Experimental hip hop

Progressive rap (or progressive hip hop) is a broad subgenre of hip hop music that aims to progress the genre thematically with socially transformative ideas and musically with stylistic experimentation. Developing through the works of innovative US hip hop acts during the 1980s and 1990s, it has also been known at various points as conscious, underground, and alternative hip hop.

Progressive rap music critically examines social issues, political responsibility, and existential concerns, particularly in the context of African-American life and youth culture. Common themes include social injustice, inequality, status, identity, and religion, with discourses around ideologies such as Afrocentricity and Black religiosity. Unlike the genre's more commercially-dominant counterpart gangsta rap, prog-rap artists typically disavow intracultural violence and economic materialism in favor of constructive and educational responses such as consciousness, uplift, heritage, humor, and activism.

Productions in the genre often take on avant-garde approaches and wide-ranging influences, such as jazz, rock, and soul. Examples have included the works of De La Soul, Fugees, Outkast, Kendrick Lamar, and Joey Bada$$. The music of such acts, especially in the 21st century, has impacted the mainstream sensibilities of hip hop while countering racist stereotypes pervasive in Western popular culture.

Themes and characteristics

Progressive rap music is defined by its critical themes around societal concerns such as structural inequalities and political responsibility. According to Lincoln University professor and author Emery Petchaur, artists in the genre frequently analyze "structural, systematic, and reproduced" sources of oppression and inequality in the world, while Anthony B. Pinn of Rice University describes it as a form of hip hop that examines dehumanizing social conditions and cycles of poverty "producing limited life options and despair". Meanwhile, academics Shawn Ginwright and Julio Cammarota observe critiques of racism, colonialism, capitalism, and patriarchy that are intended to raise consciousness of social issues and politicize young people into activism. Petchaur, drawing from her experiences teaching high school, adds that the music frequently makes connections to critical consciousness that can variously shape the intellectual sensibilities of young students who are "deeply invested in hip hop".

In the context of other rap forms, progressive hip hop is identified as a thematic subset alongside "status rap", which expresses concerns about social status and mobility, and gangsta rap, which examines similar existential crises and contradictions as progressive rap. However, it typically avoids gangsta rap's documentarian qualities in favor of actively constructive and educational responses to issues afflicting society, particularly black people, resulting in narratives that promote their history, culture, political involvement, and intrinsic value. In Pinn's words, it "seeks to address these concerns without intracommunal aggression and in terms of political and cultural education, providing an interpretation of American society and a constructive agenda (e.g. self respect, knowledge, pride, and unity) for the uplift of Black America". He adds that works of the genre also utilize "a more overt dialogue with and interpretation of Black religiosity". In a corollary analysis, fellow scholar Evelyn L. Parker says that progressive rap "seeks to transform systems of injustice by transforming the perspective of their victims" while demonstrating "the clear prophetic voice reflecting the rage caused by the dehumanizing injustices that African Americans experience".

Progressive hip hop has been noted for often overlapping with counterpart forms such as gangsta and status rap, as "rappers may display characteristics of more than one category on a particular album or during the course of their career", according to the CERCL Writing Collective. Within progressive traditions of hip hop, clinical psychologist and documentarian Janice Haaken identifies subgenres like political hip hop and homo hop. However, she notes that these have largely eluded mainstream culture because of the commercial dominance of gangsta rap and the precarious position rap music in general holds in the popular imagination of the West, which often stereotypes the music with vulgar associations of culturally-marginalized youth rebellion. Noting its presence on the outside of the mainstream, ''Fort Worth Star-Telegram'' journalist Cary Darling writes that this form of hip hop has been "alternately labeled 'progressive,' 'alternative,' ' underground' or 'conscious'", while essentializing them collectively as a return to the creative spirit of hip hop's golden era:

Patronage

Intellectuals and patrons within progressive hip hop often deliberate over the preservation and public recognition of hip hop culture and history, particularly its positive impact on society. In arguing for institutional support from libraries, museums, and academia, hip hop journalist and non-profit advocate Manny Faces says that such venues can offer young "people of color" otherwise elusive educational resources while mitigating differences between the various groups inside and outside the culture: "It is in those halls where philanthropists, benefactors, and supporters of the arts, will not only appreciate this history but also witness first-hand the innovative work being done to enhance humanity through the world's most dominant youth culture."

Fashion

As with fashion in other hip hop forms, individuals operating within progressive rap circles follow a distinct dress code that acts as a response to societal oppression. Like gangsta rap in particular, progressive and conscious rappers communicate ideas of protest against socioeconomic conditions through the use of anti-fashion, an aesthetic concept that involves styles of dress contrary to prevailing fashions. This includes donning Afrocentric clothing to represent the valorization of African cultural heritage.

History

1980s–1990s: Early developments

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's 1982 song " The Message" and the music of Public Enemy are cited by both Pinn and Parker as formative examples of progressive rap. Parker specifically highlights "The Message" for how it communicates anger about chaotic urban life, particularly in the refrain: "Don't push me, 'cause I'm close to the edge / I'm tryin' not to lose my head / It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from going under." In the late 1980s and early 1990s, political hip hop emerged with an intellectual paradigm of Afrocentricity that shaped the element of discourse in progressive rap.

At the turn of the 1990s, groups such as De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest

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