Underground and indie hip-hop is not generally associated with banging beats and dancey tracks, instead favoring a mellower, more acoustic backdrop for the emcees’ often politically and emotionally charged rhymes. It’s a working strategy, and it sells records, but it doesn’t always move feet.
New York-based Hangar 18 takes a different approach. The band keeps up with the wordplay and subject matter of its contemporaries, but puts together smart songs to go stupid to.
Ian McMullin, better known as Windnbreeze, said the group’s style comes from a few distinct factors, but that ultimately the sound heard on Hangar 18’s newest release, “Sweep the Leg,” reflects the emcees’ love for fun, danceable hip-hop.
“I definitely love making that kind of music,” McMullin said, “…really fun music that people could have a good time to and dance to, especially at the shows, ’cause I’d want to have a good time if I went out to a show.”
And, according to McMullin, the response so far indicates that Hangar 18 has hit the mark, as its current tour builds momentum traveling West.
Hangar 18Who: Hangar 18, a New York-based hip-hop act produced by Definitive Jux records Where: Indigo District, 13th Avenue and Oak Street When: Tonight at 8:30 p.m. All ages Listen: www.myspace.com/hangareighteen |
But this style of hip-hop hasn’t been Hangar 18’s forte from day one. The group’s previous record, “Multi-Platinum Debut Album,” was a more experimental work, and listening to it next to “Sweep the Leg” shows what the band decided to move forward – and what got left behind.
McMullin said that with the band’s first album, “We just kind of threw it against the wall and went to see if it stuck, and it actually did, which was really cool.”
That gave Hangar 18 a foundation to build from, and McMullin and his fellow emcee Tim Baker, known to fans as Alaska, along with producer DJ paWL, took the results and ran with them. After a few years touring the “Multi-Platinum Debut Album,” they got back in the studio and refined the sound.
“In this album,” McMullin said, “we actually really took some time out and got the beats first…crafted the songs more systematically; creating a hook first, really formatting it and coming up with a concept, opposed to saying ‘Oh, I have this verse. Let’s throw it on this beat, it fits well.’”
A close working relationship with DJ paWL helped, too, as Hangar 18 was able to work from production to songwriting to post-production with someone who knows the way that the emcees write.
“We just let (DJ paWL) go wild,” McMullin said. “He would create beats and we’d write to them. But knowing that we like to have a really, really good time, he is going to cater that to our style and our vibe. Tracks like ‘Really Wide’ have that really dancey, fun feel to it, as well as ‘Bakin Soda,’ and those are just beats that he gave us and we knew we wanted to have a good time with them.”
The result is a sound that is both accessible and intelligent and keeps your footwork fluid between catchy hooks, even if you can’t catch the lightening-fast wordplay in every verse. It’s club-friendly music with some serious lyrical content, and given the emcees’ passion for their work, and for having a good time, their show tonight at the Indigo District should not disappoint.