Underground Hip-Hop

[Benny Bunter]

I love Kool Keith, is he Undie then?

Best Kool Keith albums:

Dr Octagon
Dr Doooom (well, some of it anyway)
Matthew (Angry!)
Spank master
Sex Style
Black Elvis

(in no particular order)

Must admit to being slightly underwhelmed when I heard Critical Beatdown after hearing these first though.

RE: Undie Hip Hop, can't stand any of the Def Jux type stuff but I still like DJ shadow's Endtroducing a bit. I think El-P/Anticon is awful to listen to though. Cloudead were terrible!

 

[matt b]

RE: Undie Hip Hop, can't stand any of the Def Jux type stuff but I still like DJ shadow's Endtroducing a bit. I think El-P/Anticon is awful to listen to though. Cloudead were terrible!

i'm far from an undie hip hop disciple, but there is plenty of stuff in the anticon/def jux catalogue that beats the sickening endtroducing rolling around in it's own pool of money can buy you anything obscure sampling lets please the john harris types piss.


If bangpuss responds to this thread, I might even drag my cynical mind into the light and recommend some other stuff, but at the moment my eyes are watering at the thought...

 

[atoga]

to me, a lot of the best backpack rap was the futuristic stuff with mostly digital production, which is unfortunately overshadowed by all the dusty crates / true school emphasis (it's surely become one of the most conservative music genres):

Viktor Vaughn - Vaudeville Villain - great weird production and best MF Doom persona
Cannibal Ox
El-P - Fandam instrumentals - because i don't like El-P as a rapper
Thavius Beck
everything by Antipop / Airborn Audio / Sayyid / Priest

 

[you]

always thought necro was a bit naff, like immortal technique.

Cannibal Ox
Quas
Madlib ( or pretty much anything off stones throw )
Antipop Consortium
Cloudead, Why, Odd Nostam, Dose One
Busdriver
Daedalus
DJ Vadim
Cornelius

On the futuristic tip, early dilated peoples ( the platform ) and also Dan the Automator's project Deltron 3030 were really good ( perhaps the latter being a much better LP )

 

[crackerjack]

Juggaknots - Clear Blue Skies
Mr Lif - I Phantom and I Heard It Today
Scaramanga - 7 Eyes 7 Horns
Non Phixion - Future Is Now
Oh No's first (only?) album - the best non-Madlib/Doom rap album on Stones Throw and one I deeply regret selling every time I hear some.
all of Roots Manuva's albums - doesn't get the props he merits from undie fans, p'raps cos he rhymes in time and The Guardian likes him.

 

[daddek]

that juggaknots was great. but to me stuff like that, mf doom, kool keith, is just good rap to me.

the 'undie' thing (def jux, anticon, rhymesayers, project blowed, antipop etc) is/was it's distinct, own shrinking, bubble-world unto itself. If we're talking good, non major label rap, there's a fair amount of good music to find. Fondle 'Em records, premiere's NY Reality Check 101 mixtape etc, some rawkus,.. not sure where i would start. If we're talking good but not-so commerically successful rap (irrespective of label & decade), the list is basically endless.

I wasted a good section of this morning revisiting the more neeky, hermetic undie rap i used listen to.. honestly I could sell / delete 90% of it, because Odd Future makes it sound like assmilk.

 

[crackerjack]

the 'undie' thing (def jux, anticon, rhymesayers, project blowed, antipop etc) is/was it's distinct, own shrinking, bubble-world unto itself.

I agree, but I don't really like much of that stuff and I wanted to play too

 

[Bangpuss]

I'm only a little bit ashamed to admit that I still really like:

I find it slightly tragic to see people feeling "ashamed" for liking something. If I took any notice of the picayune boasting of people who want people who know less than them to feel inferior, I' have slammed my head in a car door long ago. As would we all, since we learn more through plucking from the laurels of those who have more knowledge.

So people questioning someone's "indie cred" etc. ought to be shut in a hot oven for a long time.

Anyway, thanks for all the non-sarcastic suggestions. That's exactly what I was looking for. There's so much MF DOOM stuff out there, I've never known where to go beyond Madvillain, Danger Doom and his latest album.

I'll definitely check out Kool Keith and all the other older stuff people have recommended. Thanks, guys!

P.S. Nochexxx, I've heard your -- is it you? -- collaboration with Sensational. My mate played it to me, it's amazing. I'd be interested to hear anything else you've done. Also, what else has Mowgli done besides his '93 album? I'm really into that. It's the best UK hip-hop album I've heard since, err, I started listening to hip-hop...

 

[connect_icut]

Sometimes, the shame is the best part ;]

 

[fractal]

the term "underground" is a fallacy, imho

that being said, you can't beat 9th wonder in terms of beats

check Little Brother, Buckshot, Foreign Exchange, all of his remix albums, murs 3:16, the dream merchant series, etc...

good shtuff

 

[Benny Bunter]

s the sickening endtroducing rolling around in it's own pool of money can buy you anything obscure sampling lets please the john harris types piss.
..

This seems a bit mean and cynical. Did DJ shadow really have big pots of cash to pay people off for using their samples? Are you suggesting he just bought his way into the hip hop scene (even though no one in the US really gave a fuck about him anyway). Is using 'obscure' samples somehow unacceptable? I'm genuinely quite perplexed by your post, you could have just said that you thought the DJ shadow album was boring or something, that would have been fair enuff.

