Alternative hip hop

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Alternative hip-hop is a sub-genre of hip-hop . It is characterized by socio-culturally committed texts and music as well as by sparing beats, which often sample few instruments or instruments that are unusual for hip-hop (see also jazz rap ), often reinforced by live instruments.

Alternative hip-hop artists have generally been less commercially successful than other greats in hip-hop, but they are often more widely respected by critics. The founders of the genre ( De La Soul , A Tribe Called Quest ) were more commercially successful than later innovators ( Guru or Mos Def ).

The term alternative hip-hop itself was coined by musicologists. Within the scene itself, however, it is controversial, since the music and attitude of the artists are much closer to the origins of hip-hop than the later and commercially more successful developments such as gangsta rap .

The late 1980s

The release of De La Soul's album 3 Feet High and Rising in 1989 is considered the beginning of alternative hip-hop . The album combined unusual samples (such as from The Turtles or Johnny Cash ) with spacey, hippiesque lyrics and an unusual sense of humor. The album contained bizarre sound snippets for the time, for example from a French language course. 3 Feet High and Rising was both a huge commercial hit and a critically acclaimed album.

It was thus the more successful of the two releases that began to establish self-referential sample kaleidoscopes in hip-hop and popular music in general. The other album, made in the same year, was Paul's Boutique by the Beastie Boys . Considered a flop at the time, the unusual choice of topics such as Eggnog ( Egg Man ), Karma ( What Comes Around ) and the Jewish origins of the Beastie Boys ( Shadrach ), the unique flow of the band and their biting humor contributed to a record that was masterly added to the sample-rich production of the Dust Brothers , so that the album was later considered a lost classic of the genre.

Even before the two albums, some artists released singles in 1988 that were later seen as the forerunners of alternative hip-hop: Gang Starr with Words I Manifest and Stetsasonic with Talkin 'All That Jazz combined hip-hop with jazz and thus contributed to the development of jazz -Rape at.

In 1989 a few more releases followed, which are now considered classics of alternative hip-hop:

  • Def Jefs Just a Poet With a Soul , which featured successful 1960s soul singer Etta James on a track.
  • Gang Starr's first LP, No More Mr. Nice Guy , possibly the first LP to combine hip-hop and jazz,
  • The Jungle Brothers second album : Done By the Forces of Nature , which was built on dance beats and both became a critics favorite and achieved a relatively large commercial hit,
  • Queen Latifah's feminist track All Hail the Queen .

All releases helped establish the Native Tongues Posse , a group of Afrocentric hip hop artists who took inspiration from Afrika Bambaataa's Zulu Nation .

The early 1990s

At the beginning of the 1990s, West Coast hip-hop became the dominant style. For example, Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dogg produced gangsta rap that dominated the charts and the scene. Artists from other areas or with different styles struggled to be successful. Only exceptions such as the Wu-Tang Clan with its various publications or Puff Daddys Bad Boy Entertainment with Mary J. Blige ( What's the 411 ) or Nas ( Illmatic ) were both successful on the market and critically.

Alternative hip-hop continued to develop on the east coast. A Tribe Called Quest released People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm in 1990 and Gang Starr released Step in the Arena in 1991 . A Tribe called Quests 1991 publication The Low-End Theory was a manifesto of socially critical hip-hop. On the album, the band attacked the tendency of the hip hop scene to split into more and more subgenres, all of which sold out artistically in order to achieve success in the mainstream. Other themes on the album are date rape or arguments within the rap scene. On the album appeared Ron Carter or the Leaders of the New School including the later superstar Busta Rhymes .

The underground that still exists today also developed on the west coast, on the streets of South Central Los Angeles . The pioneers of the development included Freestyle Fellowship with members Aceyalone, Mikah 9, PEACE and Self Jupiter. The Freestyle Fellowship rapped socially critical lyrics over spectacular jazz-like cadences. Her albums To Whom It May Concern and Innercity Griots are among the most influential underground hip-hop releases. The DIY ethic that still prevails in underground hip-hop today developed significantly on the streets of Los Angeles: the artists produced their tapes and records themselves and sold them straight from the trunk to the record stores or directly to the fans and had so little to do with the music industry as much as possible. Other West Coast artists began to follow a similar path. The Pharcyde published Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde in 1992 , the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy also in 1992 Hypocrisy Is the Greatest Luxury .

