangster and having shiny cars and watches, that’s all the people know, because it’s all over MTV and the radio.”
“The best thing about the San Diego scene is that it still exists at all,” says Mission Infinite “rhyme master” Eye Focus. He says he’s never seen anything unduly violent at a hip-hop show but admits that things can get pretty wild. “We did a show at the Boars Cross’n Bar [in Carlsbad], and while I was doing my verse for ‘Champion Sound,’ some lady in her late ‘30s came up to the stage and handed me a drink. Then she just lifted up her dress, showed her jewels, and started wildin' out. She was so drunk.”
“All I know is that I looked up, and saw her ghostly flapping white -ss and her nasty mint green granny panties,” says DJ EVS. “I almost forgot what I was doing onstage.”
After Mission Infinite split, DJ EVS took the stage name Some One and became a solo artist, as well as working with the hip-hop group Blah Tribe.