The Opening

Check it out, yall--the grand opening. This is what I'm about:

Hip hop isn't dead, despite what your favorite underground emcee might be preaching.

Hip hop has shifted; stretching and evolving like it always has. It has been commodified by major record labels and big business, which turned the tide on the culture from localized activity to global phenomenon seemingly overnight. Hip hop got sold out (decades ago), it's true, but that doesn't mean it's dead and gone forever...

Here in the twenty-first century, computer technology has enabled anyone and their moms to freely peruse, explore and purchase hip hop with the click of a button. Pro Tools software + internet = hella music everywhere. It's the reality, so get used to the fact that your white yuppie computer-programming neighbor is 'working on a hip hop album' with his homeboy co-workers from Jamba Juice. I have (adjusted to the fact that hip hop has become a social epidemic, not put out a rap record), and you need to also if you're going to allow yourself to elevate past the nonsense and give my recommendations a chance. And I think you should.

There is good music being made all day everyday everywhere. Call it hip hop, rap, emo-rap, underground hip hop, indie rap or whatever you want--it doesn't really matter because it's ignored by most people anyway.

This blog is meant as a way for me, an avid devourer and connoisseur of all types of hip hop music (mainly obscure stuff, which is why I'm so special and you should pay attention to me), to share my thoughts with you about what's good and worth a listen, a glance, a peep, a purchase. I'm not here to bash mainstream rap or gangsta grillz or whatever (leave that to the cats who believe the radio killed hip hop), so I'm only going to post love for the musicians I think deserve to be heard.

I hope you enjoy and check some of these dudes out. They deserve the support.


Sidenote:
I personally view these underground and independent rappers, emcees, truth-speakers and flow-poets to be the saviors of our dwindling culture here in America. They swim against the current of this perpetual wave of profit-driven commercialism we see on television and in our cities everyday. They drop knowledge and promote personal expression (...which are good things, I'd say). Rappers I'm going to discuss on this blog are ones I consider especially exceptional at one, the other or both. They tend to be above the money and fame but "deeper than the wells sunk in the earth for gold and oil. " But I digress...