Up with underground

WHEN it comes to Los Angeles’ underground hip-hop scene, the conversation usually begins with Project Blowed -- with all due respect to several individual acts and to Peanut Butter Wolf’s Stones Throw Records.

Ever since many of Project Blowed’s founding members rhymed at open mike nights in South Central in 1990-91, the loose crew of organic -- and artistically challenging -- MCs, spearheaded by veteran rapper Aceyalone, have been the first word in the city’s expansive independent hustle.

And the second word?

“There’s kind of a myth out there, but I don’t know what people really think of” Project Blowed, Busdriver says of the collective he’s been a member of for more than 10 years. “It’s like ‘Oh, Project Blowed!?’ There’s never any ‘When they did this, when they did that,’ it’s just that thing.”

The 28-year-old MC, born Regan Farquhar, says this with a laugh, but after nearly 17 years, Project Blowed’s diverse array of MCs has never made millions or released a gold record. That was never the point for the 30 MCs listed on its website -- or the countless others whom they’ve influenced -- but that’s a frustratingly long time to be on the grind of the indie circuit.

“We made a hit. Volume 10’s ‘Pistol Grip Pump’ is a hit forever, you can’t deny that,” Busdriver says, with a hint of hyperbole. “But I bumped into him at our anniversary, and he was asking me about getting distribution for some CDs.... It’s like ‘Where did we mess up?’ ”

Growing up on the border of Koreatown and Midtown, Busdriver has embodied Project Blowed’s aesthetic since he was 14. Simultaneously a spectacle of calisthenics and a lesson in lyrics, Busdriver’s voice pitters and patters with the fury of a concert flutist over complicated and often jarring production. Not exactly a formula for radio, it has found a home with Epitaph/Anti-, a label that has expanded from its punk rock roots to include hip-hop artists.

“There’s not that many people who are making that kind of leap in L.A. rap right now, and while it’s not a ginormous leap, it’s still a significant leap,” he says. “We can’t just depend on Aceyalone to lead us into whatever.”

“RoadKillOvercoat,” out Jan. 30, is not a stark departure from earlier work such as the critically praised Mush Records release “The Weather” with L.A. producer Daedelus and fellow manic-mouthed MC Radioinactive. But it is decidedly more pop. Lead single “Kill Your Employer” uses the rapid minimalism and hollow dance drums popular among Baltimore’s more danceable hip-hop artists; add in an affected new wave chorus, and you might have Busdriver’s first club cut.

“I honestly think that pop is a medium to be exploited with whatever content and interjected with this, that and the third,” he says. “If you apply a rigorous [pop] template to challenging parts [of music], then it can still really work.”

Busdriver’s experiment in pop, his fifth solo full-length, will be on full display at the El Rey with noise-pop trio Deerhoof and noise-rock duo Hella on Wednesday night.

The latter act he met after joining a few members to form an improvisational band that opened for the Mars Volta in Long Beach. A similar spontaneity saw him sit in with Wednesday’s headliner Deerhoof. When lead singer-bassist Satomi Matsuzaki asked him to jump onstage a few months ago, however, nothing registered, even though he had begun to form a friendship with the band.

“I thought she was talking to the two Japanese girls standing next to me,” he says of Matsuzaki. “I really got nervous because I like Deerhoof in a really genuine way. I didn’t do well, but I was so overwhelmed.”

The uncertainty about his ability to perform with an act that weirded out Radiohead fans as an opener last summer at the Greek Theatre may rest in hip-hop’s traditionally rigid blueprint. Wednesday’s El Rey bill is one that would leave most rappers scrambling, but it’s one that Busdriver’s genre-defying talents are well-rehearsed in, having been cultivated in such environments.

While attending high school in Arizona, the young man hung out with experimental sister act CocoRosie and played “in a garage rock-blues-bluegrass band -- with a rapper in it.” But even a state removed, he was a fixture at Project Blowed to a point that confused even him. It’s an involvement that, while perplexing and frustrating at times, has nurtured and defined a once-teenage boy into artistic manhood.

“Aceyalone still holds the flag and Abstract Rude holds the flag and I’m trying to hold the flag, but it didn’t turn into the Wu-Tang Clan,” he says, before smiling. “But we’re the beating heart of hip-hop in Los Angeles, even now in 2007.”

weekend@latimes.com

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Busdriver

What: Busdriver, opening for Deerhoof and Hella

Where: El Rey Theatre, 5515 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles

When: 9 p.m. Wednesday

Price: $14

Info: (323) 936-6400; www.goldenvoice.com