I recently discovered that there are multiple international varieties of Netflix's reality competition show
Rhythm & Flow, including four seasons of the French version. The first featured a guy named B.B. Jacques who dresses like he's in Camp Lo and regularly caps verses by shouting, "fuck off." One of the finalists was a dude named
Elyon who made super well produced alternative rap complete with orchestral arrangements and art gallery aesthetics. I highly recommend the program, but that's not why I'm here today. Many a major label backed rapper make "lo fi" hip-hop, flattened mics over turntable crackle. (I'm not an engineer, so those aren't the technical terms, but you know what I'm talking about.) These are artists with the financial wherewithal to hire some of the best studio musicians and engineers working today, but they choose to go the opposite route. Then, on the other end of the spectrum, there are those independent artisans who dedicate so much time and talent to honing their craft that even with lower budgets and lesser tools, they churn out music of the highest possible fidelity, both in terms of production quality and emotional honesty. Elyon would fall in that category. So would longtime Long Island Rap Records affiliate
Andy Koufax. And so too would Kenneth Callier. His latest,
Look At Me Bleed, is an absolute masterpiece. I'm not saying it's the type of record that couldn't be created under contract with a major. (I've never worked in the entertainment industry, so I don't what goes on there.) I'm just saying that if you're going to put in the 10,000 hours, it's nice to have something real to show for it, and this album has quite a lot of that.
