This Saturday night at Olympia's Royal Lounge, some esteemed members of Los Angeles' hip-hop royalty will make their impact on stage when Murs and Psycho Realm's Sick Jacken headline a show flanked by Olympia's award-winning Afrok and Junkyard Gang.

The show, put on by Growing Pains Entertainment, features one of the underground ultra-MC/entertainers of the new millennium in Murs. Murs, although a member of the underground super-group Living Legends, touched the limelight and flirted with mainstream commercial success individually, just a couple years back, with his release of Murs for President.  The experience put an MTV campaign under his belt and gave him a wider audience, but Murs has found a way to stay true to his underground roots by continuing to direct the Paid Dues Festival, a yearly event in San Bernardino featuring a long list of dope hip-hoppers from across the country. This year, Paid Dues included Ice Cube as well as Tech N9ne, Dilated Peoples, People Under the Stairs, Del tha Funky Homosapien and a whole slew of other hip-hop heavyweights. 

Additionally, Murs' quality control has stayed at top-notch level with another recent collaboration with mega-producer, 9th Wonder - and their joint release, Fornever, which dropped April 13. It marked the partnership's fourth collaboration, and the first of 10 records the remarkably prolific Murs plans to release in 2010.

"Murs is the truth. When he hits the stage, he brings a show," says SP aka Slo Poke, the promoter of Saturday's show at the Royal. "I'm just glad I can continue to bring shows like this to the (Tacoma/Olympia) area, because our hip-hop scene needs it." 

The 25360 has recently experienced a small spike in hip-hop activity, with more shows, album and mixtape releases and media attention. But having bigger names come to town, like recent visits from Wu-Tang affiliates, Spice 1, Twista, Ginuwine, Juvenile, Tech N9ne, Devin The Dude, 2 Mex and The Jacka, brings a bit more buzz and excitement to our rain-drenched region - specifically the South Sound. The Murs show at the Royal is no different.

Fellow LA representative, Sick Jacken who rocks with the Psycho Realm - bona fide disciples of Cypress Hill and the legendary DJ Muggs - will be in the house on Saturday as well.  His new release, aptly titled, Stray Bullets, was released on Rebel Music this year.

"This is the kind of show an MC wants to be a part of," says local hip-hopper and ever-humble Afrok. "Murs is known to draw a crowd and keep a crowd and he has a long history of performing from his days with Living Legends to his solo career - so his catalogue is deep." 

This is one of the important shows - a can't miss for the South Sound.  It's another in a short but growing list of "benchmarks" that have the potential to re-ignite the South Sound as a hip-hop haven. It's not a far stretch of the imagination. It once was, with Criminal Nation, Nasty Nes, Nancy G, K-Swiss, Black Anger, Black Caesar and more on the local scene.  With local and national acts collaborating like this, it just might bring The 25360 back to prominence like our peeps up the freeway have it crackin' in The 206.

Murs

With: Sick Jacken, Afrok, Junkyard Gang

Saturday, May 1, 7 p.m., cover TBA,

The Royal Lounge, 311 Capitol Way N., Olympia, 360.705.0760