"Earl" made it onto The New York Times' 2010 Top Ten Songs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/arts/music/19caramanica.html?_r=2cat is sixteen and makes music that can't be played on radio. at all. his mother heard his music and took him out of LA, to a restrictive private boarding school for gifted kids, where he watches from a distance as his crew gains a larger following each day. his debut album, given away for free and recorded in a bedroom studio with his friends (most probably
for his friends) is well, pretty dope, honestly. it's highly formalist (think early Eminem meeting DOOM and they discover they share a nephew) and so surprisingly creative and unique--and also funny--that you actually forget this cat is talking about rape and serial killers [although there's also a mention of an absentee father and a heartbreak--but yeah, mostly its drugs and murder].
while you sleep, Hip Hop and its position in mainstream and niche media is changing. the internet is reversing the whole shit. the artists run shit directly, now, based on how captivating they are, and the media and labels follow after them to capitalize on their "buzz"/"meme potential"/"followers".
everyone wants in on the new shit.
it's also worth mentioning, that these dudes have basically crossed over to that 'indie' type of critical coverage and acclaim; the kind that lauds creativity and inventiveness and thinks of 'club-banger' status as okay, but mostly irrelevant.
basically, they're on top year lists with MGMT, Grizzly Bear, Panda Bear etc. something boom-bap, political or more traditionally rooted (whether 'commercial' or 'underground') rap music will never see.
their personas, too, are important. very important, actually. Tyler, the Creator himself said it on his myspace layout, back when he was an anonymous 17-year old (though I don't think he knew how prescient he was being): "the future is odd". and it seems true. all the rappers getting buzz, now, are strange cats; hitherto unseen or else not fully discovered [Kool Kieth] in the rap game.
the obvious cat to mention here is Lil B The Based God, but if you think about it, even Waka Flocka Flame and Lex Luger's hype as f*** war-cry trap rap is strange in how singular and deranged it is. and even stranger that at 24, not only is Waka not fronting in his lyrics, he seems genuinely unshaken by the violence in his life, not even satisfying the prerequisite need to wear it on his sleeve.
[sideshot: notice how, outside of rapping over JUSTICE League beats, on Teflon Don Rick Ross basically tries to emulate the moods in other people's music: Waka on the Lex Luger beats ['MC Hammer'] , Drake on the joint featuring Drake ['Aston Martin Music'], Kanye on the joint produced and featuring Kanye ['Live Fast, Die Fast']--and we all know what these these 3 cats had in common, this year]
but, anyway, remember that article i excerpted?
"In February, the storied underground label Definitive Jux, co-founded and run since 1999 by El-P, announced it would temporarily shutter operations. The news confirmed something that has been obvious to many for years: Underground rap is dead. Or is, at least, not a useful way of describing music anymore. In its stead, a different brand of homespun rappers have taken hold."
"From the enduring ICP to the insurgent Lil B, Soulja Boy and their youthful contemporaries-- Danny Brown, Wiz Khalifa, Curren$y, Big K.R.I.T., Mac Miller, and others-- underground rap is changing every day, defined more by individual personality than by an all-encompa**ing ethos."
i wonder what, if anything, this means for SA Hip Hop, which isn't nearly half as connected (online) as the shit in the US. and also since SA Hip Hop still seems to hold to the binary of earnest conscious/'quality' rappers versus commercial dudes still copying trends from the early-to-mid 2000's era (crunk, electro, and soon, probably, Trap).
i don't know. apart from the internet connectivity, America hasn't always been like this. it had to get to a point where it was so saturated with the same shit, its own shit, mind you, that it got sick of itself. turned on itself with parody; then incorporated postmodernism into popular culture, effectively discarding any un-sarcastic belief in shit, especially shit regarding alternative youth culture. art became just for art and life. not politics or society. in this way, they kind of started anew, without the weight of history. at most, things are referred to.
i don't think we're there, yet. i don't think the talented emcees are ready to discard Hip Hop Culture and its regulations as an ethos; i don't think they're ready to believe in themselves as individuals instead of a Hip Hop Community. and i think as a society, no one has a desire for that, either. well, at least not yet. you know how it is the way modernity has that trickle effect, from the center to the periphery; it took a minute before cats in my hood started wearing Wayfarers.
i don't know, maybe it's a good thing that we aren't there. maybe this is an opportunity to forge in a different direction.
for once.
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damn. so i ended up writing a 'think-piece'. AG should pay me for this shit, ha ha
