10 Where To Get The Best Sweatshirts

Where To Get The Best Sweatshirts in 2023

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Rap Music: Full-circle Back to the Counterculture

Rap music is currently one of the most popular forms of music. Artists such as Tyler the Creator (Odd Future), the Insane Clown Posse, Lil B, and Necro are determined to make the rap underground an equally powerful, if relatively unknown, movement.

The rap game has never been as diverse. In fact, a musical genre that started as the counterculture has literally BECOME popular culture. Rap music is popular music, and vice versa. In fact, 6 songs out of the current top 10 songs on Billboard at this moment are either by rappers or songs that feature rappers. And EVERY song on the top 10 is at least slightly influenced by rap music, such as Kesha's "Blow". (And yes, I refuse to spell the S in her name with a dollar sign!)

So where is the true underground? Taking it back to rap's roots. Artists such as Odd Future (OFWGKTA), Lil B, Necro, and the ICP have the 4 arguably largest presences in underground rap music. The Insane Clown Posse, while derided in the mainstream, have managed to become the rap version of a cross between the Grateful Dead and Kiss. They are marketing geniuses who are a large touring draw with a consistently loyal fan base. They have their own yearly festival that draws thousands of fans (Gathering of the Juggalos), have created their own sub-culture ("juggalos"), and have become constant parody material on Saturday Night Live.

Necro is probably the least well-known rapper in this list, but he has managed to sell close to 500,000 albums in the past decade despite the fact that he receives no radio play and almost no media exposure whatsoever, possibly due to his extremely violent and misogynistic lyrics, and the fact that he has a fierce street and industry reputation. In fact, Necro and ICP have toured together in the past, draw upon similar musical influences, and have even recorded a song together ("Fight Club"). Necro is the exception to the "simple music in the underground" argument, however. He is universally appreciated in the rap world as a producer, with his innovative sampling, intricate layering, and song structuring, and has produced tracks for rappers such as Raekwon (Wu-Tang Clan).

The brainchild of Tyler the Creator, Odd Future have went from doing shows off of word of mouth curiosity, to having one of the most memorable performances of the biggest festival of 2020 (Coachella). The lyrics consist of misogyny, violence, and drug use, with violent undercurrents of self-destruction and brutal honesty. The music itself is stripped down to 1980's-era basics, with drums and simple melodies/sound effects. They have become indie-music sensations, and are the current big thing in underground rap music.

And Lil B, who garnered modest success as a member of Bay Area rap group The Pack, has become one of the largest presences on Twitter and other social networking sites. His cheaply-shot videos have become some of the most popular on YouTube, but one gets the feeling that these videos are just vehicles to showcase his music, which is usually him repeating how girls love him (in extremely crude and explicit ways), or how he is just like the most popular celebrity or religious figure (with songs like "I'm Miley Cyrus", "I'm Justin Bieber", or "I'm God"). He is another rapper with an extremely loyal fan base, almost to the point of fanaticism. And if you don't believe me, go to his Twitter page to find out for yourself.

So where does this bring rap music right now in 2020? Popular rap music has blurred all former genre-defining lines, and the most popular artists transcend all of them, such as Kanye West, Drake, and Nicki Minaj. The sound of the underground, however, has reverted back to rap's beginnings, a place where it was fiercely underground, yet occasionally making its presence known enough where enough people can see what is going on. Rap music has always had an underground presence, especially with locally and/or regionally known artists; but this underground seems determined to relive rap's glory days: simple beats and melodies that could have been made on Casio keyboards from the 1980's...with enough graphic lyricism and anti-social posturing to remind you where it all began.