The Underground Can't Do It Alone

After reading one of my boys blogs regarding the current state (and it IS a state) of Hip Hop, I gots to thinking. As pretentious as this may seem as I pride myself on being part of the underground rap scene in the UK, most of Europe and partly in Canada & the US aiming to make it big (thanks to some cross-seas connections like Nix, Poet etc.) I'm getting tired of mainstream "artists" reproducing bullshit and failing to come up with the goods. "[I never hear anything] ...besides [mainstream rappers] putting a new chain around their neck or bigger rims on that Range." my boy aptly analyzes. It's true though. Try to think of a modern-day track that's sold to the millions that doesn't revolve around cash, status or 'pimping'. Can't can ya? Didn't think so.
Which brings me on to my next point. The best new material I've heard in the past 4 years has all been underground/online shit and that's not even an exaggeration. I always go through phases of listening mostly to one or two artists. And since late 2002, when I got involved in hip hop, the main cats that have been on heavy rotation in my world have been heads like DZK, Big Nix, Mastah Poet, Hard Target, Richie Sosa, Mickey Factz, Jae Swift, Boro, F.a.T, K-Nice, P.I.G., Spoonfull, Donnie B, Gravity and the list goes on and on. There's nothing better when I'ma be traveling for ages than turning on my iPod (or whatever music playing device I had back in '02) and bumping these rappers tracks and just listening to shit worth hearing and imagining performing this sort of stuff live gives me a buzz. Delivering each profound line and getting a massive crowd reaction must be the nearest to heaven short of having Jessica Alba, Kate Beckinsale and Christina Milian all in your hotel room horny and smashed off their faces on 80-proof alcohol and diesel fumes. Then, I put in a mainstream album, The Game's for instance. Now this is easy to listen to because the production, flow, delivery etc. is ace and dude's a talented rapper. But try to imagine performing this and it's only 1 or 2 lines per song that you can really see the crowd reacting to, and Game's is like the best mainstream cat in the world right now including Nas, Mos Def and a few others in my opinion. And Jay-Z’s new album “Kingdome Come” is not even worth turning the bad taste in my mouth to ink. It's like when I first heard Infinite, Em's lyrics, rhymes and delivery was crazy and, as I copped it late, I went out and bought the Encore CD. And I enjoyed that shit for a bit but since The Re-Up's release I've realized I couldn't have liked Encore that much because I honestly don't give a flying nazi fuck that Mr. Mathers has just released a new project.
One CD I am excited about though is "Debut of a Don: Volume I" courtesy of Gravity from New York. Now this kid has got skill. Riding the beat with a medium-speed, cocky but amiable rhythm he shuns a likeness to Pun he's been tagged with (being mixed race & Hispanic) with a "Yeah, but can Pun do this?" and flipping the next 8-12 bars at a crazy but crystal clear pace. And it’s this versatility the game is seriously lacking. Not just flowing differently and at changeable tempos but also having shit to say, as you'll see Grav has when you check him out at his official MySpace Page. Not once have I heard him rap about chains, money or bitches (bitches as in he's a pimp) and you should see the line-up on this mixtape. Fair enough Young Buck may not be of many avid hip hop fans tastes but it's a big-name, local figure head he's attracted through making the music he wants. Plus, you don't get Stimuli and Chino XL on your CD through being whack, do you? No.
Nova Prospektz, even though I'm unsure if they’re still a crew, are doing just this too. Nix has made some of the most creative tracks I've ever heard online with one of his early songs "Mah Life" playing a huge part in getting myself involved in making music in the beginning. Check Sacred Society any day of the Week and I bet “Big Nix” will be placed just below the words; Most, Creative and Audio.
Mastah Poet has always done his own thing with mad creative and original drops since the days of The Mobb and when cats there got too e-gangster and bullshitting he dropped a classic like The Settlement Part II and outted every single fronting fuck up in that bitch, shit was beautiful. That's why Poet and I have created AON (All Or Nothing) to produce the sort of music we think the game needs not what some fuck thinks will sell to pre-pubescent, crushing girls.

Speaking of The Mobb, I can also remember listening to cats like Corleone, Son of Caine and the then Furious Styles flipping multis so professionally and seamlessly I could hardly keep up. I’d find myself rewinding the tracks just to catch up with what they were saying. These were the days when Hip Hop, to me, really meant something. Back when a topical battle between Sinistir Knot and LynxXx would be talked about for months because so much effort and talent went into them they were classics. Then, Son of Caine dropping an anti-political fuelled bomb like “Red Tape”. Then, Poet dropping “The Settlement Part II”. Then, Inzer dropping “Supply & Demand”. And I don’t even know of any Mobb cats these days except Sinistir Knot has dropped from the underground scene, Mastah Poet and LynxXx (Nix) still progressing like a fucking steam train, Joey Ripps aka Likwit Skillz & Rhyme Adam (formerly Millennium) are making moves with me and Poet in FrontLine Militia and that Grimey Ben Blanco, who came before my time, is doing his thing with his own label in Florida. And it just seems a waste.

All of the above is strictly my opinion and are cats that just I've heard of and I'm sure there are plenty more talented MC's struggling for exposure in the game. Especially as distribution tends to be 9/10ths of making it these days.

Now, the underground. We can't do it alone. We lack both the exposure and funds to really make an independent CD worth listening to. Only the wannabe-street upper class kids can make this shit but it's rarely physically possible to listen to let alone worth it. So fuck net-beef. Cats should be hooking up globally to take over the mainstream the way we wanna and helping to keep talented artists involved in making music. Fuck what the pencil neck, braces wearing prick sitting in his big leather chair at the top of Interscope wants.

So from now on for the underground it should be All Or Nothing.

I.