Originally written by Alexander Tudor · 9 September 2010
The question of what's underground in hiphop is a difficult one - ever since hiphop started infiltrating the charts and the major labels, numerous acts have been labelled "hardcore hiphop", "alternative hiphop", and even "avant-hiphop". Two labels can claim to have produced some of the most radical, abrasive, weird, and often politicized hiphop of the past decade... problem is, the artists involved are mostly white, and in a genre often criticized for being so materialistic, the labels are practically run by Commies. So, is it authentic?
WHERE I'M (COMING) FROM
At the beginning of any encomium (or “shout out to my homies from the hood”, as they used to say in Ancient Greece), it’s traditional to establish your legitimacy as a commentator. Thing is, my epiphany about underground hiphop took place in Rough Trade, Covent Garden, in the year 2000. ‘Straight Outta Compton’ reminds me of a small village in Surrey notable for its antiques shop and Tolkien’s cottage. The first place I read about the Beastie Boys was in The Beano (which I was dimly aware seemed frightened of the moral threat they posed). Like the majority of people buying hiphop albums, I couldn’t get more white if I lived in the basement at Rough Trade…
…which I sorta did for several years, and that’s where I heard the time-stretched, swampy beats of cLOUDDEAD’s debut, overlaid with a surreal collage of images, more evocative of sunrise over San Francisco than the ghetto. "Epiphany" isn't hyperbole, FYI: this literally changed my relationship to language, poetry, and music… but cLOUDDEAD (a supergroup comprising the founder members of the Anticon collective) also opened my eyes to hiphop, above and below ground. More on that, shortly…
Every genre has an "underground" at any given time. In the mid-90s, with Public Enemy a spent artistic force and Gangsta-Rap on the rise, Digable Planets were outsiders because they happened to be jazzier, preppier, and if it's possible, just-plain-nicer than Arrested Development (whose own easy-listening sound was palatable because they embraced Afrocentricity). Regardless of whether they're on a major label or not, many of the 90s and 00s artists called "underground" tend to be the ones who eschew R&B / electro / 70s soul & funk samples, in favour of smooth jazz (on the one hand), or abrasive rock music on the other. This is why it's possible to hear that Jurassic 5, Mos Def, Nas, and Dilated Peoples are "underground".
My point is: the charge of “inauthenticity” gets thrown around a lot, but sometimes the inauthenticity of a sub-genre exposes the contradictions intrinsic to the genre itself, while a false accusation can mask discomfort at the arrival of a genuinely new or important genre. After all, MC-ing, DJ-ing, and beatboxing were central to music released by Anticon and Def Jux (and the hiphop acts on labels like Matador, Ipecac, and Big Dada), much more so than mid-90s triphop, and immeasurably more than 90s metal, rock, and pop bands incorporating rap – what’s inauthentic about them, then? Maybe calling avant-hiphop, or underground hiphop, “inauthentic” is a comparatively polite way of avoiding calling it racist. The reason “avant-hiphop” got deleted from Wikipedia is officially that it’s redundant, but it’s also backdoor racism to imply the cultural supremacy of a sub-genre with a higher proportion of white, Jewish, and Puerto Rican artists.
(FYI, MC-ing, DJ-ing, and Beatboxing are three of the four “pillars of Hiphop”, decreed by Afrika Bambaataa; the fourth is graffiti, which underground hiphop tends to neglect for reasons that aren’t evident, but I’d argue are significant: it’s not desperate to prove itself part of the culture, but remains open about its liminality.)
