CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
A self confessed lover of ‘real hip hop’ says he can’t believe he’s gone six months without realising there was a word that could be used to validate his increasing detachment with modern rap music.
After spending the best part of the last decade berating Triple J for losing touch with him, Kye Landreth has finally been given an excuse to say that young people are shit, and that white middle class Australians like him should be praised for the amazing music coming out of the Bronx in the 1980s.
“Don’t get me wrong” says the 42-year-old logistics manager for some sort of multinational environmental charitable organisation with once edgy origins.
“I love hip hop. But, you know, real hip hop”
Kye takes a deep breath before trotting out his new favourite word.
“None of this mumble rap shit!”
Mumble rap (sometimes conflated with “SoundCloud rap”) is a loosely defined microgenre that spread on the online audio distribution platform SoundCloud. It is mainly characterized for its simple, incomprehensible lyrics, hence its name. The term has been used as a slur towards recording that put little emphasis on lyricism because they realise 85% of modern hip hop audiences can’t exactly relate to the same themes made famous by Public Enemy and NWA and instead focus on egocentric party anthems.
Following his cranky old man rant, Kye smugly looks around the room to see if anyone else knows about this bold new terminology, before completely undermining his entire argument by saying at least Aussie artsts like Bliss n Eso are staying true to the art form.
