Pitchfork writer Alphonse Pierre’s rap column covers songs, mixtapes, albums, Instagram freestyles, memes, weird tweets, fashion trends—and anything else that catches his attention.
Rap history is constantly slipping away online
Rap eras come and go like denim trends. Sometimes you think back to a moment in time that felt like an eternity only to realize it was only a few years, maybe even a few months. For rap fans, one of the most fulfilling parts about spending an afternoon submerged in, say, the snap era or cloud rap, is how those sounds can instantly zap you to a specific time in your life. Whenever I hear the lagging vocal samples, throbbing rhythms, and feel-good bars of California’s late 2000s and early 2010s jerk era, my mind rewinds to when I was jealous of anyone in school who pulled up with skinny jeans and Chucks. A lot of jerk music was haphazardly thrown online via mixtapes and music videos aimed at soundtracking that weekend’s house party, but it still has the power to inspire strong memories as well as new music by the rappers of today.
Earlier this week, I was streaming London rapper YT’s new mixtape #STILLSWAGGIN, a homage to the jerk era. Naturally, the blast from the past made me want to go on YouTube and fire up some jerk classics. I went from the New Boyz to Marvel Inc, and then to the largely forgotten—at least on the East Coast—L.A. rapper Young Sam, who peaked with bonkers, dance-crazed anthems like “Tool Time” and “Hit My Cat Daddy” more than a decade ago.
I found a stitched-together YouTube playlist of Sam’s 2011 mixtape Jerkin’ Can’t Die 2, but there were hardly any signs of the first edition. I tried Spotify, where only eight of Jerkin’ Can’t Die’s 23 songs are playable. Then I went to the archives of DatPiff, the onetime premier destination for any and all rap mixtapes, but no leads there either. Next up was Google, where sites like Rate Your Music and Discogs had unfamiliar versions of the mixtape listed. There was hope when I stumbled into a Big Cartel page that was selling the tape for $5, but when I tried to check out I was hit with an error message. I ended up just typing each song title into YouTube individually; some popped up, scattered across long-dormant channels, and others didn’t. For the most part, the original mixtape was nowhere to be found.
The feeling of defeat that comes with failing to find regional rap artifacts is a familiar one for me these days—sometimes it can seem like my mind is just playing tricks, and the music was never actually there.
Over the summer, I interviewed Connecticut rapper RealYungPhil, who reminisced about Hartford’s dance-rap scene of the mid-2010s. When I tried to look up one of my own introductions to that sound, BigBreadJRock and 60ShotBlake’s “86ZoeAnthem,” it was gone. The only proof that it ever existed came in the form of a few low-quality snippets and a short Fader write-up.
When I recently wrote about Metro Zu’s 2012 headtrip Zuology for this site’s Most Formative Rap Albums list, it sent me down another wormhole, looking for other releases from the Florida crew. They used to have a couple of pretty comprehensive Bandcamp pages, but when I checked them out again, a lot was missing. I had no idea how to find these songs that once soundtracked my bus rides home from basketball practice. I even fired up my old iPod in hopes that the songs would be on there, but no dice.
If it’s this hard to track down niche rap songs that only came out five or 10 years ago, it doesn’t bode well for music that goes even further back into the genre’s half-century of history. This is especially true for music by small artists, from small cities. If anything, this sort of erasure may only increase in speed and frequency in the future. As long as tech companies hold the power, everything online is ephemeral. This has always been true, and several recent news stories have only made it that much clearer.
Just look at reports about Spotify’s planned changes to their royalty rates. Everyone knows the platform already pays most musicians jack shit, and now they’re apparently trying to figure out a way to cough up even less to some artists by creating a number of annual streams that must be hit in order to qualify for royalties. It seems increasingly clear that, for a company like Spotify, any music that isn’t on a major label or a high-profile indie is a waste of space. Is there anything stopping them from taking one more step and wiping away these relatively low-streaming tracks from the platform altogether?
If you grew up with platforms like YouTube, like I did, it’s easy to think of them as permanent cultural archives. They are not. Back in May, news hit that Google would be purging dormant accounts, which seemed to include countless YouTube videos. My mind immediately raced to all of the rap songs, videos, leaks, remixes, and unreleased loosies that live on pages that haven’t been active in eons. After some backlash, Google clarified that YouTube isn’t included in the purge: “We do not have plans to delete accounts with YouTube videos at this time.” Not ominous at all!
