These days, when it comes to rap, the term underground often applies to anything not tied to the East Coast glam of Jay and Diddy, the funkified bounce of Los Angeles or the 40-swiggin’ wildness of the Dirty South. But around here, rap radio broadcasts the club-frenzied, bouncier brother of Dirty South, crunk. Artists who perform on the fringes are often overlooked. Still, rappers who keep their distance from mainstream genres aren’t immune to a Southern influence. Here’s a look at five locals who are crafting their own hybrids.
Chris “Coolout” Davis, one of Nashville’s best party DJs, works gigs at such disparate venues as Play and Cabana, and has been writing songs since 1999. While his MC voice recalls Dirty South progenitor Scarface, his new record, Midnight, has a Southern, down-home feel in its ode-to-the-politics-from-the-pulpit vibe and the Georgian drawl of Cedric the Entertainer, whose soliloquy from the film Be Cool is given extended play. It reflects the dissimilar influences likely built from years of requests from whiny dance-club denizens. With the myriad styles he tackles—slick R&B on “Celebrate,” funk rock on “What About You?,” greasy funk on the title track and neo-soul lover on “Treat Me”—Coolout’s record is short on cohesion, but swelling with an alternative to dance music outside the repetitive thump of house or the sameness of mainstream hip-hop.
Rappers JMC and Cadence both draw from a bluesier South. The former’s debut, Universatility, showcases decent rhyme skills—he’s got that dirty white-boy drawl working for him, allowing him to make a phrase funny by extending a vowel sound out for miles. As a live performer, he’s a strong MC with a feel for the blues—wit and flow are the best sides on his plate. Unfortunately, the record’s flaw is JMC’s decision to sing. He isn’t alone among rappers who famously thought singing would be a good idea—holding court with the likes of Mos Def and Q-Tip is not exactly a horrible place to be—but it doesn’t quite work. He positions himself as an alternative to the mainstream, but he hasn’t quite distinguished himself enough.
Cadence is a cat who also feels the blues, evinced by his LP Songs of Vice and Virtue. He likes to sing, too, and his interjections seem out of place. He lays down a bawdy blues track, “Find Me Some,” and though slightly better at singing—and JMC’s equal in turning a comical phrase—this is one song on the record you could do without. But when Cadence sticks with rapping, he succeeds by including the staples of the underground, from criticizing the state of the genre on “So Original,” to commenting on current affairs with “Comin’ Back.” Still, there’s a mainstream flavor here with the record’s high-gloss production and accessible urban pop. His Southern stripes are evident on the songs that resemble the hot-boy pop off New Orleans’ Cash Money label, but this mélange of indie-hop, neo-soul and mainstream occupies the purgatory between top 40 and underground. Cadence’s white-rapper status sadly inspires flip comparisons to Eminem, but it’s not entirely unwarranted. He’s got a bit of Mathers’ sardonic wit and rhyme skills but a tenth of his anger, and anger is what made Eminem a star.
Spoken Nerd is the strictest adherent to the underground ethic, offering stream-of-consciousness rapping with off-kilter metaphors (superheroes having a bad day, for instance) over sparse beats that occasionally incorporate a banjo sample. His side project Antithesis offers more straightforward fare on the new Perpetual Emotion than the somewhat experimental first record, Too Real for Vision. His regional inspiration isn’t the Dirty South of Cash Money, but the dirty South of Hank Williams, whom he name checks on the first LP. But Spoken Nerd is no hick rapper like Bubba Sparxxx, who plays his cornpone ancestry for laughs; Nerd’s Nashville roots are incorporated more subtly.
These artists are bound by their efforts to find a middle ground between the head-nodding underground and the club-happy bounce in Southern rap. But will the combination be of use to listeners? Still, it creates a unique opportunity for Nashville MCs to create a cul de sac within two genres that could lead to something noteworthy, like the city’s own version of indie-hop powerhouses Definitive Jux or Quannum.
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