If local rappers hope to find a foothold in Oklahoma City, they need lure their audiences out of dance clubs and into music venues to watch hip-hop performed live. In an effort to help the local rap scene establish itself, the Bora Bora Club, 2415 N. Walker, is pitting rap against underground rock with its new, weekly throwdown showcase, "Rock vs. Rap."

Oblivion, Torn Tomorrow and Burn Ban hit the stage 9 p.m. Saturday to kick-start the experimental concept of fusing the two scenes.

"This is just to advertise to people in OKC that there's not just a rock scene here," Kandi Dyer, lead singer of Torn Tomorrow, said. "There's a lot of people who don't come out to see live music simply because they don't know that the style that they like plays live around here."

FURIOUS INFUSION
Torn Tomorrow represents the rock side of Saturday's event. The local band infuses furious guitars and growling vocals with Dyer's smooth and polished voice for a mixture of pop-rock and thrash-metal. The group has released an EP titled "Our Future Battles," which can be sampled online.

Dyer said that she's noticed a successful melding of rap and rock fans in Tulsa, partially because of crossover bands like that town's indie emcee PDA and hard rockers My Solstice, as well as the presence of small record labels and music promoters. She doesn't yet see the same groundswell in OKC.

"I know people who are rap/R&B artists, but they tend to do a lot of their music distribution and everything online," she said. "I don't think the scene supports rap groups as well as rock, and I think it's about time to change that."

For more information about "Rock vs. Rap," call 557-1105.  "Charles Martin