A Razor-Edge Resurrection? Pt 1: The Preface.

I’ve never believed that hip-hop is dead, but I will concede that it’s kind of dull. The music has become so thoroughly in the mainstream that no one really tries anything new. You pretty know much know what you’re going to get in terms of sound and quality just by looking at the back of the CD and the production credits. During any given year, I can pretty much tell which albums I’m going to like and which ones I’m not even before they’re released. Rarely does anything come along that legitimately intrigues me, muh less excites me in any way shape or form. It didn’t used to be that way, and it might that level of interest may indeed return.

First, a little history: Back around 1996 or 1997, underground hip-hop got REALLY interesting. As the music was starting to get mainstream radio/video love as being a commercially viable, a separate counter-movement was afoot. “Unsigned” and “independent” artists rallied around the idea of making music that openly revolted against the decadent values of mainstream hip-hop. An era marked by fish-eye lensed videos and shiny suits spawned a nationwide musical resistance movement who railed against R&B singers on the choruses of the song and sampling pop-hits from the Eighties. It sounded closer to the hip-hop that I grew up listening to and loving; it sounded like how hip-hop was “supposed” to sound.

If there was any label that represented the rebellion against hip-hop’s status quo, it was Rawkus Records. After spending it’s early years specializing in drum-n-bass and house music, during the mid to late 1990s the New York-based label start dropping a slough of 12” singles by mostly New York-based artists who’d been grinding in the city’s underground making decidedly left of center music. There were other labels putting in work and releasing quality music, like Fondle ’Em, Makin Records, Guesswhile, and Raw Shack, but Rawkus was leading the charge. Rawkus’ most notable full-length releases during these salad days were by Company Flow and Black Star (the duo of Mos Def and Talib Kweli), who were the poster-children of this “Independent and Loving It” era. Other artists that dropped 12”s on Rawkus included guess like Sir Menelik, Shabaam Sahdeeq, L-Fudge, Black Attach, the Artifacts (under the name of the Brick City Kids), RA the Rugged Man, B-1, etc.

Not to sound too corny, but it was a fairly inspirational time to love independent hip-hop, and I personally swore by everything the label put out. I remember visiting the label headquarters back in 1998, as I was visiting some journalism schools, to meet some of the guys I’d been gabbing with over the phone as a writer for the now-defunct 4080 magazine. It was the first time I’d been in a record label of any sort, and, still being young and reasonably naive, I believed I was stepping into some sort of hallowed ground of independent hip-hop, along the lines of Living Legends’ “Outhouse” loft in East Oakland or Los Angeles’ Good Life Café. I remember being ecstatic that I left scoring a copy of the yet to released Lyricist Lounge compilation double CD and a cassette of what was to be Company Flow’s follow-up EP.

Sadly, Rawkus’ salad days were short-lived. Their fall has been detailed extensively by a few writers and artists, including a great piece published by XXL a few years ago (written by a friend/fellow Medill School of Journalism alumnus Adam Matthews). What appears to have killed Rawkus was after getting a taste of money, they decided to start behaving like any other label. Rather than catering to their strengths, creating left-of-center independent hip-hop, they started chasing big names and major media exposure. They stepped on a lot of toes in the process and lost the support of a lot of the artists’ that helped them build their name. After a series of buy-outs and mergers (by the likes of MCA, Geffen, and Interscope), the label folded in late 2003/early 2004.

So, fast-forward to mid-2006, and the Rawkus Records re-launches, with brand new distribution and much more low-key M.O. The label’s first slate of releases eschewed their previous NY hip-hop focus, as their roster sported artists like Kidz in the Hall (out of Chicago), Panacea (from Washington D.C.) Hezekiah (Delaware/Philadelphia), and the Procussions (Seattle). As 2007 rolled around, they added releases by artists like Blue Scholars (Seattle) and producer Marco Polo (Toronto). While these releases didn’t exactly spark the imagination like their late 1990s stuff, most if not of all these albums were interesting. Kidz N Hall’s “School is My Hustle” was among the 20 or 30 best hip-hop albums of 2006, and Marco Polo “Nostalgia,” featuring Masta Ace, is considered the best hip-hop song of 2007 by legions of bloggers and backpackers, present company included (Well, somewhere in the Top 5 for me).

But by far their most “interesting” move was the launch and execution of the “Rawkus 50” campaign by the end of 2007. Which I’ll get into the next installment.