Sometimes rappers and labels can penetrate the race barrier (white) with a platter of strategic compromises, everything from marketing to intellectual content. While the likes of G-Unit and Def Jam infiltrate the minds of the rural white youth, I call them the ‘red kids’, it is the indie labels like Stones Throw and Def Jux that have captured the attention of the Bohemian youth. These youth are looking for content over stigma, and relevance over popularity. At least that’s what most indie rap kiddies would want you to believe, that they exist as an exclusive minority of fans single handedly keeping hip hop alive by bumping intelligent rap. Essentially we have a class of rap fans that mimic the intelligentsia class of any given civilization, they are the archetypal elite.
Stones Throw beatmaker Oh No via Egon’s catalog is going to drop a new digital album, titled Ethiopium, inspired-by and sampled-from rare 60s and 70s Ethiopian funk, jazz, folk, soul and psychedelic rock. This complex package of refined hip hop is going to be accompanied by a product, coffee manufactured with comme il faut partner, Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea. The digital album drops in early November, but you can cop the coffee today at the Stones Throw store, just click the coffee image above (retails for 19.99). I don’t care what this album sounds like in the end, it’s not my sub-genre of choice, but I do care that hipsters/Bohemians/urban white kids possess this sub-genre with an attitude that exudes elitism. So come holiday season be mindful of privileged kids listening to sampled Ethiopian beats packaged with coffee from Kenya, a genuine cultural experience. To them I say this: wake up and smell the coffee, the proverbial kind, not that 20 dollar commie coffee.
