ABSTRACT HIP HOP

A new breed of the underground

Prologue

Some weeks ago I realised that more and more often, when I left my favourite record store, I had packed records of a similar style – featuring distorted and deconstructed electro-tracks with feelable beats and laidback yet complex rap-vocals on top. Far away from any Busta Rhymes / Neptunes / charts-hip hop, this was definitely a sort of Hip Hop, though not really danceable. The beats could grab you from behind, which means, if you didn’t really listen intensely to the music, you’d suddenly find yourself moving to a certain beat that came more from between the beats and samples than directly from them. These artists used the most avantgarde tools and strategies of electronic music as well, actually, listening to these records you could get the feeling that anything at all could happen. And it seemed intelligent, or at least well thought through. The vocals use a lot of strange and weird images and sometimes almost seem ad libbed. And true, as if it came from a definitive need to be done rather than by chance, fashion or friendship. This went on and on for some time, but only when my record store added a new label into its CD-rack and vinyl-boxes, I could point my feelings down to two little words: Abstract Hip Hop.

I have no idea if that is a good name, but it might be as good as any. Usually, if someone tags a label onto some music, it is the first step downhill. Nevertheless, I don’t think this will happen with most of the bands and artists I am going to mention further on. First, because if a trend is new, nobody ever thinks that. Second, because I feel a lot of honesty and love for art in this music. I could be wrong of course, and in two years from now, all the people I mentioned are sitting in luxury-offices, peddling contracts and have big mortgages to fulfil around their necks. I don’t hope so, but usually, whenever that happens, I am already around the corner, searching the dark and seedy edges for something else.

Okay, so let me give you an idea on what this is all about. Maybe the first record I know, that could be counted into the genre of Abstract Hip Hop is by Prefuse 73 and was called “vocal studies + uprock narratives” (on Warp records) and was very interesting because it mixed electronica and Hip Hop in new and unthought of ways. Prefuse 73 play a lot with sudden silence and the dynamic funk coming from sound / no sound mixing. This way they distorted rather conventional tracks into something completely new. Next up, still talking about forerunners before the trend was born, might be the Anti-Pop-Consortium with “Arrhythmia” (also on Warp, and if you know that label, then you also know that this is not the usual place for Hip Hop). The APC are great because they use electronica a lot, they use estrangement-effects and aren’t afraid to spike their tracks with a political message. They use the strategies and images of mainstream-rap to pull the listener into their reach and then confront him with weird beats and synthie-noises. They are great, but I guess I already said that. If you read the titles of these records again, that might already tell you a little about the way these minds tick. Then there is Dälek, of course, and ever since his great "from filthy tongue of gods and griots" (on Ipecac), he is also in everybody's mouth. Some people tend to forget, that Dälek has been going on for years now, producing his very own and unique sort of rap-music, very dark and brooding, breathing the shady odour of big cities and modern times, and accordingly releasing his first record on a well-known Punk/Hardcore-label, i.e. Gern Blandsten. With his new CD on Ipecac he has finally transgressed any boundaries, including white noise and spoken-word into his art. (If you think about it, it is a funny thing, that there is such a big line between rap and spoken word, because these two should be really close.)

The cool thing about Abstract Hip Hop is, that it owes as much to electronic music as it does to Rap and Hip Hop, as much to Aphex Twin or Massive Attack as to KRS One or De La Soul. And this makes it easy for a white boy to come down and get ahold of these records without the ridicule of the usual would-be-rap-teenies and baggy-pant-kids. Since I am still talking about the situation in Austria, trying to convince people you are black, while you are a white, middle-class highschool-student is even more ridiculous, but usually people interested in interesting music don’t want to be associated with these types of people. Since Abstract Hip Hop features no big basslines, no big booties or boobs and no male-rapping / female chorus-structures, this won’t happen anyway. Which gets me to another point: it is hard to still call hip hop or rap "black" music. Ever since the big bucks rolled in, the race-boundaries have been falling, with the exception that the protagonists or frontfigures still play heavily on what is generally regarded as a "black lifestyle" (for which they don't really have to be black, just act as whatever is regarded as "black" - see Eminem). With Abstract Hip Hop I haven't yet felt that this issue is of any importance at all. There is no "nigger this" and "my nigger that", there is no overtly "black lingo" and there are rarely ever pictures of the artists on the records. It seems to me as if with Abstract Hip Hop, as it is described here, nobody really cares about this issue. That is a good thing.

I have heard that in the USA some of the protagonists of Abstract Hip Hop are under constant fire of the hip-hop-communities, because they only produce noise, aren’t black or better: don't "act black", aren’t straight, are too weird, to artsy, to “prog-rock”, and so on. I like them for that, too. Mostly I like Abstract Hip Hop for being introvert yet outspoken, for being complex and funny. There are a lot of pictures, dreamlike associations, diary-entries – so you might call that the emo-factor of Abstract Hip Hop. To me, that only makes the ones doing it more real, more human.

Guess it is time for the run-down-the-mill, but I will have to excuse myself beforehand. Even though I bought a lot of records (and my bankclerk will testify on my behalf) I have in no way a complete overview over what’s going on. All the labels I am going to mention have the knack of doing one-off-EPs, mp3s, and other things to destroy the lives of collector scum. Moreover, all the people involved are constantly exchanging productions, working together, changing names, everything to make the whole incestuous scene even more complex. I have no will or desire to follow that down. If you have the time, okay, go ahead and do it. All I am going to do, is to give you a few starting points and I will regard more to full and more recent releases so you will be able to get them, okay?

