Word: underground
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While his ambivalence is probably genuine, it’s unclear if an art form has ever expressed as burning a desire to be taken seriously as contemporary underground hip-hop. “The Living Human Curiousity Sideshow” forms part of a larger trend of MCs including unpunctuated, vaguely cummings-esque lyrics in photocopy-chic booklets...
Also, reports of the Benz/backpack dichotomy between mainstream and underground rap that Kanye West claims to have transcended seem to have been greatly exaggerated. Hip-hop legends like Wu-Tang Clan, Rakim, Nas and Notorious B.I.G. have been weaving abstract rhymes into their oeuvres for years (albeit less pretentiously), along with left-field heroes like De La Soul, 3rd Bass and the Native Tongues Posse (Q-Tip’s nickname is even “the Abstract?...
Vegetables” stirred up righteous anger only to be subsumed a few years later by the art-punk Dadaisms of Wire’s “Chairs Missing,” underground hip hop today is on the verge of a revolution in subject matter, form and overarching aesthetics...
Many of the groups profiled here are wholly or partly recreational activities for their members, most of whom have day jobs. Some of them well on their way towards mainstream recognition, some are underground legends, some are defunct by this point, and others might as well...
...you’re looking for a step-by-step guide to TRL ubiquity or underground notoriety, look elsewhere (and be prepared to look forever). That’s not to say that nothing can be learned from these musical narratives...