Speaking as a Tennessee transplant and admitted rockist, I’ve yet to quite get a bead on Nashville hip-hop. I know there’s a long-standing scene, and though it lacks the cachet of scenes in Memphis or Atlanta, a growing cast of talented artists and outlets to highlight them exists here in town, working to build that social and commercial infrastructure. Some recent additions to the media landscape deserving shout-outs include Black-owned internet radio station Streetz 99.3 and Nashville Public Radio station WNXP.
But beyond some scattered sets at Spewfests past, I can’t say I’ve experienced the conglomeration of crews and individual artists enough to know the array of sounds and styles inside and out. COVID hasn’t helped much with any of those musical blind spots. However, Friday’s Best of Nashville Hip-Hop showcase served as a pretty solid crash course in performers to keep an eye on. The three-hour show — which had just a few people in the crowd at East Nashville studio-venue H.O.M.E., but was streamed to thousands online via Facebook — was a veritable relay race of Music City mic-rockers, backed by a frankly incredible live band directed by pianist-producer Nate Melville.
At the top of the show was a three-way tag-team set from the Third Eye & Co. crew, including master collaborator $hrames, proud East Sider and Scene fave Chuck Indigo and smooth-drawling Jordan Xx. Following $hrames' agile rhymes, Indigo's incisive, introspective bars deftly and lucidly walked the line between the personal and the political. He teed up Jordan Xx, who took things in a darker, somewhat more risqué direction with his alternately boastful and melancholy verses.
Daisha McBride
This time out, Daisha McBride didn’t play her aspirational set list staple “Ride Fr,” which brought the house down at Spewfest V back in the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed days of February 2020. But her set, which started with “Ballgame” and its confident couplet “I used to look up to all the greats / I feel like I’m one of ’em now,” and concluded with the empowering and celebratory “Black Queen,” brought intensity, melody and lyrical clarity in equal measure. Later, Lord Goldie worked the stage like a capital-B Boss — with a sprained ankle, no less. She got the small crowd going off with “Ándale,” an infectious tune and apparent fan favorite. Among others on the enormous roster, I also dug 2’Live Bre, whose boyish charm and understated, intimate delivery camouflaged the depth and wisdom in his words.
Lord Goldie
Bookending the sets were interludes with Streetz 99.3 host Averianna the Personality, in which performers talked about their musical journeys and how they’ve spent the past 14 months. The coronavirus has made it especially difficult for rappers, whose live sets depend on chemistry with their audiences perhaps more than any other entertainers besides stand-up comics. Everyone playing Friday was clearly ecstatic to emerge from this collective fog to reflect on its toll and its takeaways. Front-to-back, the show was packed with rappers to watch, and to make a point of seeing in person as soon as it’s safely possible.
