This year, I thought I'd at least try to find some appealing local hip-hop. Now, if this were Poland I could happily find all sorts of material to my liking, and most other neighbouring countries are fine. But just like with locally flavoured pop, Hungarian hip-hop is particularly, almost studiously awful. The actual rapping, for the most part, is actually fairly good, but the production is intetionally ghastly - ridiculous sub-underground boom-bap, badly sampling shit soul tracks in a throwback to Europe ten years ago or (very, very charitably) the US twenty years ago.
Take this event, which I might attend 'cause it's cheap (click image for info):
These are some of the top local artists, it seems. All of them have recorded music videos. And all of them are bloody, bloody, awful. Presenting, with their most popular videos off YouTube: Hősök, NKS, Bankos, Norba, Punnany Massif, Akkezdet Phiai (best of a bad lot, though more because it's quirky than with a good beat) and Funktasztikus. Punnany Massif (whose name is both the worst and the most promising on here) even have a track which manages to actually make 3+3+2 sound insipid and over-serious! Apparently this kind of "jungle rap" (which bears seemingly only a fleeting resemblence to actual jungle) has some sort of presence in Hungary, though I'm not particularly hopeful because the manic energy which makes actual jungle interesting is totally absent.
I'm going to have to go beyond the surface to find anything decent, it seems. I've been hunting around for anything to my tastes on Youtube, and this guy comes closest to qualifying so far:
Not only is the name of the artist excellent, he seems to have actually got essential things like bass and rhythm down. And he does electro house remixes. Always a good sign.
As usual I'll have plenty more to say on the subject end of next week when I'm back.
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