information

(Lo-Fi) Hip-Hop Is(n’t) Dead: Killer Bee’s ‘Otaku’ is a Genre Defining Work

Lo-fi hip-hop tends to get a bad rap. Characterized by simple boom-bap drums, samples that ooze a sweet-yet-melancholic nostalgia, and a near fetishization of ’90s and early ’00s anime, there isn’t much wiggle room for innovation within the subgenre’s narrow demarcations. It’s a specific sonic template for a specific niche, one that predominantly caters to listeners seeking “chill beats” to provide a backdrop for the inhalations and subsequent coughing fits bookending the consumption of fluffy, purple flora.

While there are a lot worse things to structure a niche around than boom-bap, sentimentality, and anime, and while burning things of a sticky and/or icky nature is a practice I’d go so far as to wholeheartedly endorse, when perusing the YouTube-channel-cum-lo-fi-hip-hop-grand-barzaar STEEZYASFUCK, the nits at which lo-fi’s detractors pick become magnified to the point that anyone can see them, looming Mothra-like over tired Ocarina of Time samples dusted with a patina of artificial tape-hiss.

As of this writing, STEEZYASFUCK boasts 357,130 subscribers. I’d postulate—though I’ll admit to maybe a touch of hyperbole here—that it posts tracks and beat tapes by roughly a third as many producers, teeming multitudes of them making lo-fi hip-hop with the same drum patterns, the same Samuri Champloo dialogue, the same three piano lines chopped from the Final Fantasy X soundtrack. This glut of producers and their focus on creating simple background music to soundtrack muted episodes of Cowboy Bebop viewed through bloodshot eyes, combine to make the genre appear little more than a spicy-mayo-lubricated circle jerk—though, granted, a lot less dramatic.