That was an impromptu hommage<\/em> to the output of a label we all particularly held dear. But what started as an off-the-cuff adventure, soon became a whole series of mixtapes. In fact, a veritable complex of intentions started to coalesce into a structured project. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s high time then that we somewhat formalize what we are tring to do here. Specifically, that first, unintentional, tribute mixtape went to become the cornerstone of our new project, the Hip Hop Labels<\/strong> mixtape tribute serie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What we are trying to do with this long-standing collaboration between me, TwoMave The Masked Jedi<\/strong> as the main researcher, a group of deeply talented, incredibly generous djs and the ever-reaching support of the head honcho here, is to bring to life a whole saga, a complete (as much as possible) exploration on the struggle of b-boys (today sadly a highly unfashionable word) and aficionados<\/em> everywhere to create independent record companies, producing music for other Hip Hop heads like them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is something we deemed necessary, but which also haven’t being tried on this scale. Indeed, aside from the usual few names, these labels completely disappeared from the radars of many selecters out there. Plus, we are doing it, or at least we want to do it, on an international scale. To put it bluntly, there is life outside U.S. hip hop, so let’s go out and explore this damn music a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All in all, what we are going to dig out is a long epic made of artistic staunchness, forward-thinking DIY mindset and (often) uncompromising love for Hip Hop culture. However, it’s also a pretty bleak tale made of constant struggle to death with financial statements, of tentatives to remain ahead of changing social trends and of spectacular, sometimes even pyrotechnic, failures. Most important for us tho, this is a story paved with frigging great music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leaving aside the plethora of stratospheric (and meteoric, all in all) realities that animated the first half of the Nineties, with a barrage of 12-inch soon becoming cult among enthusiasts (we’ll be going back to it, someday), from the second half of the “mitico<\/em>” Nineties to the early 2000s, many players were actually in the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’m talking about record labels and entities like the legendary Fondle 'Em Records<\/a> <\/strong>e Rawkus<\/strong>, as well as Intrattenimento Hydra<\/a><\/strong>, Conferenza orientale<\/strong>, Dj M-Boogie’s own Ill Boogie<\/strong><\/a> und so weiter<\/em>, solo per citarne alcuni.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite being usually helped by major distribution deals, these Hip Hop labels were the “mainstream dell'underground<\/em>“, marking that era that we all remember so well. Few years laters, others – like Def Jux<\/a><\/strong>, I rimieratori<\/strong>, Anticon<\/strong> o Quannum Projects<\/strong><\/a> (the last two indeed markedly far removed from the influence of the orthodox New York-style boom bap) – followed, walking the same path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let’s be clear: this does not conflict in itself with the fact that after 1997 the general sound of this music had started to change, and a phase of mainstream reabsorption had begun: if anything, most of the aforementioned labels and in fact the whole periodo dei backpackers<\/em> (the fashion\/mania to go around with the backpack over the hoodie, so Nineties and iconic of a period of streetwear fashion, NDA), represented the resistance to a Hip Hop that was, inexorably, transforming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ironically, the story we are going to tell through our tribute mixtapes is still the story of a defeat.<\/p>\n\n\n The labels that came to the fore in the post-97 apocalypse, such as the well-known Stones Throw<\/strong> or the more underground Mush Records<\/strong> o Chocolate Industries<\/strong>, characterized for better or worse the 2000s. But they also expressed and represented another world, often a hybrid of other musical genres and sometimes catering to a different kind of listener.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That’s also possibly the reason why some of them, more financially shrewd or maybe just more percipient interpreters of the radically different public mood, still exist to this day, to an extent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That said, within few years in the new millenium, most of the labels we are going to flesh out were struggling to stay alive, or were soon uncerimoniously dropping out. This wasn’t due much or exclusively to the lack of professionalism, nor to the receding economic prosperity of large sectors of population who were experimenting vividly the consequences of the by then almost two decades of neoliberal policies, with economically more fragile societies that were about to deflagrate spectucularly with the 2007 crisis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Aside from the objective scarcity of capital base (typical of many Hip Hop labels, with the only exception of Rawkus), what plagued underground labels above all was the drastic changes in fashion, with more and more listeners veering toward pop-ish stuff. If we factor-in the technological overturn in the ways of music consumption, well, all of this represents an impossible obstacle to overcome. We leave voluntarily out of the equation most European countries, where the already few existing realities by the mid-2000s were almost all agonizing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was no lack of hip hop labels and record companies that produced quality and thick music throughout the infamous 1990s. For those who loved a certain frankly hardcore sound, the situation was objectively thriving. And it came naturally to me to make a parallel between that past and what happened in the last ten to fifteen years. Even if the situation isn’t necessarily the same, let’s have a quick review and compare the situation a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Between the 2010 and the 2013, an era of revival<\/em> swept over the worldwide underground scene. Fleeting and contraddictory as it might have been, that era of retrofuturismo<\/em> o la rinascita di un \"classico<\/em>” sound, also seemed to have as its focal point in the renewed role, or rather the “revenge”, of hip hop labels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of them in fact seized the role to represent the period. An American entity such as Gruppo musicale Mello<\/strong> could not be explained if we don’t not look at its objective strengths: quality of the artists under contract, innovative distribution methods, and quality control that does not conflict with the quantity of production.<\/p>\n\n\n\nEnter the main flock of record labels: an underground resistance.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"Talib](\"https:\/\/strettoblaster.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/talib_kweli_hip_hop_labels.jpg\")
Just another losing game: the love for true hip hop.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The coming of age and the revenge of hip hop labels in the past decade.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n