RACE AND UNDERGROUND HIP-HOP

another mad rapper

Ah, salty indie rappers. They've been the bane of my existence these past two years since I've been dissed by such illustrious folks such as People Under the Stairs, Louis Logic and Jean Grae (this is a whole 'nother story for another time but hey, please do buy those albums I linked to - it helps get my name out there even more).

Defari hasn't dissed me on record (not yet at least) but he's mad salty - salty at white rappers in the underground that he thinks are taking away from his music sales. This is from an interview on ThaFormula.Com:

Defari - Yeah because I'm out here trying to get shows and a lot of these dudes are taking my money you understand? It's like a lot of these cats are taking my money. The Ugly Ducklings, Atmosphere, Aesop Rock, and all this shit that I ain't even heard of. I guess it's a lot of these young kids that always be on the computer that are into these MC's and these groups that kinda represent and look like them. When I hear these niggaz music I be like "damn that's horrible man." This shit is straight garbage.

Let's just spell it out: Defari thinks it's wack that white rappers are making money when he's not (never mind that Atmosphere's Slug is half-Black). Of course, many have noted that maybe the reason that Defari isn't moving Aesop Rock-like units isn't because of race but because Defari has yet to put out a good album (note: the folks at Allmusic.com, not exactly known as picky critics, only gave D's debut album, Focused Daily, 3 stars which, from what I remember of the album, is at least half a star too generous.

Anyways, I've had some interesting conversations with folks over this topic, including with friends/colleagues Hua, Jazzbo and Jon C. and you can catch even more at the Soulstrut.com forums. Suffice to say, Defari taps into some interesting questions, such as:

1) Is underground/independent hip-hop now the roost of white rappers?
2) If so, does it even matter? And if so, to who?
3) Is this a harbinger of what may come to pass on the mainstream/major label side of hip-hop, i.e. will rap music "go white" like rock did?

Expect more on this in the near future but drop your own comments below in the meantime.