Established and emerging all-coast hip-hop talent--including Edo G., Souls of Mischief, The Kreators, and Akbar--will bring purely underground hip-hop to the masses during an early all-ages show Universal Cypher is promoting Friday, Jun. 15, at Chicago’s Congress Theater (2135 N. Milwaukee), near the corner of Milwaukee and Western avenues.

As Boston’s Soul Mic-Controller No. 1, Roxbury-based Edo G. has prolifically represented for his crew Da Bulldogs and beyond through chart-hitting LP’s, EP’s, and singles that collectively won him three Boston Music Awards. His current LP The Truth Hurts (Ground Control/Nu Gruv) autobiographically examines his maturing in the Hub of New England’s Hip-Hop Universe and features guest mic-controlling or production by DJ Premier, Guru, Pete Rock, prolific Chicagoland producer Xtreme, The Roots’ Black Thought, and The Hieroglyphics’s Tajai and Casual.

Since Del Tha Funkee Homosapien recruited them into Hieroglyphics at a Berkeley, Calif. high school in the late 1980s, Souls of Mischief has made the transition from major label recording with Jive Records in the early 1990s to the clan's do-it-yourself independent Hieroglyphics Imperium Records label without compromising their flow on unadulterated B-kid culture. Their most current album is year 2000-released Trilogy: Conflict, Climax, Resolution, featuring guest appearances by Funkadelic’s Amp Fiddler and Michael "Kid Funkadelic" Hampton, George Clinton, Digital Underground chanteuse Mystic, and Dilated Peoples’ Evidence and DJ Babu. Tajai also appears on the recently released Projecto: 2501 orchestrated by Philadelphian renaissance future music producer SupremeEx, which is a futurist epic about a growing hologram’s mission of destruction on behalf of preservation.

Edo G.’s collaborating Boston neighbors The Kreators boast roots in the original Gang Starr hip-hop family and vast critical acclaim from the likes of MTV and Thesource.com for afrocentrically enriched Old World and New World rhythms that pushes the envelope on rap creativity. Two of The Kreators, mic-controllers Jaysaun and Big Juan, compose a side group with Edo G. called Last Word (which literally has the last say on The Truth Hurts). After creating an underground and overground buzz with their debut LP No Contest (Bomb Hip-Hop), The Kreators have released the Boston hip-hop anthem single "Home" (Landspeed), featuring appearances by Edo G. Guru, Big Shug, Krumbsnatcha, and Akrobatik. "Home" was sculpted by The Kreators’ G-Squared, who was once nominated for a Juno, Canada’s equivalent of the Grammy.

With his straight B-kid culture rhymes and blitzkrieging flow, Bronx-born, Manhattan-developed, and Northeastern Illinois-based Akbar is best known for his extended brotherhood DJ Parker Lee as the mic-controlling half of Mental Giants on the Chicago-based do-it-yourself indie label Jazz Child Records and for his blustery cameo "Akbar’s Groove" appearance on Jamalski’s 1994 Roughneck Reality LP (Columbia). Akbar’s work with Parker for the 1998 compilation LP No More Prisons (Raptivism) attracted his current solo deal with the Caroline-distributed Los Angeles hip-hop label Ill Boogie Records. His debut Ill Boogie LP Big Bang Boogie will be released Jun. 26.

Opening acts for the Universal Cypher concert will include Chicagoland’s first lady of B-kid rhyme Ang-13--who will emcee the event and introduce her new group mic-controlling female group Lyrisis--Gary, Ind. hip-hop group Mobb Life, Minneapolis hip-hop group Acupuncture, Chicago mic-controller Aztec, all-Chicagoland hip-hop band B-Movie Fiendz.

Doors will open at 6 p.m., and show time is at 7 p.m.

For interviews in advance of the concert, contact the following publicists for the following publicists for the following acts:

Edo G’s Ground Control/Nu Gruv-contact publicist, Trevor Seamon of Score Press, at trevor@scorepress.com, phone (323) 466-9500, fax (323) 466-9501; The Kreators publicist Jason Rosenwald, Mercer Media Relations, jason@mercermediarelations.com or jrosenwald@mediaone.com, 617-698-1830/1831, fax 617-787-6606; Akbar’s Ill Boogie Records publicist DJ Dusk at (213) 389-3875, (323) 876-3486, or djdusk@mediaone.net; and Souls of Mischief’s Hieroglyphics Imperium publicist at phone at (510) 376-9345 or thehieroglyphics@aol.com