I was relieved a little early for my lunch break today, so I caught the tail end of WKNC's Local Lunch, and boy did I find a gem. You could say I'm not very up on the local hip-hop scene. I only know about Endless Mic (because I know them) and Mosadi Music (because Blaze and jtan's band will be covering them at the rescheduled Band Swap Night 3).
But, LET ME TELL YOU that I was mostly put off by the following chorus by locals Kooley High:
"The sun never goes down when I rhyme/ cuz this is eastern standard time"In a recent study, 2 out of 2 participants asked if these lyrics corresponded to Sesame Street.
The "emcees" go on to say
"3 hours in front of LA, 24 behind a new day"
and
"Just pause for a second/ because our record/ make y'all wanna slide like a card on credit"
They even fit in a reference to Bobby Boucher!
I need to know: is the current trend in popular music, ie. leaving out the rock and bringing in twee folky tunes about nice, innocuous and/or silly things, infiltrating even the hip-hop sphere?
Back in the day (circa 2000) when my friend Tim tried to make me appreciate rap music, lyrics were a little deeper, less obvious, more intense. Case in point, "Twisted Heat" featuring Drag-On and Twista: "Cuz the only mother fuckin' magazine that I read/ is the one I buy my guns from/ How many bullets you could digest in that one stomach/ I suggest y'all run from it". Full lyrics here (though slightly inaccurate).
So honestly, am I to believe that Kooley High is as good as all the press says (wicked word play?), or are they just the new hipster "I-like-rap-when-it-is-intellectually-punny-and-only-chummily-combative" darlings?
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