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ILLIEN
ill o.g.
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http://www.mtv.com/bands/h/hypy/news_feature_110804/
— by Shaheem Reid
A mob of young teenagers is going completely bonkers. You'd think these kids were watching Jay-Z at Madison Square Garden, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre at the Staples Center or Eminem at the Detroit's Cobo Arena — their energy level is that heavy. But they're not in an arena. The place they've flooded doesn't even have a stage.
The kids today are at a record store: Rasputin Music in San Lorenzo, in California's San Francisco Bay.
Federation in-store signing
The fans — dozens of them — are shaking like they've been possessed by the Holy Ghost. Their heads are shuddering violently, their arms are flailing like they're on fire, and the youngsters are yelling in unison like a bunch of unabashed shouting Johns vying for attention from the pastor and congregation.
But this is no act to revere some false prophet or profit-hungry evangelist. To paraphrase Humpty Hump from Bay Area legends Digital Underground, these kids are doing what they like, how they like; getting "dumb, stupid and retarded" — and the thing that's getting them so worked up is a jittery, sped-up, synth-powered strain of hip-hop they call "hyphy," and they're here to celebrate the release of a new album by ... the Federation.
(Don't worry, we hadn't heard of them either.)
The three brothas in the Federation (Doonie Baby, Goldie Gold and Mr. Stres) have the spot poppin' like fish grease over an open flame on the strength of their home-grown hits, "Hyphy" and "Go Dumb." And if 99 percent of the world's music fans have never heard of the Federation or hyphy, it doesn't matter: Right here, right now, this is What's Hot. Where'd it come from?
"The same way the South gets crunk, the Bay Area gets hyphy."
"It's that Northern Cali crunk, as far as the music goes," producer Rick Rock (Jay-Z, Mystikal, E-40, Tupac) explains about the musical movement that is fueling a whole subculture in the "Yay Area." "It's that high, energetic music: It's the energy, but it's our demographic."
"The same way the South gets crunk, the Bay Area gets hyphy," Goldie adds.
Hyphy, however, is much more than just music. In fact, the sound factor was the last step in hyphy's evolution.
To use words to capture the hyphy phenomenon is a bit of an injustice — you have to retell stories and paint scenarios. One popular example of kids acting hyphy or "going dumb" is "gas-brake dippin'." In the Bay, they pile into their cars and, instead of driving normally, they'll hit the gas, then quickly hit the brake; hit the gas, hit the brake; hit the gas, hit the brake. And when they really want to get into it, they open all the doors on the vehicle, turn the music to its loudest possible volume and …
Kids getting hyphy
You guessed it: Hit the gas, hit the brake ...
Then there's the dancing we saw at Rasputin.
Shortly after the Feds finish their in-store performance, the party spills out onto the sidewalk around the corner from the store. With "Hyphy" playing Radio Raheem-style on a boom box, there's one male teen with his arms extended like a sleepwalker's, bouncing around with his head shaking like a chicken with a caffeine rush. There's his male friend walking around with his eyes rolled up in his head like a zombie, and another guy who looks to be doing a 2004 version of the Harlem Shake — in an earthquake.
"Hyphy is when you go dumb!" yells Keisha Lee of San Jose, while she and her friend Ashlee cut loose in the street. "You just don't give a care — when all your energy goes to your head and you just can't stop. It's just about going crazy."
Sho' nuff, the hyphy-ness is synergized, and during a break in the dancing, a Mustang pulls up and the driver decides to show love for the movement by doing donuts in the narrow street, just barely missing a minivan. Minutes later, a vintage Buick — or, as they call them in the Bay, a Scraper — pulls up and all four doors pop open. One teenage boy jumps on the door rest and the car starts to bounce up and down like it was on hydraulics.
The story varies depending on whom you ask, but most seem to agree that hyphy started off as a slang word in the 'hood to describe people who were up to no good.
" 'Hyphy' is short for 'hyperactive,' " Doonie says later that night at the Ambassador's Lounge in San Jose, a couple dozen miles south of San Lorenzo. The club, which is owned by E-40, is hosting the Federation's album-release party.
If somebody was going around the 'hood picking fights and knocking people out Deebo-style, he was hyphy. If, even worse, someone was going around shooting up the block, he was hyphy.
As goes the history of many slang terms ("wildin' out," "blackin' out"), the negative was quickly switched up to also include positivity.
