What is UndeRground?

I’ve been thinking. We have this concept of Underground”. What even is “Undergound”? Especially when it comes to today’s dance music space. Whenever I deal with words or terms I look up the definition.

Underground is defined as:

1. Situated, occurring, or operating below the surface of the earth: underground caverns; underground missile sites.

2. a. Hidden or concealed; clandestine: underground resistance to the tyrant.

b. Of or relating to an organization involved in secret or illegal activity: underground trade in weapons.

3. Of or relating to an avant-garde movement or its films, publications, and art, usually privately produced and of special appeal and often concerned with social or artistic experiment.

I feel like the third meaning is what we are talking about. When we think of underground music, what artists are we thinking about? What sound or style of music are we thinking about? I remember when I was into hip hop (way back) it was easy to know what underground was. There was a definite understanding that underground meant underdog, usually unseen, unfiltered in their artistry, and usually untouched by the mainstream record label structure. A good example of an underground hip hop artist to me ( back then ), was MF Doom; but even Doom was on Stones Throw ( Is Stones Throw underground? who knows). Another question I would propose is: Does a label exist to further the artist’s career and to expand the reach of great artists? (that question may be for another day.) Now over to dance music. Today as we see dance music rise to the forefront in popular culture again, does there exist an underground?

Let me start with myself. Do I feel like I am an “underground” artist? No. Do I feel FWM is an “underground” label? No. I’m just doing what I do. I’d like the whole world to listen and enjoy my music if it moves them. Yet, I was doing this when no one was listening. I remember a track I made really early on called “Fried Chicken Skin”. I released this track on the project “Straight Groove EP” back in 2013. Back then I was all about the “underground”; and I felt the underground was about music that was pure to the art form, music that had an originality to it ( music that wasn’t made to blow up), not performative - just to be dope, music not made for a reason other than expression. During my prime musical exploration years ( the time when one is usually in high school and music means so much to them and their identity) Soulja Boy existed; and I personally thought Soulja was wack, but mostly everyone around me loved the Soulja boy songs and he blew up nationally. What is even more interesting is that there was a whole genre of dance focused tracks created around the sound of Soulja boy. The same happened with snap music and the song “Dem Franchise Boyz- White Tee”. When I step back and think about it. These artists are 1. making music for fun. 2. making music for a purpose (to create a party environment and have people dance) and 3. The music was unique - especially the first ones to make that sound. Now for the most part this sounds like what I consider underground music to be; but because it was so popular, [in my opinion] it was so mediocre, and it blew up nationwide, I didn’t see it as underground. This new wave of music “from everyday people” or “new artists doing it on their own” came right after a time when everything I was hearing on the radio had a professional higher quality to it. It was mixed and mastered correctly to sound sonically pleasing.

Moving on, as an artist; isn’t our job or goal to get the most amount of people to hear our music? So they can enjoy our expression and live their life to it. Wouldn’t we want to garner the largest audience possible? Wouldn’t we want to create a viable income from the music that we make - that we love so much? I am sure some artists feel this way and some don’t. I’m sure this ambition of wanting to be heard in this way doesn’t exist for every artist. However, I do believe it exists for a majority of us. That is why we join social media and promote our music, why we perform our creations in front of our camera phones and make all this content, take gigs (some low paying) to perform in front of (small or large) crowds; to show the world we are here and introduce them to our expression.

I spoke to my good friend and mentor Kai Alcé about this; he says that his goal is not to have the widest audience or everyone’s attention, but to garner the audience that is for him and the music he produces and curates across his labels. I’d say he’s pretty recognized in the house music scene, and travels the world to deejay, his records sell and he has done countless remixes for all tiers of record labels. I think this is the sweet spot and a realistic concept of what underground is or could be.

I was listening to a clip of Steve Stoute talking about Fame vs Anonymity. He said something like this: Fame and Talent used to be together. When you add Fame on top of Talent then an artist blows up. Over time Fame has grown to not need Talent anymore; and Talent has started to accept that. Now Stoute thinks anonymity will be the new thing. Now I don’t really know or care for Steve Stoute, but I thought this clip had some meaning. What I got from it was that Fame is manufactured. Fame can be created and then stripped away, and talent really has lost its weight in the macro view of society today. On a mass market scale anything can be celebrated. I think being known and respected as an artist is the “anonymity” he was talking about.

So to tie all of this in to today’s dance music culture and even music in general, I don’t think there is a cut and dry definition of underground anymore. I think there is a pop culture / mainstream and I think anyone can project themselves in to it. The main way I have seen this happen is through going viral on social media by providing something of shock value or so unique that it stands out in the ocean of content found on these platforms. One example is the song Fairy by Myaap. One thing that I will always stand by is that vocals connect people to electronic based music, and having vocals on a song will always carry it farther than not. I got this advice from Kai Alcé and the now controversial Omar S. At the end of the day what every artist I mentioned in the post has in common with each other is that they have songs with vocals that we all remember. Maybe the difference between underground and being a known and potentially memorable artist is using your voice.