CAN I GET A YUUUUUUUUUURRRRR?????!?!?!?

INTO THE GRASSROOTS 

HIP HOP CULTURE 

OF NEW YORK

By BUSINESSMAN

El Chopz @elchopzfuckingsucks

IN VENUES ALL OVER NEW YORK, YOU’LL HEAR THAT CRY. “YUUUURRRR!!!!” THE CROWD YELLS BACK. THE VENUE IS FILLED WITH ARTISTS HUNGRY TO SHOW THEIR CRAFT. AS A REGULAR ENERGIZER, THE HOST ASKS: “IS BROOKLYN IN THE HOUSE?” - LOUD CHEERS. “IS THE BRONX IN THE HOUSE?” - LOUD CHEERS “IS QUEENS IN THE HOUSE?” - LOUD CHEERS “IS HARLEM IN THE HOUSE?” - MEDIUM-LOUD CHEERS. “JERSEY? LONG ISLAND?” - TWO OR THREE VOICES. “IS STATEN ISLAND IN THE HOUSE?” - SILENCE. LAUGHS. “MANHATTAN” IS NEVER EVEN ASKED. NO REAL PEOPLE LIVE IN MANHATTAN. 

Energetic crowds at Pass The Aux, Hell’s Kitchen

The Stairway To Stardom

These Underground Showcases Are The Incubators Of Hip Hop. After The Street Corner And School Yard, The First Step On The Stairs To Fame Starts Here. Rappers From All Over New York And Beyond Flock To These Showcases. Here They Try Out Their First Rhymes For An Audience, On An Unlicensed Rental Beat Mixed On A Phone App, Mic Trembling In Hand. Often, Newbies Forget To Cut Off The Beat After The Rap Is Done, So It Keeps Looping. “Um Sorry... Dj, Next Song”. 

They Screw Up, Try Again. Rap Better, Write Better Songs, Get Better Beats. Hire A Better Studio. Work Together With Other Artists. Get Invited To Bigger Showcases, Build Rapport With Djs And Bookers. At Some Point, Someone Makes A Banger That Catches Fire, Djs Start Playing It On Their Radio Shows And Feature It In Their Playlists, And If Really Lucky, It Becomes A Hit. Enter The “Rap Game”; Get Collabs With Bigger Rappers, And Charge Smaller Rappers Money For A Verse Or Hook On Their Track. Then The Record Labels Wake Up And Crawl Out Of Their Burrows, Burst Out In Mortal Combat Over A Deal, Artist Blows Up, Gets To Tour The Nation, Do Stadiums, Feature Superstars, And Then, Immortality. 

At Least, That’s The Dream.

But The Showcases, In Run-Down Rehearsal Rooms, Photo Studios With Thrashed Rolls Of Backdrop Paper, Bankrupted Restaurants, Abandoned Retail Stores, Party Centers, Mired In Weed Smoke, Tossed Speakers, Dented Microphones With Crackly Cables; Young Black Artists In Their Hippest Puffers, Balaclavas, And Sunglasses, That’s Where It All Begins. 

Depending On The Show, There’s 10 To 35 Artists, Doing One Or Two Songs Each. The Artists Are Each Other’s Audience. Some Bring A Girlfriend. Some Bring A Friend Who Double As Manager. Some Are 4 To 8-Piece Rap Collectives Who Knew Each Other Since Kindergarten. Often There Are Artists Who Just There To Enjoy, Support And To Show Love. 

The more ambitious artists pop out in different venues. The bigger artists bring friends that know the lyrics verbatim and perform as a group on stage. 

Anyone who pays performs. Depending on the show’s clout $20-50, big ones with important radio DJs or industry execs present, run up to $100, $300, or more. 

There’s no vetting, no pre-approval. What you do on that stage, is up to you. No one tells you it’s got to be rap, though it is the default. From oldskool to boombap to trap and drill and everything in between. The other 10% is RnB, poetry, spoken word, sometimes dancers. In one case, I even saw opera.

Don’t You Leave!

The host announces the artists, who should hope not be outside smoking a blunt at that moment. Host gives the mic. The DJ plays the music, the artists double their own track. If all goes well, success and new friends. 

Only the host and the DJ know the order in which the artists will perform, so that everyone stays inside and gives energy. To keep artists from going home after they performed, some award prizes at the end. Studio time, money, awards, radio interviews, a slot at a bigger show. Or contacts. “Pass The Aux” a bigger showcase hosted by well-known rapper Phresher in a top floor club with an elevator as entrance, he often repeats: “Remember, after you perform, network! You never know who’s in the room! That elevator door is dangerous!”

Show Love, Get Love.

Hip hop showcases are all about energy, energy, energy. Show energy, partake in the hooks, or the artist’s signature dance moves. If the artist is loud, be loud with them. 

Love is shown by flicking out your phone and filming. If it was good, share an Instagram Story. Stories bounced back and forth between rapper and fan several times, frame-in-frame-in-frame, until the video itself shrank to a tiny thumbnail in the middle.

Networking is straightforward: if you like an artist, say it, give them your phone to let the artist type their unspellable IG handle, follow and follow right back; and you have a natural moment for conversation and possibly contact for more. 

Energetic crowds at Pass The Aux, Hell’s Kitchen 

Showcase organized by @naeemreign (dark hoodie in the middle) with @genuwinebeauty in the front (cosplay rapper, host for @mor.bookings) and @tj4playofficial on the left (boombap rapper from Philly), Brooklyn, Montclair, NJ.

IYKYK

Since the early days of hip hop in the 1980s, underground rap showcases have been around. It exists in every US city with a sizable Black community. But in New York, the Bethlehem of hip hop, it’s huge. I know roughly 50 promotors and venues who organize showcases regularly, and I discover new ones all the time. Which means there must be many, many hundreds more out there, nobody really knows how many.