If you see a girl going into a club and her shape makes you do a double take, she's hyphy. During the summer, when 2,000 fans decided to show love by getting up out of their seats and rushing onto the floor of the Oakland Coliseum during the Federation's halftime performance at the And 1 basketball tour, they were getting hyphy.
"I'm analyzing the Yay, I'm seeing how we're getting stupid, getting dumb. 'Let's make a song called 'Hyphy.' " — E-40
So after years of using the term to describe people's actions, it was now time to come up with a soundtrack to fit the lifestyle.
"It's like back in the day with the breakdancing, it's evolved into a culture," says Rick Rock, who is credited as being the king of hyphy like Lil Jon is the king of crunk. "It's like the new generation, the crack-baby era: the dreadlocks shaking, riding with all four doors open. It's how the kids are feeling these days. There was a time when northern California [music] was more mild and slow and laid-back. I came and brought this super-fast hyphy sound. I put the music to the culture."
It's a sound that has developed largely in isolation: An out-of-towner really feels like an out-of-towner when peeping out the Yay Area music scene. You can't hear this music hardly anywhere else.
"You have to be here," Rock adds. "That's been the thing with [record] labels and radio stations, they don't really understand it. It's hard to get it."
Although E-40 credits Oakland MC Keak Da Sneak from the group 3X Krazy as being the first person to say the word hyphy on wax back in 1998 (on "Cool," from his LP Sneakacidle), it never dawned on anyone to actually make a record named "Hyphy" until last year.
"Hyphy is when you go dumb."
"If people can take 'oh boy' and 'fa shizzle' from the Bay, why can't we capitalize on hyphy?" Goldie asks. "We was like, 'Let's make an anthem for the Bay. The South got crunk. Northern Cali — we need our own shine."
"I'm analyzing the Yay, I'm seeing how we're getting stupid, getting dumb. 'Let's make a song called 'Hyphy,' " 40 further expands. "I'm telling my folks, 'Dude, this is where it's at.' It came together like Siamese twins. Just like [the Luniz's 1995 hit] 'I Got 5 on It' was an anthem, this is an anthem."
An anthem indeed. Not only are some of the Bay favorites like B-Legit and Richie Rich in the Ambassador's Club tonight, but MTV's own Sway, an Oakland native, has decided to go up into the DJ booth with the area's current reigning DJ, Big Von. The crowd is not hyphy enough for Sway.
"We gonna do this one more time for the world!" Sway yells. "Let's celebrate with the Federation. Big Von: Throw it on!"
Von plays the record for a second time, and bodies are literally bouncing off of each other, sweat is flying like like crack cocaine references on an episode of "The Wire." Still, Sway is not satisfied.
Sway amps the crowd at the Federation album-release party
"A lot of these cats need to run [around Oakland's] Lake Merritt," Sway laments. "They look tired! People in the front, look at the people in the back: They [messing] it up for y'all. I need everybody in this room to get involved! Yay Area, are y'all ready? Big Von! Let it drop one more time!"
Finally, as a man hangs off a railing, another man is holding his sunglasses in the air — sunglasses that happen to have giant dollar signs where the eyes are — and the room throbs to the beat, Sway is content with his hometown crowd.
"Everybody can come together. This is like a family for me, coming back to the Bay and seeing everyone coming together and we all having fun. We can bring the Bay Area back on the map and this how we gonna do it! Y'all gotta support these Bay Area talents!"
Sway's sentiments were being followed before he even said them. The Bay has been showing "hella" love to their hometown teams: Indie acts like San Quinn, the Team and Turf Talk are regularly spun on the radio and in the clubs with their own brand of hyphy. And Von hopes the movement will spread far beyond the Bay.
"There are songs that have always been hot, like [Cam'ron's] 'Welcome to New York City' or [Jermaine Dupri and Ludacris'] 'Welcome to Atlanta,' but we in the Bay never had that," he says. "We're finally hearing a record from where you from, talking about what you talk about: the scrapers, the stunners, hyphy, the dreads shaking. We happy to have that. It's like a release. [The fans] are so happy to have something of their own.
"In San Francisco, about a month ago," he continues, "I saw that as soon as the song came on, people started jumping through the windows, swinging from the sprinkler systems. I was like 'Alright, we got a hit!'
