In late May the old-school hip-hop site Unkut.com put up a post called “The Search for the Biggest Douchebag in Hipster Rap.” Site curator Robbie Ettelson defines the hipster-rap scene as a “new wave of ‘ironic’ rappers who seem hell-bent on achieving new levels of sucking,” dismissively calls their style “Party Rocking,” and complains about the “gimmicky, calculated vibe” of everything they do. “Whether it’s wearing 80’s gear and garish print hoodies, rapping about skateboards and BMX bikes or making songs about nail polish/lip gloss, these wacky young ‘uns are poised to take ‘tarded rap to the next level.” The post ends with a poll, “Who Is the Biggest Hipster Rap Douchbag [sic],” and five of the eight contenders presented are from Chicago: the Cool Kids, Kanye West, Kid Sister, Lupe Fiasco, and Kidz in the Hall.
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Like current punk and emo, hipster rap is defined by fashion as much as music—brightly colored streetwear, throwback hip-hop accessories, skinny jeans on guys—which is how a sonic explorer like Kanye can get lumped in with retro revivalists like the Cool Kids. Most criticism of hipster rap only goes clothes deep, and even for relatively philosophical haters like Ettelson, the sight of a rapper in anything but baggy jeans and a hoodie seems to trigger homosexual panic. He calls out NER*D for making “looking gay… hot for a minute” and “Kanye ‘Liberache [sic]’ West” for making “fruity sunglasses blow-up.” Presumably he’s never seen the video for “The Message” where Grandmaster Flash rocks tight jeans, cowboy boots, and a leather-daddy cap.
I haven’t seen the Cool Kids respond to Mazzi, and I couldn’t raise them on the phone—they seem to be staying out of the shit flinging. But Mic Terror, who isn’t even named, has released a “Lesson C” online. It doesn’t exactly improve the tone of the debate, consisting mostly of fag and terrorist jokes (Mazzi is of Arabic descent). At press time the two of them had gone one more round without getting past name-calling: Mazzi dropped “Class Dismissed” and Mic Terror replied with “Detention.”
Calling hipster rap fake doesn’t just insult hipster rappers and the people who love them—it insults hip-hop itself. The pioneers of the genre struggled to establish it as a legitimate pop form, and by the late 90s it had become one of the great common languages of global musical culture. Is it really respecting that triumph to insist that a movement of such world-changing scope isn’t big enough to contain hipster rap? The people going nuts over this stuff grew up immersed in hip-hop culture, whether they’re black or not, and it’s entirely predictable for them to want to start fucking with the formula. Hip-hop is grown-up now, with kids even, and it’s going to have to go through the tug-of-war over norms and values that always arises with a generation gap.
