Above: Shy Glizzy by Ryan Lyons
Over the past couple of years, Washington D.C.'s rap scene has produced a handful of artists that, just 10 years ago, would have had no blueprint on how to make it from the District. Up-and-comers like Fat Trel, Shy Glizzy, Yung Gleesh, Lightshow and others have made moves to build D.C. into an area with regional allure and mainstream potential—both of which are completely new for the city. And though there has yet to be a rapper who properly represents D.C.’s inner city, each of the aforementioned artists are jockeying for who that first one will be. In his hometown anthem "I Am D.C.”, the forthright Glizzy calls out rappers who don’t properly represent the city: “Niggas don’t dress like they from here/ Niggas don’t act like they from here/ They don’t got swag like they from here.” While whom the statement was aimed towards can be explored, the most important takeaway is that, no one outside of D.C. can put a face to any of those standards.
Much like the neighboring Baltimore with club music, D.C.’s urban musical identity has never been rap, but a more city-specific form of music, in this case Go-Go—a percussion-heavy derivative of funk. Starting in the early '70s, bands usually made up of kids from the same neighborhood would come together, head to a local club and jam out, even if they had to create instruments out of crates, pots and pans as The JunkYard Band—whose The Word/Sardines 12” LP was released by Def Jam in 1986— did when they formed in the early ‘80’s. And despite its local acclaim and production of regional superstars like the late Chuck Brown and Backyard Band founder turned actor on The Wire, Anwan Glover, Go-Go has created few national success stories, leading the city’s youth to look elsewhere for their ticket.
In early 2007, D.C. native, Tabi Bonney, hit the national radar when the video for his debut track “The Pocket” (a term used to describe a percussionist’s extended solo groove) started getting regular airtime on MTV Jams. While Bonney was establishing his silky smooth persona, Wale took hold of the backpacker types in the area, with rap more focused on regional sounds, lyrical prowess and a brand that was most active online. “Wale came up on the Internet when you could actually get put on by the internet, you know?” says D.C. area native and curator of the D.C.-based Trillectro Music Festival, Modi Oyewole via email. “He didn't have go the street route. Trel and Glizzy don’t have the co-signs like Mark Ronson and pics of them at Hollywood events.”
Being “put on by the internet” harkens back to something else that Tabi and Wale had in their favor that their successors do not: the opportunity to be grouped into the now-faded “blog rap” scene of the late 2000s. That, and the beginnings of a branding scheme to group surrounding parts of Maryland and Northern Virginia with D.C. called “The DMV”, which has proven over time to still be more of a benefit to the District. With underground rap currently going in more of street rap and trap direction, it’s no surprise that D.C.’s most promising artists fit that mold.
Though his background is not of the streets, Wale is still credited as the first person to crack the code of rap success in the District. “Even though he was raised outside of the city, Wale has been able to create hope for that inner-city kid in D.C.,” says Tony Lewis Jr during a phone conversation. A youth advocate in the city who helps ex-offenders find employment and bridges gaps between local rappers, Lewis sees the immediate effect the city’s burgeoning artists have on its youth. “Rap wasn’t even a conversation a little more than five years ago. It was all Go-Go. Now you have Glizzy who’s from 37th St, Trel’s from Benning Rd. and Lightshow’s from 10th Place; These are real places where people don’t make it out,” Lewis explains. “They make people feel like they can do something too because it’s so relatable.”
Around the same time as Wale’s national rise in the late 2000s , soulful boom-bap rapper and producer, Oddisee, was making his case for being the area’s true underground hero. In 2009, along with local rappers yU and Uptown XO, he formed a group called Diamond District whose 2009 release, In The Ruff, paid homage to D.C., dedicating songs to the city and using percussive elements that were popular in Go-Go (see “Who I Be”, “The District” and “Something For Y’all”). Though it was most certainly not a Go-Go/rap hybrid, In The Ruff was an example of Go-Go becoming a piece of the D.C. sound rather than the entirety of it.
Local music journalist Marcus Dowling sees D.C. rappers starting to take Go-Go’s collective approach without the need to form bands. “It’s economics and the time we live in. It’s hard to push a band of seven to 20 members. How can you take that on the road?” he says over the phone. “Guys like the Junkyard Band were a group of friends from the same neighborhood who decided to come together to make music. Fat Trel and the Slutty Boyz are no different but rappers come out individually and gradually introduce each member instead of being introduced as a group.”
The most recent transition from Go-Go to rap is the unorthodox, murmuring D.C. rapper Yung Gleesh. Then going by the name Boogie, Gleesh was a percussionist for standout band T.O.B. which was one of the most popular groups making a newer, younger version of Go-Go called Bounce Beat. Even with several YouTube videos of the group’s live shows hitting the six-figure mark in views, it wasn’t until Gleesh decided to take on rap full-time that he received outsider-attention. Gleesh’s departure from the genre is an evident case, in that, Go-Go essentially served as a guide and precursor for musical triumph out of D.C.’s streets, instead of being the main attraction.
As they’re pushing through the street-level ranks and the many avenues of internet rap stardom, young D.C. artists seem to have an acute awareness of their social responsibility. While driving to local radio station WPGC 95.5’s annual Birthday Bash concert last month at the Howard Theatre, I talked to Lightshow about his place within local rap before he performed at the event. Like his music, he was direct and pensive: “My music has to come from a real place and an honest place,” he says as we drive through crouchy, rush-hour D.C. traffic. “There was a group of local rappers called Real Live Gangstas that I looked up to a lot when I was younger. Their music was harsh but it was real and it made me want to get my morals in order. Learning from them, I have to assume the same responsibility.” A similar sentiment is expressed in Shy Glizzy’s “I Am D.C.” when he closes out his second verse with, “I’m not your favorite rapper. I just wanna motivate you.”
Despite the success that Wale’s gained, the new crop of D.C. rappers would still be the first to “make it big” as artists trying to craft a distinct regional sound. In the early stages of his career, Wale frequently used Go-Go and Baltimore club sounds but it wasn’t until he dropped his backpacker ideologies and lended a verse to Waka Flocka’s “No Hands” that his career took off, leading him to doing more songs of the same mold, rebranding himself as a poetic strip club pop-rapper. Most D.C. components of his style are long gone now.
And while he was able to drop his regional identity to obtain stardom, the exact opposite is what will propel the city’s current rising artists to that same fate. Their authentic representation of D.C., from using their neighborhoods in social media handles to shooting videos where they’ve grown up, is what’s largely responsible for the local support they’ve gotten over the past couple years. It’s also what has their potential mainstream come-up looking more promising than ever. Shy Glizzy’s “Awwsome” is a catchy club banger that’s gone viral in Instagram videos and Fat Trel is MMG’s newest signee.
Whether or not these guys are the next to blow, Tony Lewis thinks this is just the beginning of a new musical wave in the District. “There’s been a paradigm shift from Go-Go to rap in D.C.,” he says. “All the new guys have been rapping since they were young kids. That wasn’t the case here until recently. It’s only gonna get better for the kids who are gonna absorb it from day one.”