{"id":2076,"date":"2008-12-02T08:55:04","date_gmt":"2008-12-02T13:55:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/?p=2076"},"modified":"2008-12-02T08:55:18","modified_gmt":"2008-12-02T13:55:18","slug":"is-hipster-rap-punking-hip-hop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/?p=2076","title":{"rendered":"Is “Hipster Rap” Punking Hip-Hop?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Still<\/a><\/p>\n

Last week, Farai Chideya, of NPR’s “News & Notes” had on New Orleans native Alvin “Rah Almillio” Lindsey, above, who, with his brother, Kintrell \u201cKrispy Kream\u201d Lindsey, form the hip-hop duo, The Knux. Joining him were Noah Callahan-Bever, editor-in-chief of Complex<\/em> magazine, and, yours truly.<\/p>\n

We were there to discuss a burgeoning style of hip-hop some would say the Knux typify, and that many call “hipster rap,”<\/a> mostly due to:<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>a) its seemingly self-conscious, “insider” rhyme style and content;<\/p>\n

b) its non-traditional instrumental textures and arrangements;<\/p>\n

c) wide variations, fashion-wise, between<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. an utter throwback, flattops-and-dookie-gold-chains ’80s look;<\/li>\n
  2. tight tees, Izods, and jeans, sometimes finished off with a keffiyeh<\/a><\/em>, as with Chicago’s The Cool Kids, above;<\/li>\n
  3. other polyglot apparel some say have nothing to do with the history of hip-hop, and more with appealing to edgy, white consumers, bored of indestructible macho rappers. (“A lot of bloggers hate on us for the dumbest sh-t ever, like our appearance,” complains Krispy Kreme, in the free newspaper, Rolling Out<\/em><\/a>. “Like, what the f-ck does that have to do with us [as artists]?);<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    and<\/p>\n

    d) that these crews’ main cognoscenti seem to be people writing blogs.<\/p>\n

    Are these guys kidding, taking an ironic pose? Are they trying to make hip-hop into something soft<\/em>, and chewy? Are they dissing it, like traditionalists such as Mazzi of S.O.U.L Purpose (“Lesson A”<\/a>) seem to suggest? What should anyone make of this?<\/p>\n

    \"Leaders<\/a>To get your bearings, I suggest that you check out our 17-minute conversation<\/a>. (It goes quickly, actually.) Take a gander at the Knux’s NSFW (has curses and epithets) music video, “Bang Bang,”<\/a> seen atop, below the hed, from their new album, Remind Me in 3 Days;<\/em><\/a> Cool Kids’ “Black Mags”<\/a> video, or the audio for their single, “’88,”<\/a> from their album, The Bake Sale<\/em><\/a>.
    \n<\/a><\/p>\n

    Then, if you’re up for further, deeper inquiry, peep the Leaders of the New Cool<\/em> digital mixtape<\/a> that Mick Boogie and DJ Treats put together for Complex<\/em>, above, and where you’ll here a lot of these artists together. (It’s 105.7 MB. I downloaded it, but you may just want to stream it from the imeem panel, right on the page.) Then, tell me what you<\/em> think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Last week, Farai Chideya, of NPR’s “News & Notes” had on New Orleans native Alvin “Rah Almillio” Lindsey, above, who, with his brother, Kintrell \u201cKrispy Kream\u201d Lindsey, form the hip-hop duo, The Knux. Joining him were Noah Callahan-Bever, editor-in-chief of Complex magazine, and, yours truly. We were there to discuss a burgeoning style of hip-hop […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10,43],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2076"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2076\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}