"Hopefully, we can work it to the rest of the world."
http://www.mtv.com/bands/h/hypy/news_feature_110804/
— by Shaheem Reid
A mob of young teenagers is going completely bonkers. You'd think these kids were watching Jay-Z at Madison Square Garden, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre at the Staples Center or Eminem at the Detroit's Cobo Arena — their energy level is that heavy. But they're not in an arena. The place they've flooded doesn't even have a stage.
The kids today are at a record store: Rasputin Music in San Lorenzo, in California's San Francisco Bay.
Federation in-store signing
The fans — dozens of them — are shaking like they've been possessed by the Holy Ghost. Their heads are shuddering violently, their arms are flailing like they're on fire, and the youngsters are yelling in unison like a bunch of unabashed shouting Johns vying for attention from the pastor and congregation.
But this is no act to revere some false prophet or profit-hungry evangelist. To paraphrase Humpty Hump from Bay Area legends Digital Underground, these kids are doing what they like, how they like; getting "dumb, stupid and retarded" — and the thing that's getting them so worked up is a jittery, sped-up, synth-powered strain of hip-hop they call "hyphy," and they're here to celebrate the release of a new album by ... the Federation.
(Don't worry, we hadn't heard of them either.)
The three brothas in the Federation (Doonie Baby, Goldie Gold and Mr. Stres) have the spot poppin' like fish grease over an open flame on the strength of their home-grown hits, "Hyphy" and "Go Dumb." And if 99 percent of the world's music fans have never heard of the Federation or hyphy, it doesn't matter: Right here, right now, this is What's Hot. Where'd it come from?
"The same way the South gets crunk, the Bay Area gets hyphy."
"It's that Northern Cali crunk, as far as the music goes," producer Rick Rock (Jay-Z, Mystikal, E-40, Tupac) explains about the musical movement that is fueling a whole subculture in the "Yay Area." "It's that high, energetic music: It's the energy, but it's our demographic."
"The same way the South gets crunk, the Bay Area gets hyphy," Goldie adds.
Hyphy, however, is much more than just music. In fact, the sound factor was the last step in hyphy's evolution.
To use words to capture the hyphy phenomenon is a bit of an injustice — you have to retell stories and paint scenarios. One popular example of kids acting hyphy or "going dumb" is "gas-brake dippin'." In the Bay, they pile into their cars and, instead of driving normally, they'll hit the gas, then quickly hit the brake; hit the gas, hit the brake; hit the gas, hit the brake. And when they really want to get into it, they open all the doors on the vehicle, turn the music to its loudest possible volume and …
Kids getting hyphy
You guessed it: Hit the gas, hit the brake ...
Then there's the dancing we saw at Rasputin.
Shortly after the Feds finish their in-store performance, the party spills out onto the sidewalk around the corner from the store. With "Hyphy" playing Radio Raheem-style on a boom box, there's one male teen with his arms extended like a sleepwalker's, bouncing around with his head shaking like a chicken with a caffeine rush. There's his male friend walking around with his eyes rolled up in his head like a zombie, and another guy who looks to be doing a 2004 version of the Harlem Shake — in an earthquake.
"Hyphy is when you go dumb!" yells Keisha Lee of San Jose, while she and her friend Ashlee cut loose in the street. "You just don't give a care — when all your energy goes to your head and you just can't stop. It's just about going crazy."
Sho' nuff, the hyphy-ness is synergized, and during a break in the dancing, a Mustang pulls up and the driver decides to show love for the movement by doing donuts in the narrow street, just barely missing a minivan. Minutes later, a vintage Buick — or, as they call them in the Bay, a Scraper — pulls up and all four doors pop open. One teenage boy jumps on the door rest and the car starts to bounce up and down like it was on hydraulics.
The story varies depending on whom you ask, but most seem to agree that hyphy started off as a slang word in the 'hood to describe people who were up to no good.
" 'Hyphy' is short for 'hyperactive,' " Doonie says later that night at the Ambassador's Lounge in San Jose, a couple dozen miles south of San Lorenzo. The club, which is owned by E-40, is hosting the Federation's album-release party.
If somebody was going around the 'hood picking fights and knocking people out Deebo-style, he was hyphy. If, even worse, someone was going around shooting up the block, he was hyphy.
As goes the history of many slang terms ("wildin' out," "blackin' out"), the negative was quickly switched up to also include positivity.
