Friday, February 27, 2009

Hip Hop is Alive and Living in Minnesota

Listening to Atlanta's finest indie radio station--WRAS 88.5 out of Georgia State University--while driving through rain-slogged streets this afternoon. One of the wonders of listening to a good radio station like Album 88 is that in doing so you leave yourself open to any interesting new music that might come across your car stereo. That is, you're liable to hear something that might come out of nowhere and truly surprise and enchant you; no need to wait for the thumbs up from Pitchfork Media.

Anyway, heard this song.


Discovered that the artist is a Minneapolis rapper called POS, and that the song comes from a brand new album titled Never Better.

A million times better than most things coming from the white-bread indie scene, I think. More spacious and imaginative musically, better lyrics, and amazingly it's music that actually takes notice of the world and not just solipsistic personal issues.

And if you must, the Pitchfork review is here.

Apparently POS is the main force behind a musical fraternity centered around his label Doomtree Records. Their website is here.

UPDATE: The lyrics in this song aren't just better than what's coming out of the vanilla indie-roc scene. The lyrics in this song, particularly during the female rapper's verse, are downright fucking incredible.

It seems like weve fallen out of favor/ the era ended on us/
Now the moneys just paper/ the houses all haunted/
We had a hell of a run before it caught up/
For all the corners cut/ we got an avalanche of sawdust/
Life of the party/ were the death of the novel/
The glass is half empty/ so pass the next bottle/
Its the flight of the salesman/ death of the bumblebee/
Nothing left for the/ attorneys and the tumbleweeds

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