Bao, Kiwi, and myself hit up Southern California for the first time together at the most recent stop on the Beats Rhymes & Rice tour. UC Irvine played host.

Logistically, this might have been the most convoluted collection of schedule details we’ll ever have to deal with. Bao flew into LAX, rented a car, and picked me up when I landed in Long Beach. Kiwi came into Burbank and drove down to Irvine in his own rental. Not to mention the fact that we all three stayed in different parts of Los Angeles County with various friends or family, plus we had to make sure to get together with our boy Daren Mooko of One Of Agency, who’s been our agent from the minute we conceived of putting the whole tour together. Crappity crap!

The students took care of us real good. Allowed me to borrow Kristen’s guitar for the show and gave me a place to nap before it got started. Actually, I think I was still napping when the show started because these folks started ON TIME. I’ve never seen nobody – definitely not Asians – start as promptly as the UCI heads did. I was telling friends in the area not to worry about getting there until closer to 8:00, even though the start time was listed as 7:00. I guess I’m an idiot because by like 7:02, Kiwi was spitting the first joint of the evening.

I was also mildly shocked by the on time start because Jana and Jesse were just chilling and talking to us five minutes before the show and they weren’t freaking out at all. A lot of the time, you can tell when the show is about to start by how hectic the student organizers start getting. None of that this time.

I think the combined factors of a somewhat chilly night and outdoor show kept the crowd a little smaller than what Facebook had led us to expect. It was cool though. I usually get nervous about outdoor venues because a lot of us have had difficult situations with sound or passersby in the past. But the crowd was all love, repping Irvine well. Oh, as well as San Diego, because a few people made that drive to check out the show too. Say word to Cali freeways!

A grip of different folks showed up, including Key Kool from the Visionaries and Beatrock. It was also cool to see Brian Khang, because he was the wedding photographer when I got married back in 2006. He moved to Irvine last year, and he swung by with his girl Helen. (He posted a couple of pictures he took that night on his blog here.)

Spent the rest of the weekend chilling with folks, including my old school homie (and manager to the stars) Nancy Yap, Michelle Yuen with the Obama campaign among other things (I ain’t endorsing, I’m just giving you context), Ryan Suda from Blacklava, old friends Miki, Lawrence, and others. Highlight of the rest of the weekend was hitting up the Beat Junkies party in honor of J Dilla, on the second anniversary of his passing. Not to get too geeked or whatever, but I was kinda thrilled to meet not only Key Kool on Friday, but Rhettmatic, Rakaa Iriscience, Aloe Blacc, and various other famous hip hop stars at the Dilla party.

Oh, and yeah, the Beat Junkies were as ill in person as you would expect them to be. Maybe iller. I think Kiwi got a picture of my geek ass excitedly rapping along to “Fuck tha Police.”

Man, what a weekend. And it’s still not really over…See yall in Richmond, VA, tonight.