Atmosphere: From Rags to Riches

This Minneapolis based hip-hop group is my favorite underground band. The band consists of Sean Daley, known as Slug, and Anthony Davis, known as Ant. They are the most commercially successful and long-lived independent hip hop artists. They are popular because of their lyrics, Village Voice once wrote of Ant "His dusty grooves are hooky and R&B-informed, and even when they back up Slug's most maniacally depressed rhymes, they never feel heavy-handed".

Canadian Underground Artist on the Rise!

An underground rapper that is slowly making it to the mainstream is Classified, a rapper from Nova Scotia. He started his own record label, Half Life Records, and recorded his first full length LP in 1995 and has been making a go of it since then. He now has a big hit with his new single "Oh Canada" that hit the mainstream just recently reaching 29 on the MuchMusic Countdown. Check out the new video below!

Underground Music

Underground music doesn't fall under one style, you can have everything from hip-hop to punk rock. What keeps them together in this broad genre is that they all talk about real events and how they feel about their world. These bands usually have a lot of followers even though they don't have a typical mainstream sound. Many of the bands go unsigned or are signed by independant record labels, and rely on word-of-mouth, internet sites, fanzines, and college/community radio airplay and typically perform in small venues.