Alternative Hip Hop - History - Revival

Revival

However, a resurgence came about in the late 1990s, and early-2000s with the rejuvenated interest in indie music by the general public. Since the mid-90's, independent record labels such as Rawkus Records, Rhymesayers, Anticon, Stones Throw and Definitive Jux have experienced lesser mainstream success with alternative rap acts such as DOOM, Atmosphere, Black Star, Pharoahe Monch, El-P, and Aesop Rock. It was in the 2000s that alternative hip hop reattained its place within the mainstream, due in part to the declining commercial viability of gangsta rap as well as the crossover success of artists such as OutKast, Kanye West, and Gnarls Barkley.

Not only did OutKast's fifth studio album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below receive universal acclaim from music critics and manage to appeal listeners of all ages spanning numerous musical genres but also spawned two number-one hit singles. The album eventually went on to win a Grammy Award for Album of the Year—making it only the second hip hop album to win the award—and has been certified diamond by selling 11 times platinum by the RIAA for shipping more than 11 million units, becoming one of the best selling albums of all time.

Gnarls Barkley experienced a surprise hit with their debut single "Crazy". Due to high download sales, it reached number-one of the single charts in several countries, including the United Kingdom, where it became the best selling single of 2006. The song was named the best song of 2006 by both Rolling Stone and the Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop critics poll. Rolling Stone later ranked "Crazy" as the number-one song of the entire decade. The song has since sold over two million copies in the United States alone and has been certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. The duo were the recipient of multiple accolades, winning at the 49th Grammy Awards a Grammy Award for Best Urban/Alternative Performance and Best Alternative Music Album.

Industry observers view the 2007 sales competition between Kanye West's Graduation and 50 Cent's Curtis as a turning point for hip hop. West emerged the victor, selling nearly a million copies in the first week alone. Ben Detrick of XXL cited the outcome of the sales competition as being responsible for altering the direction of hip hop and paving the way for new rappers who didn't follow the hardcore-gangster mold, writing, "If there was ever a watershed moment to indicate hip hop's changing direction, it may have come when 50 Cent competed with Kanye in 2007 to see whose album would claim superior sales. 50 lost handily, and it was made clear that excellent songcrafting trumped a street-life experience. Kanye led a wave of new artists—Kid Cudi, Wale, Lupe Fiasco, Kidz in the Hall, Drake—who lacked the interest or ability to create narratives about any past gunplay or drug-dealing. Similarly, in a retrospective article, Rosie Swash of The Guardian viewed the album's sales competition with 50 Cent's Curtis as a historical moment in hip hop, writing that it "highlighted the diverging facets of hip-hop in the last decade; the former was gangsta rap for the noughties, while West was the thinking man's alternative."

The alternative hip hop movement is not limited solely to the United States, as genre-defying rappers such as Somali-Canadian poet K'naan, Japanese rapper Shing02, and especially British artist M.I.A. have achieved considerable worldwide recognition. K'naan's 2009 single Wavin' Flag reached number two on the Canadian Hot 100 while it's various remixes topped the charts in several countries. Shing02 was chosen for rapping "Battlecry", the theme song of the hit hip-hop-influenced chanbara anime Samurai Champloo, which was produced by Japanese jazz rap DJ Nujabes. Time magazine placed M.I.A in the Time 100 list of "World's Most Influential people" for having "global influence across many genres." Bands like the English musical project Gorillaz also experienced mainstream popularization during this period of time, selling over 20 million albums total between the albums Gorillaz and Demon Days. Today, due in part to the increasing use of music distribution through the internet, many alternative rap artists are able to find acceptance by far-reaching audiences. Several burgeoning artists and groups such as Lupe Fiasco, Kid Cudi, Wale, Bullets for Breakfast, The Cool Kids, Charles Hamilton, Asher Roth, Childish Gambino, Danny!, N.E.R.D., OFWGKTA, Yelawolf, Blu, SpaceGhostPurrp, and T-Beats openly acknowledge being directly influenced by their '90s alt-rap predecessors in addition to alt-rock groups while their music has been noted by critics as expressing eclectic sounds, life experiences and emotions rarely seen in mainstream hip hop.