Does Underground Rap Exist Anymore?
When I ask this question, I'm not asking in the sense of whether "real" rap still exist: I'm asking whether there is a cohesive aesthetic or community that can call itself underground rap? The Internet, with the help of smaller magazines and blogs have blown the lid off what can or cannot be considered underground. It's entirely realistic to call former Def Jam employee Joe Budden underground because he can't sell records while at the same time saying that indiejuggernaut Atmosphere and his record label Rhymesayers are underground because of his label's distance from major record labels. By the same token, could blog stars like Charles Hamilton and Jay Electronica, with their abundance of mixtapes and press, but curious lack of albums be considered underground as well? For all intents and purposes, does the term even need to exist years after it become irrelevant.
Not that long ago, in a time that was called the early aughts and we had just elected a white guy (or had we?), the world actually made sense; or at least underground rap made sense as an entity. Being into underground rap meant three things about you as a person: you listen to music from small label like the aforementioned Rhymesayers, Def Jux, and the like, or you listened to music made mostly in the 90's and mainly from New York or other Northeastern cities, and you went to shows where a solid 60 percent or more of the audience was male and white. Now that's not nearly the case and I have to say that this doesn't upset me in the least, if only for the fact that more ladies are at shows.
A new path is being forged for music, not just hip hop, where the playing field for all artist is being leveled for all artist to received exposure and recognition: now album sales may never return, or to putting it more succinctly paying for actual music may never return, but artist can be perceived as on equal footing. The only province of old school patriarchal behavior occurs in that wasteland called FM radio and there has to be a way to eliminate it's influence: it's called the Ipod. So the game is wide open and I hope the artist see this as an opportunity, not an hindrance.
The underground is still alive ! You need to look no further than the Inland Empire. 50 miles east of Los Angeles there has been and still is a bubbling Underground communitie of artist. From Emcees to Dj's,Producers, break dancers and graff artist. The Underground is a mere description of collective beings that create art, without the help of Corporate giants that water it down. The underground i s an asthetic that cant be sold and cant be monitored. You dont sign up for the underground, there isnt an underground club that grants admission. You don't need a back pack to be underground. Any art that flys just beneath the surface of main stream acceptance is pretty much underground. Just like mainstream music the underground has plenty of music that sucks. You can run your finger across the globe and there are underground forces at work, that will bubble over the surface. The underground is where the sound is found.
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