Throwback Thursday: The Hyphy Movement

If you listen to rap radio stations when you live in the Bay Area, it is a little depressing to realize that all of the "hits" that are played on our local stations don't play any local music. Once in a while we might hear a local "hit" from a local "big name" artist, but it is a rare occasion considering that these artists fizzle out after their career remains stagnant even in local circles. It's not their fault however. The San Francisco Bay Area is by and large one of the biggest metropolitan areas in the United States that has struggled to discover an identity in rap to separate themselves from the rest of the nation ever since rap has been introduced to the masses. Many Bay Area rap fans can argue with me on this. We do indeed have a lot of unique artists that make music unlike any others in the country. Bay Area beats do have some unique identifiers that most can recognize and attribute to being from the Bay Area. However, this is all old school. The rap legends of the 90's have cemented their legacy in our corner of the nation: Too $hort, Digital Underground, Mac Dre, Richie Rich, E-40, The Luniz, etc. The new generation of rap artists remained with no local sense of identity or direction. That is...until the Hyphy Movement was introduced.
I wanted to write this Throwback Thursday in commemoration and appreciation of the Hyphy Movement. Even though the movement has lost most of its steam at this point, it represented something new and fresh for the rap scene in the Bay Area that we had never experienced before. Finally, the Bay Area had something to call its own. The Hyphy Movement brought along new slang, new themes, new artists, and everybody was loving it. Suddenly we were all wearing "stunnas", going "dumb", and "poppin' thizz" in our "scraper" on the way to the "sideshow" while "yokin'". Even if the rest of the nation didn't necessarily like it or catch on to it, everyone knew about it. When My Block: The Bay premiered on MTV, the word was out: The Bay Area had a new movement.
Even the older Bay Area rappers wanted to catch on. Suddenly we heard veterans like E-40 and Richie Rich doing raps on Hyphy beats. It was all about parties, clubs, drinks, drugs, going dumb, and being ignorant to the extreme. It pretty much was similar to the Crunk scene of the South, but what separated it a bit was the slang, the rappers, the territory, the different style beat, and the extreme nature. I believe the height of the Hyphy Movement had a few notable moments:
-E-40's My Ghetto Report Card album debuting at #3 on the billboard 200
-Keak Da Sneak's "Super Hyphy" music video making an appearance on MTV's video rotation
-Big name producers like Lil Jon contributing production for Bay Area artists
-Mistah FAB getting signed to Atlantic Records
-Bay Area rappers making appearances on big name rappers' mixtapes and vise versa (Example: Ma$e making an appearance on Mac Dre's Judge Dre Mathis)
-MTV doing their My Block: The Bay special
-MTVnews actually covering news of Bay Area artists and the growth of Hyphy
Why did it die? I really can't tell. For a while it seemed like the movement was here to stay. Unfortunately for the Bay, this was not the case. There are many fingers to point at the demise of our precious rap identity. Was it because the scene was so similar to Crunk of the South? Possibly. Was it because even though we kept learning about new rappers, none of them brought anything fresh to the table? Likely. Was it because after a while the corporately owned radio stations began to get bored and decided to play less Bay Area music to please the higher ups? Maybe. Or could it have been because every song started to sound the same after a while? Very likely. In any event the scene has greatly died down and we don't hear so much about the rappers we had grown to love between around 2002 to 2008. We don't hear so much about guys like Rydah J. Kyle, J. Diggs, Keak Da Sneak, and Dubee Sugawulf anymore. Matter of fact, many of these rappers like Mistah Fab, are actually doing their best to steer away from their Hyphy roots and cleanse their image to blend in with the rest of the generic rap going on in the music industry today. The most tragic part about all of this, is the aftermath in the wake of Hyphy. The Hyphy Movement has produced some bastard children like L.A.'s "Jerkin" movement; clearly an offspring from the bay sounding beats, bay sounding flows, variation of the turfin' style of dance from Oakland, and use of bay area slang. Jagged Edge also has a song called "Stunnas". Did I mention they were from Atlanta? Anyways... It's sad to see that the promise and possibility of the Bay Area to finally have their own identity ripped away. However, I can see some solace in the fact that even though it only lasted for a short minute, the Bay Area was recognized as an up and coming force to be reckoned with. We realize the potential is there as long as it is organized, supported, and marketed correctly. I believe it's only a matter of time before the Bay Area regroups and comes up with something new and fresh. Even if we don't, I don't mind the Bay Area lacking commercial exploitation like some areas such as Miami have endured. Maybe that's what makes us so unique; we keep it so real that we can't fit into any commercial category that the music industry can exploit and generalize. Keep it real Bay, we will have our day...

~M