Shaun will be the first to point out that hip-hop, rap, and freak folk are totally his domain here on Resonator. While he doesn’t give me grief about not being into the latter (surely plenty of people can understand why Joanna Newsom’s voice is like large-grit sandpaper down a person’s spine, no matter how talented she is), he’s taken to mocking how “white” I am on many occasion because, for example, I don’t think Kanye West is that great and I’m not really digging the new Jay-Z record. It all sounds tired and predictable to me, and because most of what I’d been exposed to that could be classified as hip-hop has come post-”Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems,” I wasn’t really aware that there was an entire period of the genre that, if only someone would force me to listen to it, I’d absolutely adore.

There’s always been seeds of a potential love for hip-hop, but they’d never really germinated. To illustrate that, despite the mainstream media’s depiction of rap artists as heartless, drug-dealing, womanizing gang bangers, a lot of rap culture was a machismo reaction to an environmental vulnerability, my favorite professor in college once quoted, in his Harvard educated voice which could engage a student on the driest of all topics, Biggie Smalls. “Birthdays were the worst days; now we drink champagne when we’re thirsty”– grow up with nothing, believing you’re going to be nothing, and the only way out of it is to talk yourself into believing you’re a bad ass. When everyone in power has abused you your entire life and you’ve had even the most basic comforts withheld from you, the only way you know to be powerful is to abuse and indulge.

That was the start. That one line and that one amazing day of an amazing class.

It took another 4 years and 3 other factors to put me in a place to devour this music. First, a many-pitcher induced decision to try Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” at karaoke one night. Anyone who thinks that rapping is an art form whose practitioners are devoid of natural talent and ability should be suitably humbled by attempting this. If you don’t trip over your tongue through the verses, please consider becoming an MC for the pleasure of the entire music-listening community. Though I know every word to that song and even trained for a decade as an operatic vocalist, I couldn’t spit the words out fast enough or figure out where to breathe. Rappers, at least the ones with an intricate and almost pizzicato flow, are supernaturally talented creatures.

Despite his indisputable talent, Eminem’s aural intensity, which vacillates from silly mania to terrifying bursts of violent fury, doesn’t quite appeal to me. I’ll admit it– he scares me. Listening to his tracks makes me uncomfortable and I don’t find it an experience that I enjoy so much as one that I survive. In clubs or with company, in small doses, it’s fine; as something I put on in headphones to commute to work or to chill out with at home, it’s unbearable.

About 2 years later, my little brother went from a metal-loving, black jeans wearing headbanger (I suppose every boy has to go through this period when they’re 13 and 14) into an aficionado of hip-hop with both a breadth and depth of knowledge on the subject that rivals Jeff Chang’s. Going home and being driven around in his car, I found myself, more often than not, asking “Who is this?” and then sifting through his iTunes to find new artists I’d like. It wasn’t always fruitful– my brother finds value in a lot of stuff I don’t like, and at the time, I wasn’t clued up enough to know what it was I was trying to find.

Finally, the tipping point came when I met this boy. He was smart, funny, well-spoken to a point that made our interactions something like flirting with the OED, and he held his own in conversations about Marcel Duchamp and linguistics… and he loved good, old school hip-hop. I cannot thank him enough for ecstatically exposing me to the lyrical genius of Big L with the naive enthusiasm of having a rapt audience for one of his favorite topics. Yeah, yeah, I admit that I’d probably have shut the whole thing down with a dismissive “I’m not really into that,” if I’d not had such a crush on him. Or maybe I’d just been prepped enough that it would only take any last nudge to push me over the edge.

I discovered what I generally refer to as ‘97 hip hop. It didn’t all come out then or even end then, so I’m not sure how I ended up with that title, but it all sort of hovers around that year. Big L. Biggie. Big Pun. Apparently, everything I like was big… and also, unfortunately, now dead.

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Freestyle featuring Big L and L Fudge

I’ve spent a lot of time finding mix tapes from those years, from those artists, and the people who were associated with them. By and large, the production values of contemporary rap are, of course, higher– the equipment and the software are better a decade later. I find, however, that the beats and the samples are lacking in the same inventive, inspired artistry of the late ’90s.

But what does this have to do with, of all things, freak folk? Apparently, I’m not the only one who loves this stuff, unabashedly, and without irony. Adorable multi-instrumentalist Emily Wells of Los Angeles lists, among such highbrow names as Beethoven and Egon Schiele, the vulnerable Notorious B.I.G. as one of her major influences. Her instrument list reads like the combined studios of Patrick Wolf and Dan Deacon, and her voice is as elfin as the aforementioned Newsom but with a sultry, flirtatious edge that makes her much more listenable.

I loved her original work, but stumbling across her cover of “Juicy” cemented a hardcore musical crush. Wells has put together a sincere and chilling interpretation of that same track my professor quoted back in college, her treatment highlighting that same vulnerability that he wanted to point out to his students.

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Juicy (Notorious B.I.G. cover) - Emily Wells

Emily’s EP (featuring her own works as well as this cover) is now available on iTunes.