And forgive my ignorance but who the fuck is John Harris?

edit: I definitely dismissed anticon/def jux there quite unfairly tbh. I think Its the style of rapping that puts me off in general, but I'm sure there's plenty of stuff I haven't heard thats cool. I just hate all that clever clever Clouded-type stuff, and EL-P should never have been let near a microphone.

 

[gumdrops]

lost interest in kool keith around the time of dr doom. was never that into kutmasta kurts production apart from a handful of songs and he seemed to only want to work with him but the sex style album was maybe the last thing of his i really liked (wanna be a star was great). still not heard that matthew album though i seem to remember people saying it was a good one. but the dr doom album is when i stopped giving a shit. the keep it real represent what single is worth finding/downloading too.

though he seems slightly knowing, i like lil b just cos he seems like a spaced out return to stuff like boogiemonsters and weird abstract rap.

 

[CrowleyHead]

All this debate is wonderful, but to the man who said 9th Wonder is a good producer... Would you kindly stop taking crack?

I don't mean to be a belligerent dick about this, but there's this weird oxymoron that everyone looks over with 9th Wonder. Everyone makes him out to be this impressive beatsmith in the Pete Rock/Showbiz "Sample Digging Master Producer of 'THE REAL'"... When he only JUST stopped using the same Fruity Loops Drum Kit. Man, it is not THAT HARD to find drums and sample them.

That said, one day Myka 9 should really do a self-celebrating solo record where he does a record with ALL his progeny. I mean, Snoop once referenced Fellowship on a record. So imagine one track with him and the anticon art school... And then doing a song with DPG. It would be brilliant, in a patchy-as-fuck sort of way.

 

[daddek]

re: myka's influence, its hard to say how much is myth isn't it. his fans have it that all fast triplet rapping can be directly traced back to him.. as can freestylng lol.
if his ability is so vast, it's a shame it hasn't manifested into an amazing record.
but he's definitely a long way from the average rapper
a myka 9 & bizzy bone album would be some cool shit

 

[CrowleyHead]

Yeah, his fans tend to really act cultish. I mean, the dude basically got lost in his own 'craft', which is admirable enough. Shame he's never gotten it down locked. But at the same time, I think nearly 1/2 this thread's subjects are guys who bumped the hell out of "To Whom It May Concern..."

That's actually perfect. The two of them going into some lightspeed space gospel.

 

[urbanite]

also, i always wondered how the el-p fans felt about bigg jus' post co-flo stuff ? namely - bigg jus - black mamba serums and nephlim modulation systems (with orko the sykotik alien) - woe to the o land whose king is a child

Really loved Black Mamba Serums, and the lo-fi aspect of production added the real charm to those records I think... not sure why no one ever really picked up on them as much as El-P's solo work... NMS was good as well, not as good as Black Mamba Serums though...

Dose One is still touring with Themselves and they put a really good show on...

Also one person who's not been mentioned yet (i think) is Busdriver, if you're into people with really fast/using voice as an instrument/tongue twister type flows

 

[connect_icut]

I think Mr Len from Co Flow also had a solo album, too. Pity the Fool? As I remember, it was a showcase for a bunch of emcees and it wasn't bad at all.

Themselves do indeed put on an excellent live show and The No Music is one of the high-points of Anticon. There's also Subtle, which I believe is a more fleshed-out "rock band" version of Themselves. I've always avoided that one but who knows...

 

[urbanite]

yeah didn't really pay too much attention to what Len was doing, remember giving it a quick listen and deciding that it was pretty sub par...

Subtle weren't much of a rock band really, more like a really funky version of Themselves with a live band, the live show was quite intense, really good. Pity they had that bus accident and one of the members got hurt real bad.

Not sure if this works for all of the indie/undie hip-hop, but the live shows often separated the good from the bad for me. Like say seeing Buck 65 / Busdriver or Sage Francis, really added to my appreciation of the records, for some like that Sonic Sum guy it just added to disappointment

Need to listen to the Odd Future more (don't really see how their beats are that much better than the beats on say Arrythmia though), but recently mostly have been uninspired by most hip-hop/rap I hear, besides maybe the odd Lil Wayne (especially like the weirdo aspects and maybe some of the posturing).

Check out TTC if you don't mind some French in your rap Probably the best hip-hop that came out of Europe... besides maybe the infamous Taktlo$$ freestyles on Viva Zwei

 

[connect_icut]

Buck 65 is great live. Spends as much time telling stories as he does rhyming over beats. Thoroughly entertaining stories, too!

At their height, Antipop Consortium were absolutely mind-blowing live. Really tight but with lots of free-form bits. Saw them recently, minus Beans, at a thousand capacity venue, with a crowd of about 30 people. It was depressing.

 

[urbanite]

yep, love Buck65's stories...

Anti-Pop's latest album wasn't what I expected from it, I guess the tensions between Beans and Priest/Sayyid are really still continuing, the live show I saw right after that album came out was pretty weak as well, although the crowd was hyped seeing them for the first time in Moscow.

When I saw them first (pre Arrythmia) that was easily one of the top 10 live shows I've seen...