Backpacker (term)

Backpacker is a term usually used for people who listen to Underground hip-hop/rap.

History

"Backpacker" was originally a slang term from the 1980s for a graffiti artist who always wore a backpack containing his music collection and, more importantly, his spraypaint cans, markers, and spray tips. Typically, the music collection would consist only of local underground rap/hip-hop music artists. The sub-genre or sub-categorization of the music means nothing, as long as they are a local unsigned (no recording contract) artist. A backpacker's music selections are based upon three principles: 1) no mainstream, 2) the music is commercially unavailable, and 3) the music was given/sold to them "hand-to-hand" from the originating recording artistFact|date=December 2007. However, these principles eventually became very loose, and soon many people who listened to commercially available underground rap or "indie rap" became known as "backpackers."

The term gradually came to refer to someone with this musical taste, and now has almost nothing to do with graffiti (although certain "backpackers" may participate in graffiti "tagging.")

Manywho|date=August 2008 hip-hop listeners from the 1980s and early 1990s believe that since the rise of the Internet has made it easier to acquire music that was once localized, the underground has died along with backpackers and their three main principles, hence this modernized definition incorporating Independent rap/hip-hop music and locality of artists became less useful. Hip-hop listeners of twenty or more years often disagree on the definition of "backpacker" with the new era of listeners who haven't experienced hip-hop without the Internet.

Artists

Former Mainstream/Underground/Indie artist and groups

*Mos Def
*Jurassic 5
*Gift of Gab
*Justin Warfield
*Brother Ali
*People Under the Stairs
*Y Society
*A Tribe Called Quest
*Asheru
*Talib Kweli
*The Pharcyde
*Fatlip
*Chali Tuna
*Wu Tang Clan
*Jungle Brothers
*The Coup
*The Fugees
*Army of Pharaohs
*Digable Planets
*Blackalicious
*Pharoahe Monch
*MF DOOM
*De La Soul
*Aesop Rock
*Madlib
*Del tha Funkee Homosapien
*MURS
*Atmosphere
*Non Phixion
*Eyedea & Abilities
*Non-Prophets
*Binary Star
*Blue Scholars
*Jedi Mind Tricks
*Living Legends
*Hieroglyphics
*Black Star
*Dynospectrum
*Dominant Mammals
*The Orphanage
*The Cool Kids
*Hollywood Holt
*Kidz In the Hall
*Sage Francis
*Hermod Hip-Hops

Current Mainstream

*Kanye West
*The Roots
*Lupe Fiasco
*Common