We were lucky to catch up with Bito Sureiya recently and have shared our conversation below.

Bito , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?

Well I’m gonna keep it a bean this was not my idea bum Bum BUUUUUUM this was an event that was created by a Collective called Llamadon in the early 2010’s if you’ve been in the Baltimore scene for a while I’m sure that name ring some bells Just to give you some background on exactly what Beettrip is at the core it’s a producer cypher that features an open mic for anybody to come up and freestyle (and we do mean FREESTYLE NO WRITTENS)

Beettrip is something that has been around for longer than I have I remember going to my first Beettrip in like 2013 probably around like episode 8 or 9 so by episode 15 I was helping put away chairs at the end of the night and by episode 20 I was helping set up equipment and do sound they even sent me to Bills music house to buy extra equipment once lol they gave me their Llamadon company card and sent me to fucking Bills out Catonsville lol like I was putting in work I was carrying big ass speakers everywhere for these niggaz I was helping carry shit up and down the fucking stairs at the fucking copycat I was carrying shit up and down the stairs at the goddamn Bell foundry with them steep ass fucking crazy narrow stairs to the basement like literally bro if you fall down them you’re dead it’s so steep if you fell you would hit the floor first you would never touch the stairs lolol

Beettrip memories are probably some of the most fun times from the beginning of my creative career and I know I’m not the only one like Beettrip is a super loved event where soooo many connections and friendships and all that good shit was made just by showing up and participating I can genuinely credit it as probably the single most important thing I participated in starting out as a creative in Station North it’s most prominent location was at grind House juice bar over on St Paul that’s where It got the most popular and at its height we was doing it every first and third Thursday like I dead ass would tell jobs I can’t work on Thursdays just in case they were on bullshit and I couldn’t make it to Beettrip like these were super serious to me lol

Well eventually around episode 54 or so Llamadon as a collective disbanded and Beettrip was kind of up in the air at that time until I decided to pick it back up I felt as though it was a super valuable part of the community that didn’t need to go away so with help from the Homies I really just did what I could to kind of piece them together in random venues here and there that worked for a while but eventually we stopped with the last one being at the tail end of the pandemic

So long story short we recently found a venue that’s going to be a more consistent location to be able to throw more Beettrips so we’re officially back and better than ever our first Beettrip back we had a stacked lineup with names like Eu-Iv and DK The Punisher pulling up we had a handful of Beettrip OG’s pull up as well as a bunch of fresh new faces to contribute to the freestyles niggaz really did they thing frfr I’m happy to see all the Homies converging in one spot again and I’m more excited to see what future Beettrips have coming Beettrip ep.64 is going to be on June 13 at MRI Studios downtown check out @Beettrip for all updates.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

THEY KNOW WHO IT IS BITO SUREIYA AKA BEETTRIP BITO AKA GOLDEN SAMURAI AKA BROTHER MONK AKA NICKY IPPO AKA CUH MANE LAMBO SHAWTY AKA… we got the frontigallo on DECKY

sike nah I’m Nick just Nick do not address me by any of the AKA’s irl I probably will be too smacked to remember them anywho I am your local MC/producer, professional embroider-rer, amateur movie reviewer, and resident Beettripian

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

Yeah that’s an easy one I’m met both of these niggaz the same way… arguing and debating like shit That’s how I low-key know I can trust them this is a relationship spawned out of pure stubbornness if any of us were to snake each other that would probably be harder than actually admitting one of us was right about something and none of us are willing to do that

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Beettrip has always been like a word-of-mouth thing we never really spent too much time invested on the social media side of things until recently we never really had official videographers or anything like that for any of the events so unfortunately a lot of Beettrip history was not documented but that’s something we’re looking to change now that we’re collaborated with the Homie action bastard we’re hoping to bring artist interviews as well as recap videos for each Beettrip episode moving forward you can even tune into the Beettrip YouTube to check out the live streams for Beettrip we also have plans to start up a Beettrip radio so that producers can submit on a regular basis for a chance to be played at Beettrip events

Contact Info:

• Website: https://TheNASA8.com
• Instagram: @Beettrip @doublegodbody
• Twitter: @doublegodbody
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@beettrip?si=VW729yx6X5r1v9YI
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/the_nasa8