Fake For Real

A few years after we published it, and to celebrate the release in 2014 of our new book dedicated to the history of indie hip-hop, it was time to deliver an updated version of the selection we published first in 2009, listing 100 key albums related to this movement. Here starts our new countdown, extended now to 150 records.

We are close to the end. The last albums Fake For Real considers as the best from the independent hip-hop movement, will be revealed soon on our dedicated article, and we will publish soon, in May 2014, a full book dedicated to this matter (in French only, unfortunately). In the meanwhile, we are offering to YOU, our readers, the possibility to nominate your 10 indie rap favorite albums, as part of a poll whose results will be published in a few weeks or months.

We already said it here, with full of conviction: all the albums Radioinactive ever released, absolutely all, are indispensable. Yes, all of them, including Fo' Tractor, the rerelease of an old cassette full of lo-fi tracks recorded by the mid-1990's, just after the rapper's adventures with Log Cabin and West Coast Workforce, two crucial bands from California's incredibly fertile underground hip-hop scene.

Among the great records released by Peanuts & Corn between Mcenroe's Ethics EP and his definitive Disenfranchised, the first album from Gruf deserves special praises. After he collaborated with Twisted Spirits, its successor Frek Sho, and Fermented Reptile, the bald rapper with native people origins delivered one of P&C's most solid and constant projects. Though Druidry was not overly original, it was deeply personal, and once again produced by Mcenroe at his very best.

Though 1996 is generally considered as the start of the indie rap era, 1997 is the year of its classics. The first Jedi Mind Tricks album, The Psycho-Social, Chemical, Biological, and Electro-Magnetic Manipulation of Human Consciousness – yes indeed, its title was that long – is undoubtedly one of them. It is, actually, not too far from Funcrusher Plus, with its dark mood, unsettling sounds and obtuse lyrics.

The Cold Vein was the first important album released by Def Jux, and the first El-P, the label's founder, had entirely produced since Company Flow broke up. In addition, it had been heralded by two striking singles, "Iron Galaxy" and "Straight off the D.I.C.". Due to this, it had been expected with lots of hope and anxiety by the underground sphere. And it would not disappoint it. Actually, this record would be the very climax of the indie rap movement. By 2001, after lots of stirring in the shadows, this kind of hip-hop had finally reached a certain amount of visibility and interest, in the media. And music critics would love the first album of Cannibal Ox.

By 2002, Peanuts & Corn had produced a large collection of impeccable rap albums. Its founder, however, hadn't released anything since his Ethics EP, apart from the side-project Billy's Vision. The main guy behind the label had stayed in the shadow, producing the work of others, or contributing to bands, instead of investing into his own solo career. His first real album indeed, Disenfranchised, wouldn't be released before 2003. A few months before, though, Mcenroe had released another EP, which proved to be a little bit more than just an appetizer.

Slug, Sole, Alias, Sage Francis, Yoni Wolf... By focusing their raps on intimate and confessional lyrics, all these artsy and hypersensitive White men, plus a few others, have been pioneers in a new kind of hip-hop. The one, however, who pushed this trend to its most extreme, was a certain Brad Hamers, from Phlegm.

Rard and Moon, a.k.a. SunnMoonSekt, had previously been part of an East Coast band called Devious Dysfonctional. Later on, they would join another, Young & Restless. And ultimately, they would become part of a collective, the Slumplordz, founded by 1997 in Oakland, in the Bay Area. It is under their brand, that they would record in a rough way their first album, and release it in 1999, as a cassette only. Due to a certain success in the underground, though, Stray Records would rerelease it in a different package, two years later, making it more easily available.

You know what to expect, considering whom Swamp Thing is made of. Those familiar with underrated rappers Timbuktu and Chokeules from Toolshed, and Savilion, shouldn't be overly surprised by the content of Creature Feature. This is one of their cheerful albums, full of old-school era playfulness and frantic tempos, with lots of samples, scratches and dexterous rimes, like in the heyday of East Coast rap, in the 90's. This is just Backburner at its purest, especially since other members of the Canadian collective, Jesse Dangerously, Wordburglar, More Or Les, Ghettosocks, and a few others, are supporting their comrades here and there.