There seems to be a bit of a disconnect between indie rock and hip-hop, and, short of delving into some cultural/economical dissertation, I can’t understand why. My little Utopian fantasy is to shorten that gap.

-Kevin, So Much Silence

AT THIS juncture in hip-hop time it is safe to say that Lonnie Rashid Lynn’s “I Used to Love H.E.R.”, is the single most referenced song by the culture’s preservationists who were born in the ’80s. It has inspired numerous backpack emcees’ verbal-checking and its metaphor of “hip-hop as a woman and personal relationship,” has even been the foundation for a Hollywood movie. (Brown Sugar.) Even outside of the circle of hip-hop there seems to be a kind of non-genre, lay music person’s understanding of the song and its impact.

This is while, oddly, the track still retains some of its secret handshake nature: a perceived gatekeeper to “authentic” hip-hop. While the metaphor embedded in the song and title reflects the feelings of a jilted lover whose proclivity to the relationship has soured (towards the former apple of their eye); holds the obvious connotation of no longer feeling affection with the genre, the track emerged to become an anthem of the “keep it true/ backpack” scene who looks to recall the hip-hop days of yore; where they argue that the various art forms and expressions of the hip-hop movement were more vibrant, less-bastardized and rooted to an encompassing culture and philosophy. The irony of this seems to go largely unnoticed, since in the same breath “I Love hip-hop” sloganeering goes on at shows where the song is often the high-point or lasting communal moment in a DJ’s set, and is the very track where ‘”electors” can almost faithfully invoke call and response with their crowd and hear them match its lyrics word for word.

It is in this ironic way that So Much Silence, an indie music centric blog, has appropriated the song’s title for their commemorative series featuring bloggers, writers, DJs, artists, record industry figures and various influencers of note, reflecting on hip-hop’s impact on their lives. At thirty-one installments deep, “I Used to Love H.E.R.” has featured such notables as RJD2 and A Track expounding on their most cherished and seminal records.

As a byproduct, the series becomes a cross-sectional study of hip-hop’s reach in the creative world outside of the co-option by corporations to sell trivial products like malt liquor or Fruity Pebbles, for that matter. And as the series continues, it also provides a deeper more refined sense of hip-hop records that stand the test of time and latch to the human experience. The series’ creator developed the column, because in his own words: “There seems to be a bit of a disconnect between indie rock and hip-hop, and, short of delving into some cultural/economical dissertation, I can’t understand why. My little utopian fantasy is to shorten that gap.”

So far the site has served notice that some indie devotees are paying attention to what’s going on in hip-hop, a scene that many of them started out with and, sadly, many within their faction hold an elitist’s despise of. The episode 31 guest of “I Used to Love H.E.R” is Aaron LaCrate, of the expanding Baltimore club music scene and the man accredited with coining the phrase “B-More Gutter,” “Gutterhouse,” “Baltimore Gutter” or just plainly “Gutta”; a high-tempo dance oriented mash of hip-hop and house that is popular in the Baltimore/Beltway area’s club scene. As Tom Breihan at the Village Voice described the genre as: “[E]ssentially just late-80s Chicago house, which was already pretty bare and minimal, stripped down even further to the point where it’s just breakbeats and handclaps and gallingly obvious samples.”

Regardless of one’s feeling toward the obscurity (or ostensible prominence) in the samples of “B-More Gutter” and whether they are “gallingly obvious,” or just at times very identifiable, LaCrate has managed to proselytized enough on the regional sonic styling to produce a franchise of sorts that extends out from his hip-hop clothing label Milkcrate Athletics to a Delicious Vinyl imprint: Delicious Gutter. In installment 31 of “I Used to Love H.E.R.”, LaCrate briefly waxes poetic on Erik B. and Rakim’s “Know the Ledge”, a record that was the heart and soul of the cult ‘hood flick Juice.

For more on So Much Silence’s “I Used to Love H.E.R.” series [Here]