Midwest Hip Hop

Midwest hip hop is hip hop music performed by artists from the Midwestern United States. In contrast with its East Coast, West Coast and Southern counterparts, Midwest hip hop has very few constants. Its first dose of national popularity came in the mid-90s with the extremely fast-paced styles of rappers known as Choppers, such as Bone Thugs-n-Harmony (Cleveland), Twista (Chicago), Tech N9ne (Kansas City, Missouri), Atmosphere (Minneapolis, Minnesota), and Freddie Gibbs (Gary, Indiana), as well as for a darker horrorcore style represented mostly in Michigan by rappers such as Esham & Eminem/Slim Shady (Detroit) and Twiztid (Warren, Michigan). However, while this 'darker' style of Hip Hop has been ostensibly embraced by many of today's upcoming artists, it has had an enormous impact on the style(s) of the emerging emcee's from in and around the Wichita, KS Area. There, a new group of rapidly growing underground artists are presently showcasing an abundance of talent which has been recently introduced to the Industry's talent scouts/A&R's which are currently taking notice. More Notably, Son of Legendary Super-Producer and Hip Hop Pioneer Dr. Dre "Curtis Young" – CEO and Founder of West Coast Record Label Forever Young Entertainment Inc., has reportedly taken an interest in the area's talent and is now in contact with one of the area's Biggest and Most Notable Hip Hop Promoters.

However, while the artists mentioned above became the first to introduce Midwest hip hop that rivaled the popularity of West and East Coast styles, subsequent acts have since risen to national prominence such as Nelly, D12, Common and Kanye West but they share very few similarities. It is because these lack of constants between acts from different cities (and sometimes even between artists from the same city) that it can be extremely difficult to define a "typical" Midwest sound. One characteristic of Midwest hip hop is that beat tempos can range from 90 to about 180, while East Coast's beat tempo is 90–120, West Coast is 100–120, and Southern rap is 80–110. Strange Music artist Prozak, stated in his DVD "The Hitchcock of Hip Hop", "The Midwest's style often revolves around "Dark beats and lyrics". This statement does however prove to accommodate the style(s) of some of the Emerging Midwest Underground Artists, one notable Single Entitled " Nightmares " was recorded by Southeast (KS) Artist Brent Ward- Koo-Laid. Koo-Laid, a former member of the Joplin, MO based Hip Hop Duo "Midwest Connect", then used the Single to make his Music Video Debut; "Nightmares" which was produced and edited by Josh Hernandez of Imprimis Media. "Nightmares" is available for viewing on YouTube and Several of the Internets Most Popular Social Networks. Ward's second Music Video Promo "Major Boi" (Also Produced by Hernandez), has also been released as Koo-Laid is currently writing and recording material for an upcoming album that has a scheduled release date of early-mid 2013. The LP's release will mark Koo-Laid's most significant Album to date as it will be featuring several of Hip Hop's elite and upcoming Artists. Some of which include the following: Jo Thee Great, Detroit, Michigan, Morawsha Reynolds, Kansas City, Missouri, Looka From The Top, Topeka, Kansas & Curtis Young, Compton, California.