Earl Sweatshirt, Mike, and Sideshow Are Proving That Rap Doesn’t Need to Have a Chosen One
Recent albums from the indie rap heroes gracefully toe the line between humility and divinity
Listening to as much rap music as I do, I often wonder if there’s a difference between being braggadocious and believing that you’re above everyone else. Flexing is as foundational to the art as sampling, yet while some rappers transform into superheroes for the glitz and glamor, many do it because they know how it feels to not be special. I often think about how rappers like Raekwon and Ghostface elicit twinges of sadness from hardened tales like “Can It All Be So Simple,” or how Three 6 Mafia and Gangsta Boo recast themselves as necromancers as a way to process feelings of ostracization and whip the club into a frenzy. The personae these artists create are sometimes revealed to be a reminder that, outside of their songs, musicians are just as regular as the rest of us.
Then there are rappers who strive to place themselves on a higher plane of existence. Modern-day Jay-Z comes to mind: As a rapper-turned-mogul, he’s spent decades internalizing the capitalistic bootstrap mentality and mixing his roles as a Black man, an artist, and “a business, man” to the point where we—and potentially he—can’t tell the difference between the three. According to his recent GQ interview, he’s become a billionaire because he was made special solely through hard work and dedication, not because he played into the inherently predatory power structures that make billionaires possible.
All of these thoughts flooded into my head while reading independent DMV rapper Sideshow’s interview with Pitchfork last month. Near the beginning of it, journalist Paul Thompson asks Sideshow what he intends to communicate when he steps to the mic, and his answer quietly blew my mind.
Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album and song recommendations along with our ever-growing archive of interviews and reports—with a free 30-day trial!
