What began as a recent interview about the new POS & Astronautalis project (The Four Fists) sparked an interesting discourse on the current state of indie music on the Absolute Punk message boards with very interesting insight provided by Astronautalis himself. PartyEnds has never been one to fan flame wars or what have you (tho, we’d still love to see La Snacks take on Brothers and Sisters once and for all…) but the personal reply from Astro is full of introspection, attention to detail and commentary on pop culture that deserves to be acknowledged and thought about. What could have been a simple ’haters gonna hate’ message board response became essentially a McSweeney’s expose wrapped in a grad school thesis on rap vs hip hop and even the music business as a whole.
Excerpt:
“Just because it is made by black dudes who like 808s and synths more than old funk breaks and sing about a neighborhood you wouldn’t set foot in, doesn’t make it a bad record, it certainly doesn’t make it insincere. On the flip side, just because it is made by a white guy from the suburbs and packed full of abstract word association, doesn’t make it better than everything else. The “Rap VS Hip Hop” argument comes off as naive and arrogant, it is always fragranced with subtle undertones of, “what i like is smart and what THEY like is dumb”…and it is generally never based on any actual real research. I grew up talking houses of shit about southern rap…then i actually listened to it and I found it to be more unique and heartfelt than most of the NYC boom bap I was into. It really upsets me when I see people write off music because of the person making it or the publicity push behind it…that is about as terrible as it gets. What really changed it for me was the argument i used to make against traditional rap, “these guys just talk about how rich and tough they are”, when a friend said to me, “all the indie rappers you like just talk about how sad and fucked up they are”. Those are both HUGE generalizations…but not totally unfounded either. Additionally, to say that Rap-A-Lot has been dead, is totally absurd, especially when you compare it to Def Jux…which is ACTUALLY dead and out of business…while Rap-A-Lot continues to succeed without any big radio hits and plenty of quality rap. We can argue taste all we want, that is silly, your taste is your taste and i would never try to sway that, however, there a lot of people out there making terrible rip offs of Atmosphere and Sage Francis all to make a lot fans…meanwhile, there are a lot of people making very creative music who just so happen to HAVE a lot fans. I think that everyone should check out all of it and see what all the fuss is about…instead of writing it off because it isn’t like what you normally like.”
Read the whole exchange HERE. It is very interesting especially considering that it was written at 4am from a Prague hostel.
Lastly- did you know that the upcoming Four Fists record is based on the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald?! It promises to be out by the end of the year and I can not wait.















subscribe to our RSS
