The Rise, Fall and backlash of Rappity Raps: BackPack Rap
When I started to learn how to rap, my favorite sub-genre of Hip-Hop was backpack rap. I started to listen around 2002 to 2004, before Chopped and Screwed revved my pre- druggy head. I grew up on Common, BlackStar Duo Mos Def and Talib Kweli and a Pre- College Dropout Kanye. My basic cadence and delivery are based off those artists. If you want to go deeper Atmosphere, MF Doom and Dead Prez were also my favorites around this time. Most of this music was the soundtrack to my favorite shows Chappelle Show and The Boondocks.
It gets a bad rap now; it gets made fun of by many rappers, producers and writers alike but back then, it was the shit.
When 90% of radio hits started to get on my nerve in 2007 -2008 I went back to backpack rap and even back then it started to sound played out. Except for a few like Little Brother, Lupe Fiasco, Blu and Jean Grae (I don’t know if Charles Hamilton counts). However, in 2010 I discovered the weed raps of Wiz Khalifa and Curren$y and never returned to listen to new backpackers, until now.
Most youngins may mistake backpack rap for boom-bap. Boom bap was east coast based and it focused on hard-hitting kick and snare production with rare samples. That sound became mainstream in the 90's.
The term backpacker derivatives from young rap fans who would carry records by lesser-known hip-hop acts in their backpack. The music’s roots come from Afrocentric and conscience rap. The work of the Native Tongues and Public Enemy in the mid-80s influenced young artists to form a movement 10 years later.
These young artists found no balance in Hip-Hop like it once was. Yes, you had the rough and rugged NWA but there were smooth acts within the Native Tongues collection. Boogie Down Productions mixed gangsta with conscience rap which ideally was ahead of their time(as Tupac would do several years later).
In 1998 the Puffy shiny suit era was detrimental to purists. Since the radio changed due to the Communications Act, no one had substance that they could relate to. So they started to do things how they use to, go to the Park and freestyle. This small group amassed a big following that led to the venue/ mixtape series Lyricist Lounge and indie label Rawkus Records, introducing the world to Tailb Kweli, Mos Def, Common, Pharoahe Monch, Skillz, and even a young Eminem.
Years before New Yorkers established the Lyrist Lounge, LA backpackers formed Project Blowed to escape from the world’s Gangsta Rap soundtrack. This open-mic platform focused on skill and lyrics in opposition to G-Funk, gangbanging and bravado. The best MC’s from Project Blowed teamed up to form Freestyle Fellowship 5 years before Rawkus Records.
The collective also birthed the careers of well-known underground artists Medusa, Busdriver, and Open Mike Eagle. Other acts like The Pharcyde, Souls of Mischief and Hieroglyphics had major record deals but their brands and musical styles fit perfectly under the backpack rap umbrella.
Unlike Native Tongues and Public Enemy who came several years before them, backpackers were not getting the same airplay as their hugely successful counterparts. They became fore founders musically behind “underground” Hip-Hop. However, backpack rap is not equal to all underground rap, it just a section or a sub-genre of it. Hip Hop DX greatly explains how underground Hip-Hop was created.
In addition to the breakdown video, I was inspired by a DJ Booth piece “How Has “Backpack Rap” Aged Two Decades Later?” I agree, backpack rap as aged badly. After successful acts rose from the underground and distanced themselves from the backpack label, championed artists from the sub-genre started to sound stale. Obsessed fans possessed an ugly self-righteousness; they perceived the music to be better than the mainstream labeling it “Real” Hip-Hop.
But the most important factor of backpack rap ageing badly is because backpack rap has no successor. Gangsta rap that gained popularity in the 1980s is obsolete but it has plenty of successors such as drill and trap.
But, I believe backpack rap can come back, it just has to return with fresh faces, revamped topics and evolved sound. It even has a chance to be more genuine. There is no radical idea behind “underground” rap because music is so accessible now with the internet. Matter fact, consumers pick the big hits nowadays, labels look at the streaming data and work with what they got. Half of the backpack movement was sensational, people look up to the underdogs but the classics are timeless. However, the sub-genre started to contradict itself and create narratives for false heroes.
Some underground rappers started to sound resentful that they weren’t apart of the mainstream music industry. Others cloaked their lack of substance with dope lyrics and good production. They rapped about how good their rhymes are like mainstream rappers rapped about money.
Artists that can arguably be clumped up into this sub-genre are NOT innovative. Acts like Joey Bada$$ and Run the Jewels gave fans of the fallen sub-genre hope, but overall, there’s nothing new. These new artists rap at great speeds, with a great vocabulary but with no substance behind their lyrics. It is the generation of the ugly self-righteousness fans that misconceived the movement’s purpose in the first place.
Artists like Joyner Lucas, Logic and even an old Eminem seem to be the most popular artists that currently follow in the same vein of conventional backpack rap but they all seem aggressively confrontational, disconnected and kind of well, lame.
Hip-Hop needs to be diverse at the same time connected within. Everybody now understands that real Hip-Hop isn’t set in stone. The younger generation is supposed to usher in innovative sounds, bend and break traditions. However, everyone can learn from the past. The first backpackers were purist but they realized Hip- Hop will never mirror the way it was in 1988. However, all types of people can find inspiration in music created in that era. The same idea rings true for backpack rap. After all, that is how the sub-genre came into fruition.
P.S. Brown Sugar is still a great movie, Hip-Hop heads falling in love with a classic soundtrack will always have a place in my heart.
