XXL wrote a piece in the December/January 2012 issue about the Bay Area scene…Is it just me or are we about to bubble?
“What’s up y’all. It’s ya boy T-Dollaz, here on the shoot for the hyphy video. Yo, it’s ’bout to be major!”
These are the words of Odd Future front man Tyler, the Creator, in the intro to a YouTube clip titled simply “Hyphy.” (In fact, it’s the first result you get if you search “hyphy” on YouTube.) To the sounds of an old track by The Pack, the Odd Future crew does stupid dances on and around a car in a quiet-looking suburban neighborhood, which is another way of saying that it looks no different from a number of actual hyphy music videos—except that this one is a parody.
“Must feel so bummy to be from the bay area hahahaha,” reads a recent comment from YouTube user waajahat94.
In just five years’ time, just five hours south of the Bay Area (if you’re speeding and there’s no traffic on the Grapevine), it has become perfectly acceptable, and maybe even cool, to make a complete mockery of what was once poised to be a nationwide craze. “The next crunk,” hyphy was supposed to put the Bay
Area in the spotlight it felt it deserved. Now it’s a punch line—one made that much more offensive when the taunting comes from Los Angeles.
