For 9th Wonder, the Winston-Salem-born, Wake Forest-based hip-hop DJ/producer who has produced music for local and big-name artists, there have been only two men whose careers he has taken cues from. Their real names are Christopher Martin and Peter Phillips, but they're both better known by their respective stage names: DJ Premier and Pete Rock.

Premier and Rock have similar backgrounds. They started out in two-man hip-hop crews back in the day: Premier was in the group Gang Starr with MC Guru, while Rock performed DJ duties with C.L. Smooth. But both men went on to produce instant hits for many artists. Premier has done memorable joints for Jay-Z, Nas, The Notorious B.I.G. and Christina Aguilera, to name a few, while Rock worked with 50 Cent, A Tribe Called Quest and Raekwon.

Wonder, along with what looks like most of the Triangle's hip-hop community, will pay tribute to the beatmakers with a show this Saturday at Cat's Cradle. And, as Wonder confirms, the honorees will be in attendance to take in the festivities. All it took was a phone call. "They're both great friends of mine - my mentors, you know, when I started in this game," says Wonder (real name: Pat Douthit). "But, as the years have gone by, I call them for advice or just to talk sometimes, youknowhamsayin."

His generation

Wonder says both men will get the royal treatment, sitting on thrones onstage as Wonder and his band, The Remix Project, perform the hit numbers that Rock and Premier have produced. The songs 9th is most looking forward to are "Devil's Pie," the 1998 track Premier produced for D'Angelo, which will be performed by Wonder protégé Tyler Woods, and "They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)," the 1992 track that put Rock and Smooth on the map, which Wonder will do with fellow Justus League brother Edgar Allen Floe. Also scheduled to perform are Skyzoo, Jozeemo, Cesar Comanche, Thee Tom Hardy, Kaze and others.

This night is actually the second in a series of tribute shows Wonder is organizing at the Cradle. It started this past summer when Wonder threw a tribute show for '90s hip-hop group Nice & Smooth, who also attended. He's looking for his next show to have either Rakim (who performed last month at the Lincoln Theatre) or EPMD as the guest of honor. But there is another group he would kill to have on the thrones of honor. "Another dream show for me would be A Tribe Called Quest," he says, "which would be very, very difficult to pull off."

This whole night comes courtesy of 9th and his organization the True School Corporation, a company whose mission is to look out for that demographic of middle-agers (ages 29 to 44) whom the mass media appear to disregard. Wonder, 34, thinks that because members of his generation grew up on the diverse sounds of MTV and actually going out and buying records, they should get more attention. Says 9th, "Not only does my generation like Mobb Deep, we also like Duran Duran. And I don't think, you know, a lot of people realize that fact, or a lot of major companies, corporations, realize that that demographic is being underserved."

A busy man

Even with all the projects he has been working on - finishing up David Banner's next album, coming lectures at Duke and Barber-Scotia College in Concord, looking for a label to properly release his long-awaited "The Wonder Years" album (sorry, no Little Brother reunion on the horizon: "I don't think that's up to me. ... That's gonna take all three of us.") - it's surprising that the man still has time to give some public props to his heroes. But he wants older hip-hop fans to come out of the shadows and know that they have a home at these events.

"I want them to understand the history of it, why I'm doing this, and just to know that, you know, it's OK to be a true hip-hop fan and to come out and enjoy it and, then, to go home," he says. "'Cause a lot of people think that you come out and you get hurt and you got to wear baggy jeans - man, the commercialism of hip-hop in America has really ruined the look of it. And that's not what the culture is about, and what we're about."

The members of the Whigs don't have to reveal their age in conversation. It's evident that the Athens, Ga., trio grew up during the early '90s. Such defunct early Clinton-era indie rock heroes as the quirky Pavement and the melodic but offbeat Guided By Voices made an obvious impression on the pop-rock Whigs.

"We've been fortunate enough to be compared to those great bands," vocalist-guitarist Parker Gispert says in a call from Charlotte. "We're all children of that era. That period certainly had an impact on us."

The Whigs, which also include bassist Tim Deaux and drummer Julian Dorio, turned ears with its 2008 second album, "Mission Control." The raucous, atmospheric disc captured the energy the band exudes when it takes the stage.

"We're a live band," Gispert says. "We play out every night. We hope our albums reflect who we are."

The gritty, whimsical trio recently completed their latest album, "In The Dark," which will be released in March. The new material will be previewed Monday at Local 506.