In Totally Wired, Simon Reynolds gives us a clue to what else might be inauthentic about these sometimes-darker, sometimes-weirder beatscapes when he talks about “post-punk” as a white appropriation of black music: basically, the sound and appearance of “luxury” has a cultural value among black musicians that’s largely at odds with the self-image of white artists. Closely aligned with this is an emphasis on “tight” playing, since the purpose of it all is getting people to move, and shifting units, rather than making “art” (which the music may well be, but you’d be a fool to pander to the media-figures awarding those particular laurels). For over-educated white male music-fans, the “problem” with straight-up funk, dance, and soul (since the 60s) is usually its sameyness; this may, of course, be a problem with said fans, but it’s undeniable that looseness, DIY-production, willingness to push machines and instruments to do the “wrong” thing that moves music forwards. Post-punk was grimy without slumming it, political in its hybrid-form and its lyrical content; underground hip-hop shares that impetus.
ANTICON
There are moments when the fate of popular culture hangs in the balance. One of these occurred when a piece of Detroit trailer-trash named Marshall Mathers III came up against a young accountant named Adam Drucker in a battle-rhyming contest. The winner went on to become Eminem. The runner-up went on to become doseone. Since then, The Artist Occasionally Known As Slim Shady has sold 800 kerjillion records, and although he’s made the personal political with his addiction-themed later albums, he’s indisputably part of the general decline into apolitical drivel with none of the social or historical consciousness of oldskool, epitomized by Public Enemy.
With cLOUDDEAD, Themselves, BoomBip, and Subtle, doseone has gone on to be one of the most prolific artists around (and in recent years come closer to the sound and underlying concept of 80s post-punk than almost any bands of the Noughties revival) but Anticon is a collective, and one dedicated to hybridizing genres to push hip-hop and indie music into the weirdest new shapes.
“Essential listening: ‘Mannequin Hand Trapdoor Reminder’ from BoomBip, Seed to Sun; Subtle, For Hero for Fool; Themselves, Crowns Down. Essential head-scratching: BoomBip & DoseOne, Circle (80 minute concept album, rivalling Trout Mask Replica for craziness; one song purports to be a letter “…signed, Will Oldham”).”
Until recently (when he sold his share and departed amicably), the unofficial head of the label has been Tim Holland, AKA Sole, who’s been personally getting most of the flak for “underground hiphop” being a dilettantish, and crypto-racist phenomenon. To be honest, Sole consistently risks ridicule with statements like ‘I wanted to be black since age 14’ and (later in the same song) ‘People ask me why I don’t respect the culture / Truth is, I only rap because I ain’t smart enough to write a book’. In a sense, Sole’s like Eddie Vedder during Grunge – putting everyone to shame with his sincere commitment to environmental issues, leftwing politics, and ensuring the fans get a good deal. Problem is, people don’t like a bleeding heart.
“Essential listening: Sole’s second album Selling Live Water (2002) is the best place to start, with some of the strongest / most anthemic songs, and a ferocious attitude.”
The other main vocalist on the cLOUDDEAD records, putting the “confessional” into what has sometimes been called “confessional hiphop” (by journalists struggling with the implications of “avant”), Yoni Wolf is second only to Adam Drucker for his frequent (and often essential) collaborations. In the last few years, Why? has started to sound more like a Silver Jews fan than a hiphop artist; in fact, hiphop accents his indie-rock about as much as country accents David Berman’s.
“Essential Listening: Hymie’s Basement (with Andrew Broder, AKA Fog), which points the way to the later sound of Why?, after sketchier early albums.”
The odd one-out on the Anticon Giga-Single (actually a label sampler from 2001), Richard Terfry AKA Buck 65 was a Canadian solo artist who borrowed his shtick from Nighthawks at the Diner-era Tom Waits. That’s to say, he acts, jokes, sings and dances like a Beatnik several decades too late, but acutely aware that the original movement was always an imitation of an imitation. Lifting his samples from country and metal (‘Enter Sandman’!), as well as jazz and blues rather than James Brown, Buck 65 proves this writer’s personal theory that to get ahead in this world you have to enunciate, and be heard as a singer, even if you baffle everyone as a symbolist. Buck would go on to enjoy the longest stint on a major label of any of the Anticon-related artists, although his return-to-Anticon record, as Bike for Three could be his masterpiece.
