The Bay Area's newest music craze: Hyphy

One positive thing about attending a "Homie Thanksgiving" is that it is the perfect opportunity to catch up on all of the goings-on in the Bay Area music scene. As expected, the attendees knew very little about the existence of any up-and-coming trip-hop DJs and even less about any underground post-rock groups in the area, so I had to settle for a report on the current state of Bay Area rap. To be frank and, simultaneously, to slightly embarrass myself, 10 years ago, this was my musical genre of choice (I've come a long way), so I did possess a slight curiousity as to what I had missed over the past year.

What I learned from the briefing was that the biggest phenomenon in Bay Area rap today is hyphy (pronounced hi-fee, not hi-fi). Being the ignorant, RJD2-listening person that I am, I had to ask: "What in the hell is hyphy?" According to my learned instructor, the word refers to a eponymous song by a group called Federation, which features E-40 and an out-of-this-world Rick Rock beat that is not so much music as a collection of drum beats, odd sound effects, and some guy mumbling incoherently. Just yesterday, I finally downloaded the song and found it to be crass and unpolished as Bay Area rap usually is but catchy in a thump-in-the-trunk kind of way.

If you didn't know (and who would?), hyphy is slang for hyperactive, a phase most people outgrow before the time they reach puberty. Apparently, the Bay Area music scene has, as a collective, not given up on being "hyphy" and, instead, embraced the "hyphy lifestyle". In true "I've Got 5 on it" style, there is even a remix floating around that features various Bay Area artists, an obvious attempt to cement Hyphy as a Bay anthem. It seems to be working, as even MTV.com has picked up on the buzz and penned a story on the subject (http://www.mtv.com/bands/h/hypy/news_feature_110804/).

For all of us from wonderous Fairfield, the best part of the hyphy hype is that at least one of the members of the Federation is from Fairfield, a fact which is proclaimed loud and clear on a t-shirt that appears in the song's video. Why I am proud that these guys come from home town is a mystery that will never be explained. And, truth be told, I'm not sure I want to know the answer.

Side note:
From my extensive research after the fact, I have discovered that there is a six-part test to determine if you are hyphy. Feel free to take it at your leisure. Rigorous scientific testing shows that if you answer "yes" or "perhaps" to 4 out of the 6, you are considered ignorant, self-centered, wasteful, and just plain dumb enough to live and prosper in Northern California.

Have you ever:

1) "made them nosey neighbors want to call the cops"
2) "gotten crooked up and down the block"
3) (I can't really decipher this from the song but I think it has something to do with owning a "scraper" or "drop-top", both of which are cars, I presume.)
4) "getting pulled over and won't stop"
5) "danced on the hood of your partna's Caddy"
6) "made a baby's momma slap a baby's daddy"

Are you hyphy?