If you see a girl going into a club and her shape makes you do a double take, she's hyphy. During the summer, when 2,000 fans decided to show love by getting up out of their seats and rushing onto the floor of the Oakland Coliseum during the Federation's halftime performance at the And 1 basketball tour, they were getting hyphy.
"I'm analyzing the Yay, I'm seeing how we're getting stupid, getting dumb. 'Let's make a song called 'Hyphy.' " — E-40
So after years of using the term to describe people's actions, it was now time to come up with a soundtrack to fit the lifestyle.
"It's like back in the day with the breakdancing, it's evolved into a culture," says Rick Rock, who is credited as being the king of hyphy like Lil Jon is the king of crunk. "It's like the new generation, the crack-baby era: the dreadlocks shaking, riding with all four doors open. It's how the kids are feeling these days. There was a time when northern California [music] was more mild and slow and laid-back. I came and brought this super-fast hyphy sound. I put the music to the culture."
It's a sound that has developed largely in isolation: An out-of-towner really feels like an out-of-towner when peeping out the Yay Area music scene. You can't hear this music hardly anywhere else.
"You have to be here," Rock adds. "That's been the thing with [record] labels and radio stations, they don't really understand it. It's hard to get it."
Although E-40 credits Oakland MC Keak Da Sneak from the group 3X Krazy as being the first person to say the word hyphy on wax back in 1998 (on "Cool," from his LP Sneakacidle), it never dawned on anyone to actually make a record named "Hyphy" until last year.
"Hyphy is when you go dumb."
"If people can take 'oh boy' and 'fa shizzle' from the Bay, why can't we capitalize on hyphy?" Goldie asks. "We was like, 'Let's make an anthem for the Bay. The South got crunk. Northern Cali — we need our own shine."
"I'm analyzing the Yay, I'm seeing how we're getting stupid, getting dumb. 'Let's make a song called 'Hyphy,' " 40 further expands. "I'm telling my folks, 'Dude, this is where it's at.' It came together like Siamese twins. Just like [the Luniz's 1995 hit] 'I Got 5 on It' was an anthem, this is an anthem."
An anthem indeed. Not only are some of the Bay favorites like B-Legit and Richie Rich in the Ambassador's Club tonight, but MTV's own Sway, an Oakland native, has decided to go up into the DJ booth with the area's current reigning DJ, Big Von. The crowd is not hyphy enough for Sway.
"We gonna do this one more time for the world!" Sway yells. "Let's celebrate with the Federation. Big Von: Throw it on!"
Von plays the record for a second time, and bodies are literally bouncing off of each other, sweat is flying like like crack cocaine references on an episode of "The Wire." Still, Sway is not satisfied.
Sway amps the crowd at the Federation album-release party
"A lot of these cats need to run [around Oakland's] Lake Merritt," Sway laments. "They look tired! People in the front, look at the people in the back: They [messing] it up for y'all. I need everybody in this room to get involved! Yay Area, are y'all ready? Big Von! Let it drop one more time!"
Finally, as a man hangs off a railing, another man is holding his sunglasses in the air — sunglasses that happen to have giant dollar signs where the eyes are — and the room throbs to the beat, Sway is content with his hometown crowd.
"Everybody can come together. This is like a family for me, coming back to the Bay and seeing everyone coming together and we all having fun. We can bring the Bay Area back on the map and this how we gonna do it! Y'all gotta support these Bay Area talents!"
Sway's sentiments were being followed before he even said them. The Bay has been showing "hella" love to their hometown teams: Indie acts like San Quinn, the Team and Turf Talk are regularly spun on the radio and in the clubs with their own brand of hyphy. And Von hopes the movement will spread far beyond the Bay.
"There are songs that have always been hot, like [Cam'ron's] 'Welcome to New York City' or [Jermaine Dupri and Ludacris'] 'Welcome to Atlanta,' but we in the Bay never had that," he says. "We're finally hearing a record from where you from, talking about what you talk about: the scrapers, the stunners, hyphy, the dreads shaking. We happy to have that. It's like a release. [The fans] are so happy to have something of their own.
"In San Francisco, about a month ago," he continues, "I saw that as soon as the song came on, people started jumping through the windows, swinging from the sprinkler systems. I was like 'Alright, we got a hit!'
"Hopefully, we can work it to the rest of the world."
