Underground hip hop is an umbrella term for hip hop music outside the general commercial canon. It is typically associated with independent artists, signed to independent labels or no label at all.
Underground hip hop is often characterized by socially conscious, positive, or anti-commercial lyrics. However, there is no unifying or universal theme – Allmusic suggests that it "has no sonic signifiers". "The Underground" also refers to the community of musicians, fans and others that support non-commercial, or independent music. Some underground hip hop is also sometimes known as alternative hip hop.
Many artists who are considered "underground" today, were not always so, and may have previously broken the Billboard charts.
Read more about Underground Hip Hop: Style, Mixtapes, Indie Hip Hop
Famous quotes containing the words underground, hip and/or hop:
“The only free road, the Underground Railroad, is owned and managed by the Vigilant Committee. They have tunneled under the whole breadth of the land.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I stir my martinis with the screw,
four-inch and stainless steel,
and think of my hip where it lay
for four years like a darkness.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“I have tried being surreal, but my frogs hop right back into their realistic ponds.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)