We are not the same, I am a martian.

I used to be just like all the haters, but at least I knew it:

The flow chart above was an attempt to understand why an upper middle class kid might simultaneously disdain popular hip hop for being "inauthentic" and "capitalist," fetishize popular music, and embrace underground hip hop or "backpacker rap." Starting from the foundations of rap as black counterculture, and moving down, I tracked an internal divide in hip hop music, and how both sects have been appropriated by white audiences. As the legend goes, mainstream hip hop's primary audience is white kids in the midwest. Think about all those Souljah Boy videos of girls in white tees and Clemson sweatpants. On the other hand, underground music has also been appropriated by a white audience, as a music that has some sort of power- in its perceived authenticity, and its anti-capitalist tendencies. Stop a random kid at an elite private college in the Northeast, ask him who his favorite rapper is, and you're as likely to hear the name Brother Ali as you are Biggie. The word "backpacker" has been thrown out in reference to this music, a term that resonates doubly, alluding to the purported "intellect" of underground music (backpacks), while also its appropriation into whiteness (backpacking, as in, rich kids hiking the Appalachian Trail). Listening to backpacker rap becomes a way for white kids to somehow gain a type of cultural "authenticity."

This is where I was at on 12/15/08.

I've moved in my position since then. For one thing, I have less criticism for mainstream hip hop as an entity. Simply put, Hot 97 made this summer for me. I've been all about Throw it in the Bag, Who's Real, and that Hurricane Chris song about Halle Berry. For me, mainstream music has become so fascinated with an American construction of materialism that this very philosophy is no longer its purported downfall. In fact, it's one of the most outstanding, self-aware critiques of capitalism I know. We've seen sculptor Damien Hirst's diamond skull, we know this Marxist critique of capitalism, it's old hat. Mainstream hip hop raises it one: critical acts from within capitalism's very framework. Fabolous bragging of his diamond-studded watch is an act of resistance, suggesting that the oppressive system isn't as far-reaching as it wants to be, and that some of the very people (young black males) who weren't suppose to acquire power, did. This is relevant in a way that a comfortable upper-middle class white guy calling out capitalism is not. It's also as powerful as any critique coming from backpack rap.

Thus, this post is dedicated to anyone who has off-handedly thrown out the terms "pop music" or "gangsta rap" or "popular rap" as an example of crappy music, or as a reference to the decline of American society. HI HATERS.

PS

There has been a rise of hybrid rappers lately, who question the boundary between mainstream and underground. This is a beautiful thing.

(More on that here, shamelessly)

Stimuli Update

Sha Stimuli ft. Freeway and Young Chris- Move Back (prod. Just Blaze)

Album October 27

STIMULUS PACKAGE

I admit it, I slept on Sha Stimuli pretty hard. Every now and then, dude's name would show up on some obscure mixtape crowded with Wu affiliates and Cormega knockoffs, but I never paid any attention. I should've. In fact, I'm beginning to imagine how satisfying the last couple years of my life would've been if I wasn't totally blacked out on Wu-Tang fringe material. Why? Because from January 08 to January 09, Sha Stimuli dropped 12 mixtapes. That's right-- 12 months, 12 full-length tapes. Don't believe me? And these aren't your typical filler-riddled joints either-- many of them are concept albums, including the stand-out Hotter Than July, a Stevie Wonder-inspired tape that exclusively samples the R+B legend.

Ok ok. Who the fuck has time to listen to 12 mixtapes by a relatively unknown Brooklyn MC? And what would that even prove? That your boy is prolific? That don't mean shit. Agreed. But scope any of Sha's freestyles or verses, and you'll hear creative rhyme schemes, a personalized flow, a knack for punch-lines, and an honest passion for hip hop that DOES mean shit.

Sha has all the makings of a technially great rapper, but what really makes him stand out from other MCs is his intellect, sincerity, and self-awareness. It's this self-awareness which makes him so unique among peers. Very rarely do underground rappers acknowledge a desire for commercial success, and it is equally rare for mainstream artists to speak of themselves as anything but the GOAT. Yet Stimuli positions himself in that grey area between the two, boasting a huge ego while simultaneously acknowledging his struggle to be successful within a context of "underground authenticity." In other words, peep the first verse on "Win the Fight," off Hotter Than July:

Oh you thought that I was playin?/ I do albums in my sleep so while you dream of gettin paper I cause nightmares like you seein' Satan

I showed up at Summer Jam feelin like Son of Sam/ Lookin at the stage in a rage/This is stupid yo/ I'm standin here mad at myself so I hit the studio/ And wrote this/

No hit record, no underground...

I'm up to somethin/ To intertwine fluff and substance/ The hip-hoppers gone feel it and the thugs will love it

Stimuli's penchant for reflexivity is further on display at his blog:

As much as this hurts me inside I have come to grips with the fact that I do not look scary at all to strangers. I can have my earphones in bopping to my music with the meanest of faces on a dark New York street and some elderly Caucasian lady will tap me on the shoulder and ask me for directions without hesitation. I want to say “Don’t I look frightening? Why aren’t you concerned that I’ll rob you Miss?”

The MC's reflections always seem to invert traditional ways of thinking about what is good (from a liberal perspective) for hip hop music and artists. Yet all this looking in the mirror seems to be good for Sha. As long as he knows where he is within the game, then he can keep banging out fresh material that challenges an audience stuck crabbily arguing about Underground vs. Mainstream. Which is why I'm so excited by this:

Further reading:

Sha Stimuli- Look At You