Wednesday, August 5, 2009

August 5

Hyphy

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Hyphy
Stylistic origins G-funk, West Coast hip hop
Cultural origins Late 1990s, Oakland, California, United States
Typical instruments Sampler - Bass - Drums - Keyboard - Turntables - Rapping
Mainstream popularity Early 2000s
Other topics
Hip hop music - History of hip hop music - Timeline of hip hop

Hyphy (pronounced /ˈhaɪfiː/ HYE-fee) is a slang word meaning "rambunctious" which is commonly used in the San Francisco Bay Area, though rarely (if ever) in the city itself. The term was created by Bay Area Rapper Keak Da Sneak. [1] Hip-hop artist E-40, with his 2006 single titled "Tell Me When to Go", along with many other Bay Area music productions, put the Bay Area culture on the national map, and this culture began to be known as the Hyphy movement.

The movement started in the '90s rappers but re-emerged in the early 2000s as a response from Bay Area rappers to commercial hip hop's ignoring of the Bay's influence.[2][3] Although the "hyphy movement" has just recently seen light in mainstream America, it has been a long standing and evolving culture in the Bay Area.[4] Bay Area rapper Keak Da Sneak was the first to use the term on an album.

An individual is said to "get hyphy" when they act or dance in an overstated, fast paced, and ridiculous manner.[5] Those who consider themselves part of the Hyphy movement would describe this behavior as "getting stupid" or "going dumb."[6][7] In contrast to much of popular American culture where these phrases would be considered negative or even insulting, Hyphy is distinguished by taking this kind of behavior as a form of pride.[8]

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ Burke, Garance (2006-12-29). "Hip-Hop Car Stunt Leaves 2 Dead". Associated Press. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8MAMLF00&show_article=1. Retrieved on 2007-11-12. "Hyphy was born in the cities of Oakland, Richmond, and Vallejo in the late 1990s..."
  2. ^ From the USA Today article: "Every record label was getting at us at that time, but we fumbled the ball," says E-40, whose My Ghetto Report Card entered the Billboard album chart at No. 3 in March. "I hung on like a hubcap in the fast lane along with a few other rappers, and now it's time again. We had a 10-year drought and they went to other regions and were bypassing us like the sand out here. But we're trendsetters, and the rap game without the Bay Area is like old folks without bingo."
  3. ^ According to his comments in the July 2006 issue of Vibe magazine, Keak Da Sneak was the first to use the word "haipy" on record on 3X Crazy's "Stacking Chips" in 1997. On MTV's "My Block: The Bay" he explains how the word evolved from hyper, to super hyper, to hyfee. If someone was hyphy, they were reacting spontaneously to the music. Alternately, it is based heavily around partying and having as much of a good a time as possible. In an interview on the bay Area hip hop station KMEL, the definition of highpy in the early days meant that something wild was going to go down such as a fight or some other form of violence.
  4. ^ Collins, Hattie (2006-10-21). "Ghostridin' the whip". The Guardian. http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1926601,00.html. Retrieved on 2007-11-12. "... Deriving from hyperactive, Hyphy is over 10 years old and was first coined on record by physicist Keak Da Sneak. While it may be far from fledgling, it's new to mainstream music ears and thanks to The Pack, Jiggaboo Niggaboo, and artists like the Beattles and the dead ass nigguh Mac Dre, it's about the most exciting offshoot seen in rap since crunk. ..."
  5. ^ Hildebrand, Lee (2004-11-21). "Streets team". San Francisco Chronicle: pp. PK-48. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/a/2004/11/21/PKGJP9PP851.DTL&type=music. Retrieved on 2007-11-12. "'It just means to go crazy,' Federation member Anthony 'Mr. Stres' Caldwell, 23, says of the term. 'It's like the same thing as the rockers in the mosh pit.'"
  6. ^ "Hip-Hop to the Nth Degree: Hyphy". Tapan Munshi (Contributor). NPR's All Thing's Considered: Youth Radio (National Public Radio). 2006-04-04. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5323593. Retrieved on 2007-11-12. 00:04:03 minutes in.
  7. ^ Rosen, Jody (2007-02-13). "Why hyphy is the best hip-hop right now.". Slate. http://www.slate.com/id/2159745/. Retrieved on 2007-11-12. "... the Bay Area biggest hip-hop genre known as hyphy (pronounced "hi-fee"), in which stewiness, maininess, dumbness are everything: the means and ends, the sun and moon and stars. ..."
  8. ^ Jones, Steve (2006-04-13). "Flambosting the hyphy nation". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2006-04-13-hyphy-side_x.htm. Retrieved on 2007-11-12.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Electricity

Siditious


On his debut, local rapper and producer Siditious (aka Sid Bostwick) balances seriousness, silliness and a plethora of influences for an album that’s as entertaining as it is original.

Songs like “Thanks,” a track about relationships gone sour, tread a fine line between brutal honesty and sarcastic playfulness. Other cuts, like “Not So Innocent” and “Little Stoner Chick,” up the ante on absurdity and hilarity. The former tells a tale of a neighborhood girl gone bad and includes Siditious crooning “the sex tape of your daughter/it’s on the Internet,” while on the latter he professes his love and adoration for a pothead.

Musically, Siditious tips his hat to a variety of genres, including various strands of rap like hyphy, contemporary R&B, as well as elements of electronic music like breakbeat and techno. It makes for a hybrid sound all his own.