For instance Anticon-records, who have a really neat homepage and have releases three great records. They have been presented as a central melting point of Abstract Hip Hop, e.g. in a recent article in the Wire, which is great, and gives you a lot of insight into how the personal lifes of the proponents play into any kind of art they do, down to where they see their own lives as art. You can find a review of Sage Francis’ “Personal Journals” following the link and of Alias “The other side of the looking glass” as well. The third record is “the no music” by themselves, who are doseone and jel of Clouddead. “the no music” is even a little slower and darker than the other two records and it definitely features the weirdest and most far-out imageries and associations. It is as hard to follow their lyrics and tracks as it is to follow the artwork and lyricsheets (if you can call it that) inside the record. Nevertheless, you won’t be able to get away from them, I assure you. They are personal, relate a lot of private experiences and history, mix it with cut-up tracks, a shitload of samples and a lot of stuff you just won’t expect.

cLOUDDEAD

Aesop Rock

Another label somehow closely related to Anticon is called Mush records on which you will find the genius record “Float” by Aesop Rocks. This one is straighter than the others and Aesop Rocks is more of a rapper technically than the other artists I mentioned. There is a little tag on the record reading “american made underground hip hop” and even though I am no friend of patriotism of any kind, I won’t complain. “Float” features doseone on one track, so there goes the incest again. Interestingly, the double-12”-vinyl has no marks to tell you which side is which, so you just have to put the record on and guess. A killer for any DJ out there, but “Float” is a killer for any dancefloor anyway. The beats constantly change, there are rarely ever grooving basslines to accompany the very down-to-earth-rap-vocals of Aesop Rocks, but the record features a lot of clichéd synthies, even some acoustic guitars and background-vocals that are always somewhat off the hook. You might get a straight drum-beat for a minute with Aesop rapping over it with hurried emphasis and then suddenly the beat drops, synthies play a sort of children's melody and Aesop keeps on rapping as if there weren't any bongoes in the background. A minute later you are somewhere completly different, maybe with psychedelic guitars and arabic singing. All the while "Float" sounds rather low-tempo, the laid-back tracks contrasting the nervously twitching rapvocals and almost ascetic in the production.

The opposite is true for the man called Rjd2. Put on “the horror” or “let the good times roll” from his latest album “dead ringer” (on Definitive Jux”) and you’ll get any dancefloor bouncing with the overload of grooving samples and ideas thrust upon it, even though the dancefloor might not really know why it gets so wild. Rjd2 is on the way to break really big, and I mean Moby / Fatboyslim-big, so remember where you read it first. Still, a record-cover featuring a guy bleeding from his head is always a winner with me, but don’t let that fool you. “dead ringer” is one of the lightest, funniest and most enjoyable records I have heard since “Souljacker” by the Eels. (My goodness, what a comparison.) Rjd2 spends a lot of time with his sampler, I guess, as most artists mentioned in this text do, but only few manage to incorporate them into so finely woven, melodic and bumping tracks as featured on here.

The label, definitive jux, is run by one El-P, who might be the busiest or most prolific producer out there. Or he just has a lucky hand choosing samples and crafting drumbeats. If you read through the liner-notes of the highly recommendable “Definitive Jux Presents II”-label-compilation, you’ll find his name on five of twelve tracks. And as soon as you’ve heard “Same as it never was” by The Weathermen, you won’t let go of this sampler. There is also a label-compilation of Anticon out there, which passed by me somehow, and then another called “documenta I.-III.”, though I can’t remember the label it was on. I didn’t have enough money on me that day, you see. Try to find it anyway. In the meantime I will save some money and then go and buy some records on Mush and see if that compilation is still available.

Epilogue

This is a very personal account of the things happening to me, around me and inside me, on a homepage mainly dealing with the same stuff. You think I’d write to these labels to send me promos? No way, because if they have any sense at all they won’t send me any anyway. Plus, I won’t lose the feeling of what it means to be a fan, to go out there and search for stuff and the great feeling when you find it. Nothing can beat the smell of successful record-hunting.

What’s gonna happen next, aside from me searching through stacks and stacks of records? Well, we are talking about a trend here. Maybe it’ll become a hype and then it’ll go down the drain. I am in a sort of a vicious circle in here, because I don’t want that to happen, but I want to tell people about it anyway. See, I trust you. I trust you to be careful and responsible with the information I give to you. Nevertheless, Abstract Hip Hop will have to go the way of all avantgardes sooner or later, which is: the avantgarde ideas become traditional, the new ideas enter the canon of what is expected, the crowd moves on because it is looking for something new and exciting while the artists still try to explore more and more into their very own magic kingdom. Has happened before, will happen again. The avantgarde becomes mainstream – or forgotten. Let’s all check back in two years and see what has happened. In the meantime, everyone who has gotten bored with Cypress Hill, Eminem or whatever, now has a place to come to that is both enjoyable and intellectually activating. I mean, where will you find hip-hop-artists using kids instruments, turning a song by Bob Seeger into a personal account (and not going the old "use a refrain from the eighties and earn a million bucks) or collecting a bricollage of dirt, trash and noise into a bouncing rap-track? Right here.

Maybe this whole thing is nothing more than a new possibility for white, european college-educated music-buyers to ponder and intellectualise a thing that really doesn't exist. Maybe the attention Abstract Hip Hop gets from Europe is way higher than what they get in the USA. Maybe this will all be forgotten a year from now. Maybe. But this is now and now, I really like to listen to this.

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