RAPPER Jay-Z may have recently triumphed over the forces of idiocy at Glastonbury, but to many people, including those who love hip-hop, he’s still one of the vast army of rappers who’ve made MCing about hustling and selling drugs a burgeoning but boring genre. Coke rap has been king for a few years, with the likes of Young Jeezy and 50 Cent making their names through some not particularly creative tales of street life. Which might explain why there’s been an explosion of what some are calling “hipster rap” (we’re working on something better along the lines of “hipster-hop” or “hip-hopster” — we’ll get back to you once we’ve perfected it).
They might not all appreciate being lumped in together, but the likes of Chicago’s Kid Sister, DJ crew Flosstradamus, self-styled “Black Beastie Boys” the Cool Kids, Philadelphia’s Plastic Little and even Florida’s Yo! Majesty are injecting some color, humor and freshness into an increasingly monochrome scene.
Hip-hop music has always reinvented itself, from the early days as disco rap to mid-80s electro, James Brown-sampling from 1987 and onward to Afrocentrism, G-Funk, the “jiggy years” ruled by P Diddy, crunk and dirty south and the recent rise of drug rap. The new breed, however, is twisting elements from everything that came before, melding old-school beats with new technology plus a twist of nu-rave’s Day-Glo dressing up. In one dramatic move, the new school has taken hip-hop back into the clubs emphasizing the beats, with a freer attitude to what you can play; a classic slice of 1980s rap will be mashed up with a new rave banger or a new-school anthem.
In many ways, this harks back to old-school hip-hop, where rappers would spit virtual nonsense over breaks from records such as Chic’s Good Times. Of course, old-school rap never went away, endlessly referenced as it is by artists, but those acts who attempted a revival of its sound tended to attract crowds of white rap nerds with record bags full of vintage vinyl (and more power to them) rather than the multiracial crowd getting down to hipster rap. It might not sound like Grandmaster Flash And The Furious Five, but it is capturing something of rap’s lost sense of fun and freedom — when it was okay to say “dope,” “def” and even “cold getting dumb” without sounding like Nathan Barley.
Take the effervescent Kid Sister, who received an early boost to her career when Kanye West actually asked to appear on her breakthrough Pro Nails single (“Got her toes done up, with her fingernails matching”). While Kanye and her sound aren’t old school, the brio of the tune is, while her connections — her brother is part of Flosstradamus, her boyfriend A-Trak is Kanye West’s tour DJ — put her firmly in the hipster world. After working in a deli (“With no air conditioning. Imagine that in summer!” she laughs) and a baby clothes shop, Kid Sister, AKA Melisa Young found her feet in music almost by accident after her brother encouraged her to get onstage and rhyme at their monthly parties. Following the indie success of Pro Nails, she’s also been heard on the Count And Sinden’s UK club hit Beeper and her track Control, produced by one half of Spank Rock.
“My favorite music is mid- to late-90s R&B,” she says, a comment that’ll probably enrage those people who are in what US alt news mag the Utne Reader calls “The Latest Hater Battleground,” a place where old-school fans and rap purists rail against the tight jeans, outsized gold chains and nightclub sunglasses of the new rap hipsters. But isn’t music supposed to be dumb fun at times? Cold getting’ dumb fun, even?
Chicago’s Cool Kids have made dressing like late-80s rappers with a modern edge and riding around on a BMX in your 20s (one of their finer songs is Black Mags) somehow not utterly hateful, well, not to everyone. But are they hip-hop, or are they just the kind of people you might expect to bump into looking for vintage trainers with Mark Ronson?
It’s more than just music for Jwl B and Shunda K — Tampa Florida’s Yo! Majesty — they reckon their blast against staid hip-hop is giving the music back to the people with a message of sexuality, spirituality and partying hard. “For me, people who are labeled hipster rappers, are just outcasts. And I’m on the side of outcasts, the people who don’t fit in,” states Shunda K.
She’s way too serious to consider herself a hipster anyway, talking for 35 minutes about her campaigning for Obama and the role of God in her life and music.
In a sweatbox club, with the music pounding, it doesn’t matter if you’re hip-hop, a hippy or a hipster, as long as you’re doing the Smurf and the Pee Wee Herman!