Pittsburgh may not stack up to Los Angeles when people look for emerging rap artists, but what many don’t know is that it is home to one of rap’s most experimental and promising duos, Grand Buffet.

Grand Buffet, as Jarrod Weeks, a.k.a. Lord Grunge and Jackson O’Connell-Barlow, a.k.a. Grape-A-Don, are part of a new genre exploding across the United States in small venues and through the headphones of iPods – experimental rap.

“We’re inspired by everything we encounter, on some level,” Weeks says.

“Sharks, corvettes and cane sugar.”

Sometimes referred to as hip-hop, sometimes indie, even sometimes rock, their lyrics are humorous, creative and differ greatly from those of mainstream rap.

Weeks says the pair got into the genre for one simple reason.

“We’re nuts. Super-duper crazy,” Weeks says.

Even if the genre may be new to many, the pair are certainly not new to the genre. Weeks and O’Connell-Barlow, both 27, have been creating music together for almost a decade.

“Technically, the two of us have been making music together since 1996,” Weeks says.

With all that experience, it’s safe to assume they will be around to see the expansion of the genre that is just now getting some attention. It seems the only thing that could get in their way would be an unfortunate encounter with the law or the government, both of which Weeks says are out of control.

“I don’t mean to sound cynical, because I’m honestly not,” Weeks said. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up dead or in an internment camp.”

Internment camp isn’t a term he said he uses lightly either. He said he feels they are becoming a looming possibility in this country, namely because of the highly controversial Patriot Act.

“If the Patriot Act continues to expand, any undesirable musician, political dissident or individualist will be lumped into the category of terrorist and will be jailed indefinitely with due process under the facade of national security,” he says. “The iron curtain is coming down right here in the good old US of A, and there are too many sheep here to even realize it.”

No matter what the band thinks about the country’s politics, they plan on seeing a lot of it over the course of their tour, which spans over 100 dates. With all the tour dates, the new CD and the growing following, they seem to have quite a career ahead of them. Despite this, Weeks says they only really have one goal:

“Live free and die hard.”