According to Gispert, the material isn't a radical departure, but the band has taken some sonic steps forward.

"I don't think we'll shock anyone in our fan base with the new material,' Gispert says. "We didn't try to do something weird or outrageous. We just made a few changes and grew a bit."

Ben Allen (Gnarls Barkley, Animal Collective) produced "In The Dark" and urged the band to experiment with sounds, tones and textures in the studio.

"It was good to bounce some ideas off a creative, adventurous guy like Ben," Gispert says. "The last record was more balls to the wall and this one has a dance and caress dynamic. There's more going on in the songs. We wanted to make songs that when you listened to them for the 20th time, you noticed something that you didn't hear during the first few [spins]."

Still, don't expect The Whigs to preview more than five new songs at Local 506.

"We're playing as many new songs as we can but we know we have to play a lot of the familiar songs since that's what the audience knows," Gispert says. "That's fine. I know some die-hard fans love hearing what's up next. They'll hear some now and they'll hear plenty after the album comes out."

Onstage, Benji Hughes cuts an amazing figure. He's not what you'd call svelte, favoring bellbottom jeans, shades and T-shirts that almost (but don't quite) cover his expanse of belly. And he's shaggy as an outback survivalist, with long hair and a beard.

But visuals are just part of the package. Picture someone who looks like that and comes on like a magnificent pagan god, crooning delectable funk-pop love songs while rocking a line of space-cowboy chatter that would be the envy of any barfly. Spend five minutes watching and listening, and you'll conclude that the whole thing has got to be a put-on.

Except it's not.

"In general, I'm pretty much the same way all the time," Hughes says by phone from his Charlotte home. "I've certainly changed over the years - used to shave a lot more, not have a beard. But I think I'm the same kinda guy most of the time. I definitely don't get offstage and suddenly turn into a guy who plays chess. I do actually party, I like to have a good time and enjoy my life. I can eat cheese crepes or salami, it's cool. I didn't sit down and try to create this. I'm pretty much just doing my thing."

Of course, you can find similar characters in most every bar on Earth. Most of them, however, can't stop your heart the way Hughes can.

Hughes' aptly titled 2008 double-album "A Love Extreme" (New West Records) is an astounding record, a lush masterpiece of heartbreak that sprawls across 25 tracks and multiple styles about everything from getting stood up at the Dairy Queen to a night out at the Flaming Lips. Beneath that lounge-lizard exterior beats the heart of one of the last true romantics - and he's earned his scars.

"Love songs say what you feel about something," Hughes says. "They're more general, but I think it'd be hard to make that up. I'd think you could tell. But there are songs where, you know, people wonder if I got stood up at the DQ for real. I'm reluctant to tell them if it's true or not. I don't want to mess up whatever they think about it."

Not surprisingly, Hughes has had an unusual career. He first emerged as a member of the Charlotte alternative band Muscadine, which managed one major-label album before breaking up: 1997's "The Ballad of Hope Nicholls," named in honor of the lead singer of '80s college-radio legends Fetchin' Bones (for her part, Nicholls says of Hughes, "He is so awesome - a nut, but I love him.").

Hughes also co-wrote a song for the 2007 movie "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story," a fun little ditty called "Let's Duet" that features the immortal line, "In my dreams, you're blowin' me ... some kisses." If you never heard that, it's a virtual certainty you've heard the commercial jingle Hughes wrote for Captain Morgan rum if you've watched any television at all the past year.

"I wish I could do that all the time," Hughes says of jingle-writing. "Actually singing the jingle would be what does the best for you because there's a Screen Actors Guild thing and you get hooked up every time your voice plays on it. I don't think I'd be a good actor, but I'd still try it. I'd love to be on a TV show as a horrible actor - I could do that."

Meantime, Hughes is contemplating his next move in the wake of "A Love Extreme." He's been "writing songs, recording, goofing off." And he's been getting out to play live, too, including Saturday at Chapel Hill's Local 506.

But you should be warned that Hughes' performances are not for the faint of heart.

A previous Triangle show at Raleigh's Berkeley Cafe back in May turned into a somewhat risqué affair when a number of women responded to all the animal magnetism in the air by taking to the stage and writhing around with him.

"It happens," Hughes says. "For me, personally, that works better than dudes jumping up to dance with me. But we've got some good-looking dudes in the band, two of them not counting me, so it depends on what you're into.

"There are babes out there who are more into clean-cut, so I'm not their style. But if some are drawn to extreme goofballs, well, we've got one of those, too. In general, it's all right."