LA Weekly-Up With People Under the Stairs
First off, apologies for the lack of original content on my part. It’s been getting hectic like Guru and The Brand New Heavies. There was an East Coast sojourn, a flurry of deadlines, and a hair-brained scheme to build the world’s first mind-reading machine–which failed miserably (see photo evidence here). Thankfully, like free lunches, Sach and Douglas have held it down like steel.
Hopefully, next week will boast fresh content–in the interim, allow me to point you to my feature on People Under the Stairs that ran in this LA Weekly. As an addendum, you should also read Noz’s take on how indieground “backpack rap” acts have suffered as a result of critics ignoring them to fetishize “cooler” rappers that they can giggle at with detached irony. Of course, the situation is infinitely more complex than that. The magazine biz and journalism are in tatters–as much as a perceived coolness drives Clipster* journos’ crushes on coke dealing Southern rappers/Panda Bear, don’t underestimate the economics at play. Subterranean rappers have always been niche and if magazines like Blender, Fader, et al. waste acres of trees on Lil Wayne puff pieces, it’s because they sell copies and rack up page views. This is also part of the reason why if you ignored blogs and hip-hop magazines, you’d probably think hip-hop consisted exclusively of the holy Weezy, Jeezy, Yeezy trinity.
But the point of the piece and this post really, is to point out that over the last decade, People Under the Stairs have quietly amassed a very strong discography–one arguably deeper and more consistent than J5 and Dilated, their late 90s backpack brethren. They may not have “swag”, but I guarantee you that their stage show is liver than Mickey Factz and Asher “My Bassist is a Hero But I Get All The Free Press” Roth.
* Copyright Sach O, 2009
LA Weekly: “Up With People Under the Stairs”
Download:
MP3: People Under the Stairs:”San Francisco Knights”
MP3: People Under the Stairs-”Acid Rain Drops”
MP3: People Under the Stairs-”July 3″
MP3: People Under the Stairs-”Anotha (BBQ)” (Left-Click)
Stumble It!
January 9th, 2009 at 11:07 am
A lot of what Noz says is true, but it ignores what really caused it: The Blueprint.
January 9th, 2009 at 11:19 am
You could argue that Eminem and 50 Cent are equally valid in that discussion, but Blueprint inarguably re-drew the lines.
January 9th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Eminem had underground cred from the get-go though, whenever someone would diss him, fans would trip-over each other to wave copies of his Soundbombing 2 to naysayers’ faces. And 50 was never a critical darling, he got press because he sold a lot of records but the urb crowd was never comfortable with his stuff.
The Blueprint forced backpackers to double back and study the whole Jay-Z catalogue, that major shift in focus for the suposedly enlightened. Suddenly it was cool to be a thug emcee if you rapped over soul loops. Reminds me of how everyone turned mafioso after Cuban Linx.
January 9th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
See, I disagree here. 50 was very much a critical darling, from mainstream to underground. (I know you remember the early tapes and think everyone paying attention did). Everyone liked Get Rich or Die Tryin. I thought it was a 3 star record, but I was pretty much alone. He broke in 2003. This trend started shortly thereafter.
This isn’t downplaying Blueprint. I agree with the assertion, just think it’s a bit reductive to say that it was only one album that sparked things. Either way, there’s nothing wrong with liking Boosie and Aesop Rock. I wish more people would realize that.
January 9th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
You’ll have to elaborate on how the Blueprint changed everything, but I don’t agree that these guys lack swag, so long as you define swag in a sufficiently polymorphous way. There’s a certain confidence there. They hardly even sound like indieground rappers, they sound like guys who, 12, 13 years ago would be considered halfway-mainstream, like Digable or Souls of Mischief or whatever. Now Evidence, he lacks swag.
January 9th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
You’d have to remember it for me to explain it to you Tray.
January 9th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
can everyone stop knocking Tray? Dude presents a different point of view, which is sorely needed, since “team passion” took over the comments section.
That being said. Tray, stop being such a stupid douche.
Ill article, Jeff.
January 9th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
The “swag” comment was tongue-in-cheek.
Can we all agree to never use the phrase, “Team Passion” again?