A few weeks ago, Bandcamp, the streaming and music-purchasing platform that has often been valorized as a bastion for independent artists and music lovers, was sold by its owner, the video game company Epic, to Songtradr, a music licensing service. Almost instantly, Songtradr began to cut costs by laying off roughly half of Bandcamp’s staff. They’re hardly hiding the fact that Bandcamp is just another addition to the company’s portfolio; one day they could decide it doesn’t make their pockets fat enough, and then what?
The downfall of DatPiff, where so much of rap’s 2000s and 2010s mixtape archive once lived, is a cautionary tale. If you’re a rap fan in your 20s, 30s, or 40s, you probably have some nostalgia for this humble repository of countless classic tapes: The adrenaline rush of downloading Meek Mill’s Dreamchasers 2 and texting all of your friends about it, or just scouring through its vast catalog looking for a random Lil B mixtape. In March, DatPiff randomly shut down, and rap fans thought it was gone forever, though the company said that wasn’t true. Eventually they announced that they were partnering with the Internet Archive while they work “on the next iteration of DatPiff.” Months later we’re still waiting to see what that means, and the archive as it exists is fairly flimsy if you’re looking for tapes by regional artists.
I know aficionados like my fellow Pitchfork writer Matthew Ruiz would tell me to buy a few massive hard drives, set up my own server, and join the ranks of diehard digital music collectors—before it’s too late. Becoming an obsessive digital collector increasingly feels like the only option, but of course that path has its limitations, too: You can’t download music that’s already disappeared. But we could at least try to go back to the way things once were, right? Trading files with friends and fellow forum posters, or going on scavenger hunts at record stores in different cities. (Though, even if you’re lucky enough to still have a local record store, they may have already relegated the hip-hop section to a single bin to make room for more Taylor Swift reissues.)
A couple of weeks ago I was doomscrolling through Twitter when I came across a post of some dude ragging on Jason Fox’s “Aunt Jackie,” a 2007 relic from New York’s get lite era, marked by its handclap-driven competitive dance circles. I probably hadn’t thought about the song since I was 12. I typed it into YouTube, and there it was. The rhythms of the claps and the NYC memories shared in the comments made me a little wistful. To be honest, I never really cared for “Aunt Jackie.” But in that moment, I downloaded it anyway.
Sexyy Red and Chicago drill pioneer Katie Got Bandz’s link-up will warm your heart
X content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
True story: I ventured across state lines to see the Fatboi Sharif and Papo2oo4 show in Newark
As a stubbornly proud New York rap writer, I usually wait to catch rappers perform in the city instead of traveling to where they’re from—even if they’re from Jersey. I wanted to make a little effort to change that, so last week I took a ride over the Goethals Bridge—while blasting Erick Sermon’s Double or Nothing, of course—to catch Jersey natives Fatboi Sharif (the firecracker from Rahway) and Papo2oo4 (the 2000s East Coast revivalist out of Elizabeth) throw a show in Newark.
The venue was a homey basement filled with friends and fans who definitely weren’t seeing either artist for the first time. Sharif was as high-energy as ever; if Def Jam: Fight for NY ever made a comeback he needs to be included. Then out came Papo, unhinged in the best way: screaming into the mic, bobbing uncontrollably behind the CDJs, taking breaks for conspiratorial monologues. He powered through joint after joint with little help from the backing tracks, and pointed out all the vintage New Jersey Nets gear in the crowd. At one point he celebrated the homecoming with a freestyle over Redman’s 1993 classic “Tonight’s Da Night” that was immediately followed by loud chants of “Jerseyyyy.” I need to cross the bridge more often.
Mama Million: “On the Radar Freestyle”
You just know from the first second of listening to Mama Million that she grew up studying the most explosive early drill stars, from G Herbo to Young Pappy. It’s in the intensity of the Chicago rapper’s tumbling flow, which tears through the beat like a bike with no brakes. Her On the Radar freestyle is one of my favorites in a minute: In under two minutes, Mama pulls out lots of little tricks with her delivery, whether it’s the casual repetition or a quick break into conversation. Even with no hook I still catch myself humming along.
Myaap: “Getting to It”
I’ve never seen Myaap stand still. If you pull out a camera, it’s guaranteed that the charismatic 414-area rapper will hit every loose-limbed Milwaukee dance move you can think of. So naturally, she hops on a “Dancing Queen” sample to keep on getting to it. The bounce is outrageous, the handclaps are berserk, and Myaap is as restless as ever, even rapping through the soaring chorus when most would just use it as a breather. The music video takes everything to another level. Sporting a fit ready for the extremely ’80s John Travolta movie Perfect, Myaa and a group of bopping kids go the hell in.
