A new TV venue

Trying to make it as a rapper in Southeast Missouri isn't easy, especially when there's no place to perform.

Area live music venues offer limited musical offerings -- rock, blues, country, bluegrass and other genres. But try to find a rap club with live music and you're likely to come up short, as in zero.

Jonathan Cunningham knows that fact all too well.

The young white rapper (known on-stage as Poten-C) is based in Cape Girardeau, but his live shows have been in places like St. Louis, New York and Connecticut, not his hometown.

"It's one of those things where ... it seems like you're fighting all the time to do something, but there's just no way to do it," Cunningham said of the lack of local live rap venues. "People always say 'You've got to get your foot in the door,' but if there's no door, how do you do that?"

A new door may have just opened for Poten-C to get his local rap (the chorus to one of his songs, "5-7-3 now scream Cape-town") out to the masses.

His stage is a room in the bottom floor of a building on the Southeast Missouri State University campus, his audience is two cameras and the people behind them.

Cunningham is one of several local and regional musicians and performers being featured on the new, locally produced "Soundscan," a show that starts this Tuesday night on UPN the Beat.

Produced by Southeast alumnus James LeBine and current university student and local radio personality Candace Banks, "Soundscan" hopes to showcase the area's musical talent.

Taping started over a month ago with 18 artists that will make up the first six weeks of the weekly show. Over the past month Banks and LeBine have sought out artists, conducted interviews and taped live shows to create a cross-section of the local music scene, from rap to jam to metal, drawing bands not just from Southeast Missouri, but Memphis and St. Louis, as well.

"Soundscan" fills a void in the local music scene -- a broadcast show that covers musical acts playing in Cape Girardeau. The college radio station Rage 103.7 plays local music once an hour, but a TV show covering local music is an idea not currently being tried here.

"I just knew there was a whole culture of these local bands and their fans," says Banks during a break in a 12-hour weekend marathon session of taping performances for the show.

"And it's just right down the street," LeBine adds.

For Cunningham, "Soundscan" may be the way to break into the local scene. "If you're going to get shows booked, people have to know about you first," he says.

UPN the Beat's parent company KFVS12 agreed to pick up the show for its rookie run based largely on three factors: the show is locally produced, deals with a subject not covered by other local TV shows and the production is polished and professional, said KFVS12 marketing director Paul Keener.

"The most basic part of the concept was that it's local, and I think that there needs to be an avenue for local and regional people to be able to produce shows that get on the air," Keener said. "With this secondary station (UPN) we now have more time available for extra things like that than we do on KFVS, a traditional CBS affiliate."

Keener said scores of shows are pitched to the station, but few have the kind of quality production he saw with "Soundscan."

Banks and LeBine definitely take the show's production seriously, using state-of-the-art cameras and editing software.

"Legitimate" is the word they use to describe their brainchild.

Kirby Ray, Real Rock 99.3 radio personality and frontman for the local metal band Emaciation, agrees. When he agreed to be a part of the show it was because he knew Banks and LeBine were for real, he said.

"From what I've seen of the footage they've put together, it looks just as good as anything I've seen anywhere, it looks just as good as MTV footage," said Ray. "It's hip and cool, and I think that's going to appeal to a huge amount of people."

Ray and Cunningham are both hoping that "Soundscan" will give the local scene a higher profile, helping expand the audiences for local acts and drawing in more regional bands to play Cape Girardeau.

They look at the show as a partnership between the musicians who provide the subject for "Soundscan" and the producers who hope to get viewers to watch in great numbers.

All of them are optimistic that "Soundscan" has a future well beyond its six-week introduction.

The key, said Ray, is not only professionalism, but also passion.

"They definitely have the training and they enjoy what they're doing," Ray said of Banks and LeBine. "That's going to take it a long way, that they enjoy doing it."

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182