Style
Underground hip-hop encompasses several different styles of music, though it is often politically themed and socially conscious. Numerous acts in the book How to Rap are described as being both underground and politically or socially aware, these include – Little Brother, Brother Ali, Mr. Lif, Murs, Immortal Technique, Binary Star, People Under the Stairs, Lifesavas, Zion I.
Underground artists often have high levels of critical acclaim – acts who have been specifically noted as being both underground and having numerous critically acclaimed albums include Chris Black, Chris Webby, Sikai, Eyedea & Abilties, Jurassic 5, Aesop Rock, Ugly Duckling, Little Brother, Brother Ali, El Da Sensei, Dilated Peoples, Non Phixion, Freestyle Fellowship, Binary Star, Planet Asia, People Under the Stairs, Cannibal Ox and Zion I.
Additionally, many underground artists are said to have "intelligent", "intricate", or "complex" lyrics, these include Akir, Ugly Duckling, Brother Ali, Cage, Immortal Technique, El Da Sensei, Blackalicious, NCKF99, Mr. Lif, Andre Nickatina, Murs, Binary Star, Planet Asia, Lifesavas, Sage Francis, Kooley High, Sniped, Tah Phrum Duh Bush, Hustla Dreamz, Zion I, The Even Keel,Skidzz, Y Not Flow, Omega Jackson, All Names Were Taken, Timeless Truth, Yasiin Bey, MF Doom, Talib Kweli and Yak Ballz.
Some underground artists produce music that celebrates the fundamental elements or pillars of hip hop culture, such as People Under the Stairs, Apathy, and Blacastan whose music "recalls hip-hop's golden age".
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Famous quotes containing the word style:
“The history of all Magazines shows plainly that those which have attained celebrity were indebted for it to articles similar in natureto Berenice—although, I grant you, far superior in style and execution. I say similar in nature. You ask me in what does this nature consist? In the ludicrous heightened into the grotesque: the fearful coloured into the horrible: the witty exaggerated into the burlesque: the singular wrought out into the strange and mystical.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“Oh, never mind the fashion. When one has a style of one’s own, it is always twenty times better.”
—Margaret Oliphant (1828–1897)
“I am so tired of taking to others
translating my life for the deaf, the blind,
the “I really want to know what your life is like without giving up any of my privileges
to live it” white women
the “I want to live my white life with Third World women’s style and keep my skin
class privileges” dykes”
—Lorraine Bethel, African American lesbian feminist poet. “What Chou Mean We, White Girl?” Lines 49-54 (1979)