Indy Fest is back — and Ray Pierce plans to keep it that way

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The entrance to Indyground Entertainment is prominently labeled but easy to miss. Located on a small strip at the intersection of 39th Street and Broadway, it’s a black door that bears the hip-hop label’s insignia and is smushed between Grimm Tattoo and the awning for the consignment clothing shop Loop KC. Beyond the door is a show-poster-lined hall leading to a large, bright room with a plush white-leather couch, two desks piled with papers and CDs, and a whiteboard full of color-coded names and schedules.

This is the third place that Ray Pierce’s Indyground Entertainment has made its headquarters since becoming official in 2007. At the moment, his label roster counts five artists besides himself (Pierce performs as rapper Steddy P): Dom Chronicles, Brett Gretzky, Farout, J Bomb and DJ Mahf. Last year, he launched a management branch that cares for four artists. And on Saturday, August 8, Pierce is bringing back one of Indyground’s boldest initiatives: Indy Fest.

“We started Indy Fest in 2010, with two nights at RecordBar,” Pierce tells me. “The second and last Indy Fest we had was in 2011. After that, in 2012, we got this call from a guy in Lake of the Ozarks who wanted to do a hip-hop fest called Do the Dam Thing, with a $25,000 budget — our headliner was Brother Ali, and we had Blueprint and artists from all over Missouri. And we did it and we lost on it.”

There’s something a little metaphorical about the cast that Pierce wears on one of his legs and the crutches in view. (These are owed, he says, to a recent basketball injury.) But Pierce relates his account of 2012’s setback with the same no-regrets charisma he brings to every other topic. He makes a perfectly convincing — if transparently realistic — mogul.

“I did the deal correctly, and we protected ourselves, but it was a learning experience,” he says.

An experience, Pierce adds, that prepared him for the third iteration of Indy Fest, with its biggest and most impressive lineup to date. Mac Lethal headlines on Saturday, and the 30 other names on the bill mix strong local talent — including Gee Watts, Akai Najir, Pistol Pete, Approach, Nicolette Paige, Second Hand King, Sean Anonymous and Barrel Maker — and appealing regional acts such as Saba (Chicago), Ecid (Minneapolis), Both (Omaha) and Derill Pounds (Oshkosh, Wisconsin). There’s even a “Beats N Bars” rap-battle stage, presented by the Loop KC (in which, naturally, Pierce is also a partner).

“With this fest, Steddy [Pierce] approached me in the planning process,” Tim Gutschenritter, co-owner of the Riot Room, tells me. “He wanted to team up and really combine efforts to make it something serious. I think it’s amazing for the local music community because it’s rooted in Kansas City talent and Midwestern talent. This lineup really represents what’s going on in independent hip-hop culture right now.”

Now that Indy Fest is back, Pierce says, he intends to grow it every year. “We’re curating the biggest hip-hop festival that Kansas City has right now,” he says. “Hopefully, we can brand Indy Fest, and it can grow and stay here, much like a Soundset.”

He goes on: “I think there’s a big demand here. I’ve worked with Middle of the Map Fest a lot — I’ve had Indyground stages at Middle of the Map — but they’re so band-centric that they can’t keep it a level playing field for the hip-hop. And, you know, hip-hop is a big influence on popular culture these days. We have a good [hip-hop] show happening every other night of the week in Kansas City, and it didn’t used to be like that.”

In a few weeks, Pierce and his partners will move the Loop KC down the street to take over the former Bangarang shop space. There’s more room there, more visibility and — best of all, Pierce says — it faces the Riot Room.

“A lot of this is happening by the seat of my pants,” Pierce says with a laugh. “But I think it would be cool to have it [the new Loop KC space] be another location for Indy Fest, so you could just walk across the street.”

There’s a chance, he adds, that he could uproot the Indyground Entertainment offices for a fourth time and move the headquarters to another, larger space in Westport. As Pierce talks about the growth of Indyground Entertainment and the second coming of Indy Fest, he does so with a sense of pride — not just in his own work, but in the talent he’s putting in front of a local audience.

Sean Hunt, who performs as Approach, says that pride is well-founded. “It’s awesome that Ray and Indyground have always stuck their necks out, like, ‘This is what we do, and this is what we want to showcase,'” he tells me. “I think anytime you take an aspect of the music scene that kind of gets overlooked within any city, and you put together some of the best and brightest folks around — people who might not be getting the attention they deserve — it’s bound to make an impact.”