Indie Music: Hip-Hops’ Favorite Type of Music
By: Matthew Spence
Tags: Writing, Hip Hop, Music, Rap, Culture

Entering the 2010s, it seems that it has gone on to become a decade of influence and absorbing. Barriers aren’t as concrete as they once were comparing to previous years. Pop songs are more explicitly hip-hop influenced and for hip-hop vice-versa applies. In the case of Hip-Hop, it’s artist haven’t been too shy to wear its influence and inspirations on their chest like a badge, or in their case like a chain by Jacob the Jeweler or Ben Baller. From fashion to slang to music, hip-hop is a genre of expansion. Throughout the decade we’ve gotten to witness hip-hop artists incorporate rock music and rock culture in their music and presence from the late XXXtentacion, from Kid Cudi to Lil Uzi Vert to Lil Wayne. Rae Sremmurd was “Black Beatles” to 21 Savage & Post Malone being Rockstars, to Kanye sampling Kurt Cobain on “Cudi Montage” for the final track on Kids See Ghosts to Denzel Curry covering “Bulls on the Parade”, the number of examples are abundant. Now, of course, hip-hop has embraced other genres reggae/dancehall (We’re looking at you “Views from the 6”), EDM, and a few other genres But in the 2010s, as hip-hop began a rise to being the number one genre in the country, we also witnessed the rise of the indie music and culture to prominence in the streaming and social media age era that also grew bigger with these genres.

(It should be noted that the term “indie music” has gone through meanings through the years, so for this piece, I’ll use the context it is used in currently being more the aesthetic of alternative/guitar-based music) The early 2010s saw what was the beginning of the indie movement of the new generation, and Hip-Hop caught wind of that. 2010 would mark the beginning of the hip-hops indie venture, first with duo MGMT and the band Bon Iver.

MGMT, known for their synth and psychedelic style of their first album, had a landmark moment in 2007 with Oracular Spectacular due to their hits: Electric Feel, Kids, and Time to Pretend. Hip-Hop artists would let it be known that they were paying attention as in 2010 Kid Cudi would collab with the two and make the classic track “Pursuit of Happiness” for Cudi’s debut “Man On the Moon: The End of Day”.“Pursuit of Happiness” would go on to be one of the definitive hip-hop tracks of the decade. However, this may be the group’s only hip-hop collaboration, it doesn’t end there as 3 tracks would be sampled throughout the decade. Chiddy Bang sampled the song Kids for their song “Opposite of Adults”, Nipsey Hustle sampled Electric Feels for “Call From the Bank”, Lloyd Banks, and Blonded Frank Ocean would sample Electric Feels as well. Mac Miller would sample Kids while Cudi would sample their track “Congratulations”, and so on. Plus, what’s more, iconic than Kid Cudi bum-rushing MGMTs Coachella set on acid to dance to Electric Feel?….. Exactly!!!. While MGMT was being sampled, Bon Ivor was recruited by none other than Kanye West. Bon Iver, an indie-folk rock band, had gained a big following with their debut album in 2008 “For Emma, Forever Ago”, and little did they know that Kanye was apart of that following and two years they would soon be working with Kanye to create some tracks that end up on an album that become one of the greatest albums of all time: “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”.

Sampling the band’s song “Woods” and working on the songs such as “Monster”, Kanye & Bon Iver, on paper may have seemed peculiar considering all of Kanye’s’ previous collabs and projects he has done, but yet the overall product may have subverted doubters expectations. In an interview with Vulture from 2010 lead member, Justin Vernon explained it came to be: “ The first person who reached out to me was Kanye himself. I’d heard he wanted to use a sample of “Woods,” and we were talking on the phone for 30 to 45 minutes about music and life in general, where the record was at … He was interested in my aesthetic in a recording and production standpoint. He invited me out. I said, “Oh, cool, I’ll come out to Hawaii, it sounds fun.” Hawaii, in February.” He further elaborated: “Before I went to the studio, he picked me up and we went to play hoops….In the studio, he played the songs: “Can you do something here?” We were going back and forth, listening to songs a couple of times, just kind of going back and forth”. This would be the first of a couple more collabs between the two as Kanye would bring Bon Iver back for “I’m In It” for Yeezus in 2013 and Francis and the Lights would bring them together for the 2016 track “Friends”. Kanye’s’ has expressed his love of Bon Iver in a 2016 BBC Radio 1 Interview saying: “favorite living artist” and that he “loves Justin the way Kanye loves himself.”.

