2024-03-27 04:01:34
If the Roxy was a ship, she would go down bow to bottom from Saturday to Sunday. The Prague club is full. On the stage, several dozen people are swaying and jumping to the beat, led by Dollar Prync with a microphone, the crowd below him. The Smíchov rapper launches an album called Kures Drill and celebrates his birthday.
Steaming, swaggering and bragging are essential attributes of hip hop. In rap lyrics, they are repeated over and over again, platitudes as if they don’t even change shape anymore. Rappers often resemble comic book characters – stylized, sharp-edged characters with superpowers. They dress distinctively, presenting themselves as beings stronger, more successful, and richer than mortals.
Dollar Prync brings this fantasizing back to earth. The gangsta rap subgenre has never worked very well in the Czech Republic, Prague is not New York, and stories about drug sales or gunfights have always seemed out of place here. But the Roma rapper grew up among drug dealers, he can describe the reality of the underworld without clichés and pathos, with insight and wit, in a language that only the initiated understand.
The moon is a few nights before the full moon, the sky over Prague is black and cloudless. A line stretches down the long street, at the end of which people slowly disappear through the doors of the Roxy Club. Low bass frequencies can already be felt on the stairs leading to the mezzanine.
In the stand with merchandise, i.e. memorabilia of musicians, besides T-shirts, you can buy paper for wrapping joints with the motif of the track Hulskéro. It costs 99 crowns, the hood is 999 crowns. It may seem obscure to the layman, but it is a fairly common assortment at hip-hop events.
A view over the balcony shows that Ostrava’s Sergei Barracuda is currently standing on stage with Dollar Prynce. They present the joint track Msport from 2021. “And my windows are down, I’ve got music on my backpack / I’ve got goods on my eggs, squeegee stare at me,” they rap over a hard beat. Goods probably mean drugs on your lap or in your pockets, rakle is a Roma term for non-Roma youths.
Dollar Prync returned a story to Czech rap. | Photo: Pepa Malinka
Dollar Prync has built up the aura of a street player who doesn’t play around with his unadorned tracks. Only he and those closest to him know the real stories behind his lyrics, which he refers to as rascals in prison slang.
“Think you know me / More, don’t know / They don’t know a f*ck about me, they don’t know what I do,” he says of listeners in the Gucci Nike Armani song. At that moment, Nottingham rapper Phidizz is accompanying him at the Roxy.
Dollar Prync has first-hand contact with the foreign scene. He flew to Canada with his family as a child, growing up an hour away from Toronto. At the age of fourteen, he traveled back to Prague, lived without his parents and, according to his words, rented out an apartment to heroin dealers. The following years he lived in England and Ireland. He returned to the Czech Republic after fans began to notice his music on the Internet. He had a breakthrough when the Prague rapper Smack invited him to the respected publishing house Archetyp 51.
Stolen shoes
Hard to find a better proof of authenticity than a recent drug case reported in the media. When, at the beginning of January, the police announced the arrest of two men from Smíchov, Prague, and the seizure of 12.5 kilograms of cocaine and 14 million crowns in cash during a house search, social media users speculated whether it was Dollar Prynce. Assumptions were fueled when the Blesk newspaper wrote without further details about the detained, similarly aged rapper from Smíchov. “Don’t worry, they didn’t lock me up. I’m fine,” Dollar Prync responded on the networks.
The Saturday Roxy does not in any way resemble a drug den in which one would be afraid to look up. “I see it well today,” the rapper comments on the atmosphere.
Dollar Prync at Roxy got a Swiss watch. | Photo: Pepa Malinka
In the middle of the auditorium, a decent circle pit rotates during the songs, i.e. a circle of people running around. Most of those present are simply having fun, moving their lips to indicate lyrics, some shouting choruses, others standing with drinks or roaming around the club. It’s not sold out, there are about a hundred, maybe two left until full capacity. Dollar Prync still has room to rise and probably will – his biggest trump cards are immediacy and unplayability.
“I stole a pair of shoes at Humanic / I didn’t feel panic about it / I’m a*u to your naivety / A*u benga and politics too,” he raps with another guest, Jokkerr.
Dollar Prync returned a story to Czech rap. Probably because he has something to talk about. He does not adore or condemn the situation behind the law, he simply describes what he sees around him. The defenders of the law are portrayed as negative heroes in their stories, politicians are only interested in him and his “fools” when they feel that political points could be scored on the issue of minorities.
But the leitmotif of Saturday night is joy. In one track, live bass sounds and hard hip hop alternates with funk. “Tonight we will laugh,” sings the group from Smích on stage. It sounds a bit like karaoke, the voices often don’t match, but everything fits into the concept of a party blurring the boundaries between the performer and the audience.
Track Gucci Nike Armani from Dollar Prynce’s latest album. Photo: Pepa Malinka | Video: Universal Music Group
New watch
In the second half of the evening, it’s time to christen the record Kures Drill, which was released last August. Kures is Romani vulgarity, drill hard and confrontational offshoot of hip hop. It originated in Chicago and resonated, for example, on the British scene. But the album itself contains elements of Romani music as well as pure dance beats.
A large-format plaque with a platinum record certificate begins to circulate on the stage. The Czech branch of the International Federation of the Music Industry, known by the abbreviation IFPI, awards it for ten thousand units sold. Today, however, the popularity is better informed by the data of digital services. The single from last year’s album called Režim nerušit has over eight million listens on Spotify alone, while the older piece Pasu Lubná has around half a million less.
The group on the stage sprinkles the front rows with champagne, the geysers reach halfway up the hall. The birthday boy covers his emotions with profanity and waves a platinum record over his head. The pacifier does not end with triumph. One of those present asks Dollar Prynce to take off his watch. The rapper hesitates for a moment, then unbuckles his belt and takes a new, specifically Swiss Jaguar Balancier on his hand.
Dollar Prync celebrates his 32nd birthday at the Roxy, a digital version of the song Happy Birthday with a broken beat will be heard from the DJ deck. The crowd chants uncoordinatedly.
At that moment in the club, it looks as if you find yourself at a party of friends, in this case the “guys” from Smíchov. They play music, rap, dance, celebrate. And not for the last time, the next baptism will follow on May 31 at the Enter Club in Brno.
Dollar Prync’s first big solo show at the Roxy was framed by the guests, towards the end Ektor, one of the most popular Czech rappers, comes to the cheers of everyone. Their joint single Pull Up sounds. “I’m curious about that pull up / I swear on everything, believe me, no one is going to report you,” shouts the whole hall in the chorus.
Pull up is a DJ technique, especially in Jamaican genres, it refers to a situation where the artist cuts the song, starts a fanfare and returns the track to the beginning. It’s usually used to heckle the audience, but at the end of a Dollar Prynce show, it can be a metaphor for a second chance or a new beginning. He grew up among drug dealers and thugs, started rapping about it, and ends up making more money with music than with “goodies on eggs” in a car at night.