“Essential Listening: Man Overboard (close to David Berman’s exquisite Actual Air in its construction of surreal narratives, peppered with moments of heart-rending emotional candour); Square (oft-maligned, even by the artist himself, but Hobo-chic hasn’t been done this well since Dylan); Talkin’ Honky Blues (dedicating a whole record to hobo chic, albeit inspired by Anais Nin). Avoid: Secret House Against the World (surrendering all the charm of his previous lo-fi sounds, in places this sounds embarrassingly like LCD Soundsystem).”
With Subtle, DoseOne (another third of cLOUDDEAD) made a bizarre This Heat-does-hiphop concept trilogy something like The Neverending Story meets (Pink Floyd’s) The Wall. Sadly, it’s not great-great, but it’s part of an unparalleled career that continues with Themselves.
DEF JUX
Alongside the various Anticon artists, the envelope of 21st century hip-hop was being pushed by artists on Def Jux… albeit in a slightly different direction. The nucleus of the scene was another unlikely boundary-crosser, El-P, or Jaime Meline (like Tim Holland of Anticon, a large ginger guy). Formerly trading under the name “El Producto” in the short-lived but unforgettable Company Flow, El-P nominally produced records for most of the Jux artists, but actually built elaborate instrumentals, mostly from scratch, with minimal reliance on samples, and not a James Brown record in sight. After the demise of Co-Flow and Rawkus (both of which have been credited with introducing a new, abrasive sound for hip-hop), El-P shortened his name, in the process echoing Elvis Presley, and suggesting that his own take on black music would be no less ground-breaking.
Like so much of the most challenging urban music in the late 20th / early 21st century, El-P’s lyrics and instrumentals reflect a preoccupation with science fiction. Not as escapism, but as an allegorical re-visioning of the urban environment – making inner city life into a constant struggle to survive a battle against inhuman enemies. Drawing on martial arts imagery, a number of other contemporary rappers expressed their own battle in similar terms, most famously the Wu-Tang Clan (who reaped way more acclaim for their supposedly dark, harsh beats and sounds… in spite of sounding like they’d piss themselves if they stumbled into El-P’s soundworld). El-P takes it further, and makes it more urgent. He'd previously alluded to his abusive childhood on the last Co-Flow album, but with 'Stepfather Factory' from Fantastic Damage (2001) he created one of the stand-out narrative-songs of the decade, and indirectly reclaimed science-fiction as a means to defamiliarize social problems:
Stepping back, though, the release that put Def Jux on the map was The Cold Vein (2000) by Cannibal Ox, an El-P production that clocked in at over an hour… without any skits, or even samples. (Bear in mind, “production” in hiphop means writing, arranging, and playing most of the instruments.) One thing the Def Jux releases revealed was that hip-hop could explore a new set of generic motifs without exhausting itself, or operating solely as an ironic move. Even when the most tedious gangster rap lyrics begin from the premise that I’m gonna fuck you up worse than anyone (even if the music is clumsily re-mixed R’n’B), there’s usually the implication that I’m gonna fuck you up with my lyrical skills at the same time… which is where most rappers find their moral justification.
By reaching towards vivid cinematic narratives, Def Jux celebrate urban and/or Afro-American culture. Arguably, the white (Euro-American) dominated Anticon could afford to draw on the Western European avant-gardes (i.e. Dadaism and Surrealism) because – as members of the dominant culture – they had nothing to lose in terms of credibility. Below, I've highlighted these two labels because they're the most radical, but below is a sampler of "hardcore-", "underground-", and "avant-" hiphop from other labels, since the mid-90s:
NON PHIXION & ARSONISTS (both mid-90s "hardcore hiphop" acts who used rock-samples, and Bernard Herman-like strings before anyone else; weirdly, the former signed to Uncle Howie, Matador, and Geffen... without much success)
DILATED PEOPLES
DALEK (drone-heavy hiphop on Mike Patton's Ipecac label, taking forward Chuck D's mission to "be the black CNN" and Flav's to "...learn your history, boyyyy!")