There are no web sites where you can find showcases. There’s no central cultural org or blog that keeps track of events, like you have in the world of fine arts. It’s all sharing fliers on Instagram and hearsay. Follow a promotor or artist, you find the next show, and the next and the next. If you know, you know.

Even though it’s an open call, organizers put a lot of work into getting good artists. To stay in touch with new artists and keep the roster fresh, organizers often ask on Instagram “tag a fire artist” and then see who recommends who, and approach them. Likewise, getting yourself tagged by other artists in such postings, is a hustle of its own.

Black Culture

Hip hop showcases are a Black culture phenomenon. It is a Black audience with a Latino minority. White or Asian: usually none, sometimes one. 

Despite the highest grossing rapper of all times, Eminem, being white, and the main NYC radio DJ, Drewski from Hot97 being white, very few white rappers circulate in the hip hop underground of New York. In general, aspiring white rappers have no clue about Black culture or the roots of hip hop, didn’t grow up in it, and consequently, are often not that good. 

Think putting your hat backwards and say “yo yo yo I’m a rapper” is hot, or hip hop is just rhythmic bragging on a beat; they are welcome at showcases, they get applause, but not much is expected of them. That said, the few white rappers that are really good, and it’s felt they respect and understand the culture, get the genuine appreciation and fandom that Black rappers get, though a white rapper does remain a guest in the culture. And that’s how it should be. After all, pretty much every Black music genre except hip hop has been appropriated by whiteness and white capitalism... Beyoncé claimed Country back now, but that’s only a drop in the ocean. 

Show Your Steez, Brooklyn

Getting Inside Can Be Uncomfortable

Security ain’t playing. Empty your pockets, full-body pat-down, belt check, crotch check, no exceptions, no “he wit me, he ok”. As Coi Leray says: “Cus girls is playas too”, women are not exempt. But because everyone gets searched down so thoroughly, no one thinks about bringing weapons or making trouble. There’s gangs and guns out on the street, of course. There are rappers inside who brush with the law. Some have unfinished business with one another. 

But inside, everyone’s cordial and supportive; I never felt aggression in the air. I only saw a handful of escort-out moments, mostly between women. The showcase itself is a pretty non-violent, safe space.

DJ Smoov @iamdjsmoove.

420 Friendly

The average rapper sparks up blunts like a smoke stack. In regular bars and clubs, they have to huddle outside to keep up they THC levels. Traveling to a venue, the first sign you’ve come to the right place is seeing artists smoke weed outside.  

“420 friendly,”  meaning smoking weed inside is allowed, is regarded as an advantage. It can result in a dense grey fog that obscures the other end of the room, and over time, too-low energy. You can and will get high from secondhand smoke if the place is poorly ventilated. Performing in such air is like breathing powder-ground asphalt. 

Mixxy Gods (rap collective) Summer Festival, rapper Chris Welchs @chriswelchs_

Underground Hip Hop Fashion

Even though it’s about music in hip hop culture, most artists take their drip very seriously. They need to stand out in a consistent way. As an artist, you have to be recognizable, original and how you look, should express who you are. 

Rappers are true masters at looking super hip by simple means, reasonably priced streetwear with accessories like funny hats, furry balaclavas, gloves, face masks, make-up or a creative hairstyle. Some make their own accessories or t-shirts. Honorary mentions: rock rapper ElChopz just draws things on his face with a sharpie. Producer Dav the Ninja wears a neon-lit space helmet. 

It doesn’t have to be designer label stuff, that’s for the superstars... hip hop is street culture and most rappers grew up in with few privileges in poor neighborhoods where you have to make something out of nothing, and that includes how you look. 

Some even flaunt clearly fake luxury brand wear or leave the labels on as if they’re stolen, which the jeans manufacturers quickly absorb as part of their product. Some artists just wear the plainest of clothes to express that they are real and from the block. More experienced rappers often wear busy-print leather jackets from Avirex or Pelle Pelle, or if really oldskool 80/90s, custom made ones. 

Female artists, about 1/4 of the performers, put a huge lot of work in matching colored hair, make-, and very long nails. Large, thick rimmed sunglasses are in. But it’s often the shoes that are the most outspoken. Furry moon boots, glitter Crocs, Uggs, long boots, you name it. 

And of course, no rapper goes without a chain. How many chains a rapper wears, size, degree of customization and the amount of sparkly stones indicate the degree of experience and success. And the chain expresses identity—where a rapper’s from, a personal motto, referral to a family member or what their art is about.

The real OGs have slabs of real gold and real diamonds, but since custom jewelry is extremely expensive, most chains are inox steel or silver “made yellow” through some chemical rinse and glass rhinestones. As long as it shines, we gucci. 

What We Do It For

The artists do it to either express themselves, show their art and craft, be creative, show off, impress with freestyle skills and thrills, get the hot shower of applause, get famous, or all of the above. The showcase’s side wall-lining hustle-micro-economy of food, drink and weed vendors is, of course, about making a buck, but at least as much about being part of the energy, see the artists, have fun, party, sing along, dance, get high, meet their friends, be part of that wonderful and feel the love for that intangible thing called hip hop culture. 

Show love. Get love.  

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Who dis?

Businessman (@businesman_nyc) is a (white) rapper/producer from East Harlem, originally from Amsterdam. Businessman is a frequent performer and is often-invited to showcases all over New York. He also performed in Atlanta for Quality Control DJs and opened for The LOX (Jadakiss with original crew) in a sold-out theater in Clairmont, NJ, at the day of the earthquake. Which he insists was the DJ sound-checking his new bass-heavy single, “New Ferrari.” Available on all streaming platforms under “Businessman NYC,”  including a ridiculous cat meme music video.