The jazz rap was significantly further developed by Guru . He rapped his 1993 album Jazzmatazz Vol. 1 in front of a live accompaniment by a jazz band. She included Lonnie Liston Smith , Roy Ayers , Branford Marsalis, and Donald Byrd . The Senegalese-French star MC Solaar had a guest appearance .

In the southern states , too, a scene began to develop for the first time that was also perceived outside the region. The Christian-inspired band Arrested Development from Tennessee won 1,992 international success with 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life of ... . The album was particularly successful with non-hip-hop fans, who were rather repulsed by the posing and ghetto attitude of hip-hop. With their lyrical focus on love and peace and their groovy, relatively uncomplicated beats, they reached new audiences, although their pronounced Christian attitude tended to put off other potential listeners.

Outside the United States, other groups began to combine hip-hop with other styles such as rhythm 'n' blues and electronica . Examples are the two British bands The Brand New Heavies ( Heavy Rhyme Experience Vol. 1 ; 1992) or Massive Attack ( Blue Lines ; 1991).

The late 1990s

Despite this and other developments, such as the emergence of the crossover and new soul, gangsta rap and the productions of Puff Daddy retained the dominance of the charts. At the same time, the founders of alternative hip-hop gave the impression of being artistically on the well-trodden paths and not developing any further.

In general, the underground label Rawkus Records played a leading role in the late 1990s . The artistic revival of the scene was achieved by Company Flow with Funcrusher Plus and Dr. Octagon with his 1996 album Dr. Octagonecologyst . The artists turned back to the alternative tongues style of the early days: old school hip-hop combined with hardcore rap and jazz elements. The Roots contributed significantly to this development. Her albums from the 1990s Do You Want More? !!! ??! (1995), Illadelph Halflife (1996), and Things Fall Apart (1999) all sparked enthusiasm among most critics. Mos Def and Talib Kweli co- released Black Star in 1998 , which was part of the series and revitalized the scene. Mos Def's solo Black on Both Sides (1999) cemented his position as the darling of the alternative scene in the USA, while Talib Kweli took some time to establish himself as a solo artist. It was not until 2000 that he released the record Train of Thoughts together with Hi-Tek under the project name Reflection Eternal.

Pharoahe Monch's 1999 debut Internal Affairs enriched the Native Tongues style with elements of gangsta rap , while Jurassic 5 ( Jurassic 5 EP ), Blackalicious ( NIA ) and the Dilated Peoples ( The Platform ) continued the trend of hip-hop with hippiesken Enriching lyrics, psychedelic sound elements and funk bonds: to the delight of the critics, but without being able to gain a foothold in the mainstream.

Alternative hip-hop after 2000

After the United States began to go to the war on terror, the alternative hip hop scene began to politicize and radicalize itself. They stepped in opposition to mainstream opinion in the media, some representatives openly propagated socialist or anarchist goals. The Marxist hip-hop band The Coup showed the two musicians on the cover of their LP Party Music, which was released shortly before the attacks on September 11th, holding a stick of dynamite and a tuner as a trigger in their hands while standing in front of the World Trade Center. The Dead Prez also got into widespread public discussion for their militant and aggressive lyrics. Bands like Dälek , who had had very critical lyrics for a long time, made them less abstract and thus probably more confrontational towards the mainstream audience.

Successful albums that also had surprisingly large market success in the early 2000s were:

In addition to these politically understanding bands, other sub-styles emerged in the underground. Nerdcore , futuristic or apocalyptic rappers like Cannibal Ox , El-P or Aesop Rock emerged from the founding of the alternative hip-hop labels Anticon and Definitive Jux , as did the horrorcore movement with Ill Bill , Necro and the Insane Clown Posse .