There is always a push for the underground emcees to get “famous”. Folks want them to be everywhere getting all of the attention. No. Let them stay “big time” on the underground. Trust me, it’s better that way. The quality of the music is worth more than the quantity of the fans.
One of the things I admired about Eyedea was how he almost immediately turned his music insular despite his early buzz. If you remember these things, you’ll recall that Bad Boy was allegedly courting Eyedea heavily after he won the Blaze Battle. That alliance never came to fruition and it was clear as to why when Eyedea’s eventual debut First Born dropped. The album was pretty much the antithesis of a Bad Boy record and also a huge departure from his smarmy persona in battle and on Slug tapes. Instead it leaned towards high concept stuff like “Birth Of A Fish” and “Murder Of Memories.” I think this approach may have alienated his existing fanbase (myself included, to an extent) but it was clearly the project that was in his heart and brain. This, of course, is healthy.
Sean Fennessey has an interesting piece in Pitchfork today about Odd Future and the rise of today’s new swagged out rap underground but then sort of contradicts himself on Tumblr with just one sentence: “If someone can figure out how to shave the edges off, they’ll be very famous.” To me that shatters the charm of this and any underground movement. Those edges are the very reason they’re interesting today and they’ll only be interesting tomorrow if we let the edges grow and mutate. (Incidentally I see some parallels between early Eyedea and OF and Earl in particular. Not stylistically but in the sense that the primary buzz point is usually and unfairly distilled to the question of can you believe he’s only sixteen and rapping like that!?)
Expectations naturally come with underground potential, but it’s a problem that the commercial expectations seem to outweigh critical ones as of late. If Eyedea came out today he wouldn’t have just Puff and his ilk in his ear whispering about star potential, but the entire deafening echo chamber of twitter @s and blog “tastemakers” and critical bandwagon jumpers. This pressure can stunt the creativity of any artist but seems particularly intimidating when magnified by the natural insecurities that exist in the younger ones. We, as critics, need to stop telling kids that they’re going to be famous and start telling them that they’re going to make - and are making - great music.
Speaking idealistically, I’ve always thought that the underground should serve as more than just a farm system for the mainstream. It can also be an active rejection of mainstream standards, a forum for personal honesty and experimentation. The crossover should only happen in the rare cases where critical mass forces those eccentricities into the mainstream. (The Waka Model vs. The Gucci Model.) It might blow up but it won’t go pop. Fuck shaving edges.
Rest In Peace, Eyedea.
