The Niche Pandemic

Enrique Lara

Hip-hop/Rap Journalist

There are two types of underground rap music: underground artists looking to grow their platform and make it big with their music, and underground artists who are “niche” and meant to stay “niche.”

The underground scene is hot right now. There is an urge to learn about what new sounds are being messed with, and despite how experimental these songs become, a fanbase is behind each genre, popping out at show after show. Amongst this burst of growth are fans fighting to keep their favorite rapper in the underground scene and creating a “niche competition.” There is a problem in the community with everybody wanting to sound like everybody, trying to find a unique style and “niche,” losing its meaning. 

There are countless genres being explored and cannot be put into a single “underground rap” genre, but large amounts of people merging them into one have created this trend of wanting underground artists to become their own genre. Within that are issues of keeping them underground to ensure it stays its own genre and not representing the new age of artists’ movement of growth as a whole.

This current wave creates so many openings for new art to flourish, especially with the support the scene has now. Local communities, like that of San Marcos, reflect the influence the underground scene has and how music is being made by anybody with a creative bone.

Sample beats, refashioning old styles into a new genre, exploring grunge rage, and trap beats are all just parts of the underground scene, but the beauty of it all is that it’s everything and all at once.

Once an artist encapsulates a genre enough to reach a mainstream audience, they are moved out of underground status because of their name being part of the buzz rather than other names that go unnoticed. For instance, some people don’t consider artists like 2hollis or Che underground, but saying those names to certain people outside of the community, they’ll have no idea who they are unless mentioning certain memes or snippets of songs.

Underground rap is a spectacle of art itself. While only a small portion of fans have this secluded mindset, it keeps artists and their art from growing. People are able to find communities within their favorite rappers and want to keep it lively enough so they can share that art with others without people tearing them down for being part of a certain niche.