While Kanye expressed his love for Justin Vernon, on the latter rappers such as Tyler, the Creator also had his ear to the indie scene. In which, there were two he showed appreciation towards, one of them being the acclaimed “Prince of Indie Rock” and the Jizz-Jazz man himself, Mac DeMarco (the other artist we’ll mention soon). Now, Mac & Tyler haven’t made an official release song together, however, they did do a joke song for Tylers show “Loiter Squad” on Adult Swim (his first show of a couple of others to come later), which came to be after a mutual friend of Tyler suggested him to link up with Mac.“He showed Tyler my stuff at some point and then Tyler started tweeting at me. The people who do my press also do Odd Future’s press and when I was in L.A., they were like, ‘Tyler wants to meet up,’ and I was like, ‘Ok, sure.’ I’d already sent him pictures of my naked penis and stuff so I figured that meeting in the flesh was right around the corner.” he told Pitchfork in 2014. And it seems the feelings have been mutual with Tyler, as he subtly tweeted about Mac sin 2013: “DEAR MAC DEMARCO… I LOVE YOU YOU ARE AWESOME”. While Tyler expressed his fandom through tweets, and Wiz Khalifa rapped over his popular track, it’s the rapper Logic who’s shown he’s a major fan of Mac to the point where’s he even tattooed the album title “Salad Days” (Mac’s 3rd album) on his arm in 2018, claiming it as one of the “most influential albums” to him. The two would later collab for the next year with Mac producing two tracks for Logics soundtrack to his novel “Supermarket”.

While Mac is welcomed with open arms, we see the biggest of them all become “hip’s hop favorite band” that is: Kevin Parker and his Psychedelic friendly project “Tame Impala”. Kevin Parker over the years has gotten acclaim from critics, fans, and peers, however many of those people would be in the realm of hip-hop. With Tyler the Creator and Frank Ocean being notable early supporters, the Odd Future members would give shout-outs to the band on a few different occasions. One of the first examples is Tyler tweeting: “Life Is Great Because Of This Tame Impala Album Right Now Fuckkkkkkk” in 2012 and 2013 with Tyler shouting them out on the Bimmer section of the 3-in-1 track “PartyIsntOver/Campfire/Bimmer”: “Pop some Tame Impala, your man got a lame Impala”. Tyler’s fandom would soon trickle down to

Frank as he stated in a 2013 BBC Radio 1 interview. Being asked who’d he loved to collab with he mentioned Tame and another indie artist King Krule: “Tyler came by and we were just playing records. As far as collaborations in the future for me, I don’t know. There’s this kid King Krule who is really sick and I would love to do something with. He has a special voice, really cool. I love Tame Impala, Tyler put me onto them and they’re wicked. Their music has a freedom to it.” From shoutouts on records to being sampled by Kendrick Lamar and Asap Rocky to being covered by Rihanna to being co-writer and producer on Travis Scotts’ 2018 album “Astroworld” and Kanye Wests’ “Ye”. With his psychedelic sound and style, Tame has an impressive hip-hop repertoire and résumé, becoming a favorite of the hip-hop world, leaving room for fans to expect more collaborations with Kevin to come in the future.

Now, as the decade as come to a close and we’ve seen artist such as Rex Orange County work with Tyler on Flower Boy, Anna Wise work with Kendrick Lamar or Kendrick Sample Mr. Twin Sister for “The Recipe”, the examples are countless (and well, articles can be so long lol). Entering the new decade, it’s safe to say hip-hop has become a musically welcoming genre, and interests continue to see how hip-hop expands on its musical endeavors.