‘It’s Pure Energy’: How Hyphy Came to Define Bay Area Hip Hop

Bay Curious

KQED

History, Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.9 • 999 Ratings

🗓️ 22 July 2021

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When it comes to cultural exports of the Bay Area, Hyphy is in a league of its own. The subgenre of hip hop has an up-tempo, hyperactive beat that makes you want to dance. In the early 2000s, artists like E-40 and Too $hort had audiences around the world loving this distinctly Bay Area sound. But where did that sound come from? And what was Hyphy culture like more broadly? Today we bring you an episode from KQED's Rightnowish, hosted by Pendarvis Harshaw. He speaks with music producer Trackademicks. Subscribe to Rightnowish for more on Bay Area arts and culture. Reported by Pendarvis Harshaw. Produced by Marisol Medina-Cadena. Edited by Jessica Placzek and Vanessa Rancano. Engineering by Ceil Muller and Brendan Willard. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz and Sebastian Miño-Bucheli. Additional support from Erika Aguilar, Jessica Placzek, Kyana Moghadam, Paul Lancour, Carly Severn, Ethan Lindsey, Vinnee Tong and Don Clyde.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From K-QED.
0:05.0	Hey everyone, I'm Katrina Schwartz, and this week on Bay Curious, we're going back to the early 2000s to get Hyphy. Hyphy is, was a youth-led movement full of energy, hyper-active young people coming together to celebrate life and it was shown through
0:25.6	music through dance through clothing and it was an is I keep saying is because I think
0:32.2	it's something that is a spirit that exists in the Bay Area
0:35.6	and in the early 2000s it was just on a major platform and kind of shown to the world.
0:43.0	Pandarvis Harshah is the host of KQEDs right nowish podcast.
0:48.0	He's going to help us answer this question we got from listener Lauren Tankay.
0:52.0	I'm curious to know how Hefei Culture and music
0:57.0	got really big in the Bay Area.
0:59.0	How could it not?
1:00.0	Entertainment, it was colorful, it was live,
1:02.0	it was just a whole bunch of characters, great stories.
1:07.2	Penn, I remember you telling me one time that when you were growing up in the Bay Area,
1:11.7	Hythe was big. Oh yeah, Heithy was big.
1:13.0	Oh yeah, the scrapers getting sideways, airbrush t-shirts, big stunnish shades, all of that.
1:18.6	That was my teenage experience.
1:20.1	I remember being at Emreville at the record release party for E40's my ghetto report card,
1:24.0	which was arguably the height of the height of the height of the movement.
1:27.6	I was probably around 17 at the time. I'm starting to feel old because the kids born during that era are in college now
1:38.9	but to this new generation of young adults what was old is new again and I'm hearing
1:44.8	musicians simple elements of songs that I grew up gig into and rappers talking
1:48.5	about bringing Heifie back. Today I'm Bay Curious, we're bringing you an episode from Penn's podcast right now,
	...

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