"Underground" is one of those tantalizingly vague terms that's always on the verge of obsolescence until some mouthy, hungry new rapper comes along and reanimates it. Whether it was being dismissed as a fad, derided as a menace to society or ascending the pop charts, there's always been a distinct way in which hip-hop has represented its underground ethos — the long-repressed reality straight from America's cities on one hand, or a new set of… more »
James Joyce wrote that his weapons as an artist would be "silence, exile and cunning." Silence isn't generally useful for musicians, and cunning comes with the territory for anyone who wants to play the pop-music game of one-upmanship. In 2004, though, a lot of the best indie records latched onto exile as a weapon, or as a metaphor, or even as their central subject. The international political landscape had collapsed into a mess of lies,… more »
It was 1988 and space was, indeed, the final frontier. A brief history of rap until that moment might have read like this: first they toasted, then they shouted. Next came the couplets and syllables, uttered coolly, so as not to break a sweat. And then crash-landed the Ultramagnetic MCs - a band of brothers from another planet who came to reset the system. Why rhyme when you could fly in style?
High school friends Kool… more »
