Blogarhythms

The success of recent albums by Talib Kweli and Common, and Kanye West’s chart triumph over 50 Cent, just might be enough to make me wonder if the publics taste in Hip-Hop isn’t swinging away from the sort of chart-dominating Hip-Pop and Top 40 thuggery they’ve been so enamoured of since the late-’90s towards a more atypical brand of Rap? And by atypical, I actually mean music more similar in spirit (and sometimes sound) to the output of Hip-Hop’s Golden Era, the enlightened “keep it real” age which followed during the early-to-mid-’90s, and the indie/backpacker renaissance which has been the heart-and-soul of the genre since shiny suits, shiny cars, shiny grills, and equally shiny gats became de rigour on the airwaves and at record-store check-out counters.

I hope that’s the case, because it could mean that talented-but-slept-on groups like Washington, D.C.-based duo Panacea, who don’t have tons of marketing muscle behind them, fancy videos in rotation, or Kanye West’s name recognition, might be able to catch a much-needed break and wind up in a couple more people’s CD players in-between Eardrum, Finding Forever and Graduation. Their sophomore album The Scenic Route picks up where 2006’s Ink is My Drink left off, combining label-mates Time Machine’s throwback rap style with a whimsically visionary, almost psychedelic fantasy element that recalls the likes of Native Tongues-esque acts like K.M.D. and The Future Sound, Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth, and the Hieroglyphics and Quannum/Solesides crews, in addition to people like the aforementioned Kanye and M.F. Doom who favor a similar sound based around dusty drums and pretty, soulful samples.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that the schizophrenic (the group is largely made up of his own alter-egos alongside Houston’s Jawwaad) space-boogie of Craft of the Lost Art, the new record from Philly-based (by way of Houston and Manhattan) producer/emcee Jneiro Jarel as Shape of Broad Minds might be a little too “atypical” for anybody not already entrenched in the Hip-Hop underground. But people do take drugs. And I’m sure some of those people really dig the synth shit Kanye flipped on Graduation. So there’s a chance they might like Jneiro’s synth-heavy stoned-robot funk too I guess. But it really doesn’t matter if those people pick up on it or not (although it’d certainly benefit Jneiro’s pockets) because anybody who happens to be a fan of Dilla’s industrial Detroit stomp, Madlib’s drugged-out sample experiments, and the home-cookin’ meets outer-space “fonk” of Outkast, not to mention the emceeing of Doom, Count Bass D and Lil’ Sci (who all guest), is gonna love this shit.

Who knows, maybe “different” will be the new “normal” in Hip-Hop from now on? It has been for a lot of us for a long time now. And for some of us that’s the way it’s always been.

-El Keter