Philly Music: The Yah Mos Def - Plays Ugly For Suckers

The Yah Mos Def, "I'm Gonna Be Under Your Bed"

As fellow Philadelphians Young Gunz said, "Can't stop, won't stop." The next entry in our look at the Philadelphia music scene is The Yah Mos Def, a local rap duo who have been gaining momentum over the past year or so. The Yah Mos Def are best described as the Beastie Boys if they had sampled their early punk band sound and lived in Philly. This track, "I'm Gonna Be Under Your Bed", comes off their EP Plays Ugly For Suckers, which is out now. You can cop it at their website, or if you are in Philly, grab a copy at Tower Records on Broad or any of the smaller stores (a.k.a., spaceboy, you know.) It gives you a pretty good idea of what to expect, from the verse tradeoffs to the strained vocals to the hardcore sound to the different samples.

I first saw the guys at a show at the mezzanine space at AKA Records (Note to AKA: Please use that space more), playing a small show put on by the Philly City Paper. I had no idea what to expect, but I'm not sure I would've been able to prepare even if I'd been given a hint. Two white kids came out and started rhyming to loud, furious punk beats, jumping up and down, spinning around the small area used as a stage. It was like nothing I had ever heard, and yet it sounded perfect.

This seems like such a nice followup to Plastic Little post, beyond the fact that they share a producer. As Philly's mainstream hip hop representatives (Beanie, Freeway, take a break, these two groups are pushing hip hop into new territory, into corners that haven't been explored enough. The "underground" today is a joke, populated with people solely looking to return to some golden age, 1993 or 1991 or 1987, whenever the fuck backpackers think things went wrong. It's a regressive sound, one that offers nothing new. In fact, I would argue that these supposed "true hip hoppers" (Common, C Rayz Walz, etc.) are attempting to mummify the music, like Wynton Marsalis has done with jazz. Make it a museum piece, frozen in time. A real underground would be pushing at the edges, trying to see just how far the music can go. The Yah Mos Def do that, best of all with a sense of humor and I'm ecstatic that they are repping Philly.

As the duo say on the closing track, "Dryw Scully Owes Us Money", "We are the Yah Mos Def/You may not like it, but you will learn to love it/Why?/Because we are the best thing going today." That about sums it up. Check out their website and myspace page for more info and tour dates, and I promise to let y'all know when their album drops in the Fall.