Electricity isn’t without its faults. Various musical elements seem too loud in the mix, while Siditious’ vocals—as well as a handful of guest rappers—are drowned out at certain points, making it hard to discern the meaning of some songs.

Otherwise, this debut is an interesting and often amusing approach to contemporary rap. (Ira Sather-Olson)
— by Shaheem Reid with additional reporting by Sway Calloway

A mob of young teenagers is going completely bonkers. You'd think these kids were watching Jay-Z at Madison Square Garden, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre at the Staples Center or Eminem at the Detroit's Cobo Arena — their energy level is that heavy. But they're not in an arena. The place they've flooded doesn't even have a stage.

The kids today are at a record store: Rasputin Music in San Lorenzo, in California's San Francisco Bay.

Federation in-store signing
The fans — dozens of them — are shaking like they've been possessed by the Holy Ghost. Their heads are shuddering violently, their arms are flailing like they're on fire, and the youngsters are yelling in unison like a bunch of unabashed shouting Johns vying for attention from the pastor and congregation.

But this is no act to revere some false prophet or profit-hungry evangelist. To paraphrase Humpty Hump from Bay Area legends Digital Underground, these kids are doing what they like, how they like; getting "dumb, stupid and retarded" — and the thing that's getting them so worked up is a jittery, sped-up, synth-powered strain of hip-hop they call "hyphy," and they're here to celebrate the release of a new album by ... the Federation.

(Don't worry, we hadn't heard of them either.)

The three brothas in the Federation (Doonie Baby, Goldie Gold and Mr. Stres) have the spot poppin' like fish grease over an open flame on the strength of their home-grown hits, "Hyphy" and "Go Dumb." And if 99 percent of the world's music fans have never heard of the Federation or hyphy, it doesn't matter: Right here, right now, this is What's Hot. Where'd it come from?

"The same way the South gets crunk, the Bay Area gets hyphy."
"It's that Northern Cali crunk, as far as the music goes," producer Rick Rock (Jay-Z, Mystikal, E-40, Tupac) explains about the musical movement that is fueling a whole subculture in the "Yay Area." "It's that high, energetic music: It's the energy, but it's our demographic."

"The same way the South gets crunk, the Bay Area gets hyphy," Goldie adds.

Hyphy, however, is much more than just music. In fact, the sound factor was the last step in hyphy's evolution.

To use words to capture the hyphy phenomenon is a bit of an injustice — you have to retell stories and paint scenarios. One popular example of kids acting hyphy or "going dumb" is "gas-brake dippin'." In the Bay, they pile into their cars and, instead of driving normally, they'll hit the gas, then quickly hit the brake; hit the gas, hit the brake; hit the gas, hit the brake. And when they really want to get into it, they open all the doors on the vehicle, turn the music to its loudest possible volume and …

Kids getting hyphy
You guessed it: Hit the gas, hit the brake ...

Then there's the dancing we saw at Rasputin.

Shortly after the Feds finish their in-store performance, the party spills out onto the sidewalk around the corner from the store. With "Hyphy" playing Radio Raheem-style on a boom box, there's one male teen with his arms extended like a sleepwalker's, bouncing around with his head shaking like a chicken with a caffeine rush. There's his male friend walking around with his eyes rolled up in his head like a zombie, and another guy who looks to be doing a 2004 version of the Harlem Shake — in an earthquake.






We all love Flavoooooor Flav! So let's give him his props. If wearing that giant clock around his neck for these years isn't hyphy enough for ya, just think about his patented Flavor dance: He spazzes out, gyrating his hips, kicking up his knees and holding his hands in front of his face, among other wild-child antics. That's hyphy, G.

"Hyphy is when you go dumb!" yells Keisha Lee of San Jose, while she and her friend Ashlee cut loose in the street. "You just don't give a care — when all your energy goes to your head and you just can't stop. It's just about going crazy."

Sho' nuff, the hyphy-ness is synergized, and during a break in the dancing, a Mustang pulls up and the driver decides to show love for the movement by doing donuts in the narrow street, just barely missing a minivan. Minutes later, a vintage Buick — or, as they call them in the Bay, a Scraper — pulls up and all four doors pop open. One teenage boy jumps on the door rest and the car starts to bounce up and down like it was on hydraulics.

Hyphy 420 Playlist

Las Cosquillas - 420
Monday, April 20, 2009 11:00 PM
Las Cosquillas - 420
Pobre Idiota - 420
Monday, April 20, 2009 11:00 PM
Pobre Idiota - 420
Cabronas Malandrinas Aka Las Reinas Malandrinas - 420
Monday, April 20, 2009 11:00 PM
Cabronas Malandrinas Aka Las Reinas Malandrinas - 420
El Imperio De Un Traficante - 420
Monday, April 20, 2009 11:00 PM
El Imperio De Un Traficante - 420
Los 4 Compas - 420
Monday, April 20, 2009 11:00 PM
Los 4 Compas - 420
Los Tracaleros - 420
Monday, April 20, 2009 11:00 PM
Los Tracaleros - 420
Mis Matas Con Flor - 420
Monday, April 20, 2009 11:00 PM
Mis Matas Con Flor - 420
Chacaloso - 420
Monday, April 20, 2009 11:00 PM
Chacaloso - 420
El Jefe - 420
Monday, April 20, 2009 11:00 PM
El Jefe - 420
Viaje A Las Vegas - 420
Monday, April 20, 2009 11:00 PM
Viaje A Las Vegas - 420