"I don't want to be regarded as a backpacker, and I definitely don't want to be known as a thug," says Therapy, one of the four MCs and producers that make up Jacksonville's The AB's.
He adds, joking:
"And I damn sure don't want to be a backpacker thug."
"Backpack" is a common term for the sort of complex, intellectual, mainstream-hating underground rap that generally doesn't ever see airplay outside college and community radio. And most music fans with a set of ears less than 40 years old will immediately grasp the big-pimpin', gun-totin', blinged-out implications of the word "thug." These idioms are arguably contemporary hip-hop's alpha and omega, the defining boundaries of its spectrum — the multi-platinum millionaire misogynist from the street on one end, and the politically active vegan spitting at coffee-shop open mics and selling mix CDs out of his or her hemp courier's bag on the other.
There's a lot of stylistic space between the two. And a lot of artists, many of whom embody neither these extremes nor any of rap's other easily recognizable identities or subgenres. These are funky, soulful, original artists, for whom adopting a familiar tag is less important than making personally satisfying music.
Ah, but we music critics know exactly what to do with these hard-to-classify hip-hop heads.
We just say they all sound like A Tribe Called Quest.
"Yeah, of course," says Therapy with a laugh. "And we appreciate all those sounds, but I don't think we fall into any of those categories. We don't look at ourselves as being retro or dated. We're not trying to bring back the golden era. We never were trying to do that. It's just the fact that we grew up with that, so a lot of our influence comes from those groups in a general sense. But when it comes time to sit down and make songs, we just pick out the music we like best."
The AB's kicked around the Southeast for four or five years under the name Asamov, cherry-picking open-minded new fans from every music scene, working the Internet, releasing mix CDs and singles and garnering the attention of fledgling independent label 6 Hole. Then, last October, the release of the group's first full-length And Now … triggered an avalanche of below-the-radar buzz and critical acclaim.
Asamov spent the winter and spring being hailed as rap's next big thing by such massively influential outlets as Vibe and Urb and, uh, Weekly Planet.
Just as the crew was making a name on a national level, it lost its own. A cease-and-desist letter from the estate of science fiction writer Isaac Asimov led to an extended halt in the distribution of And Now … and the realization that the group just didn't have the resources to engage in a drawn-out legal battle over the difference between an "i" and an "a" — Asamov became The AB's.
Though the change perhaps couldn't have come at a less opportune time, Therapy remains optimistic, seeing the shift as in tune with his crew's step up from regional success to national contender.
"At the time, we were at the point of getting to the next level anyway," he says. "As long as we can retain our fans who know us as Asamov, and switch them over to the new name while picking up some new fans, we'll be all right. We're gonna put out an even better record under The AB's name."
So while the moniker has changed, the music won't. Or rather, it will continue to evolve as it has, influenced less by high-profile hip-hop trends than The AB's four members' desire to make music they can love.
"We don't want to get trapped in any one scene," says Therapy. "We appreciate any fans we can get, but ultimately we want to do our best to break out of any one style of hip-hop, and just be known as a good band that does hip-hop. It doesn't need to be any more classified than that."
This article appears in Jun 21-27, 2006.
