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| Source: fresh-grind.com |
Chiddy Bang, comprising Chidera ‘Chiddy’ Anamege and Noah
‘Xaphoon Jones’ Beresin, are in a pretty upbeat mood, and they have every right
to be. Describing themselves as “hip-hop for today’s ADD generation,” the group
have ridden a wave of popularity that has seen them go from mere start-ups in
2009 to releasing their debut album ‘Breakfast’ in March of this year, selling
31,000 copies during its first week on sale in the US. So what magic took place
in-between? In a word: the internet (all right then, two words).
The phrase ‘gone viral,’ oft-used to the point of gagging
cliche, seems entirely appropriate in the case of the Philadelphia hip-hop duo.
In the early days of 2009, when gigging at US universities, the group would
often play to packed-out venues, their arrival pre-empted by John the Baptist
style evangelising within student circles. Says Xaphoon: “universities all
across America are little bubbles for sharing new music [...] we were nothing,
but we would go to Middlebury [College] in Vermont, and because everyone there
had just shared the music with each other, they all knew the words. We played
for 600 kids, and 600 kids were singing every word to every song.”
Such a significant early response does not come easily, of
course. Getting to that envious position of online eminence was a task in
itself. Using the music blog aggregator Hypemachine, Xaphoon recounts how he
would scour the site for blogs making consistently popular posts, before making
speculative submissions of the group’s own work: “[we would submit to] a couple
hundred blogs, and out of those couple hundred blogs, maybe twenty would listen
to it, maybe five would post it.” But Chiddy Bang’s success is testament to
nothing if not persistence, and the bushfire spread of the group’s popularity across
campuses everywhere was an indication of things to come: “from those five,
everything just started.”
In October 2009 Chiddy Bang released their first free
downloadable mixtape, ‘Swelly Express.’ Telling the story of the group’s
musical journey so far, Xaphoon was hopeful of the release’s success: “we
expected to get 10-20,000 downloads if we were lucky.” Instead, the response
was phenomenal: “we ended up getting 100,000 in the first month!” enthuses
Chiddy. Their success did not go unnoticed. Having initially declined label
interest in the US, Chiddy Bang signed with Parlephone Records in the UK and in
February 2010 their first UK single, ‘Opposite of Adults,’ hit the mainstream
like a small bomb.
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| Source: prettymuchamazing.com |
Given the classic nature of the MGMT source material, the group
were keen not to come across as too serious; “that could have ended us,”
expands Xaphoon, “people could have just torn us apart. Taking one of the
biggest songs of all time, stuttering it out and rapping over it...” Fortunately,
no such musical faux pas came to pass and ‘Opposite of Adults’ entered the UK
Singles Chart at no. 12. “It wasn’t top 10 but it was so fucking close.” That precious
top 10 entry was achieved in the Australian Singles Chart when it peaked at no.
10. In fact, Australia appears to be Chiddy Bang’s prime territory for success:
“we’ve gone platinum [...] we outsold Tinie [Tempah] by 150,000 records.” That
particular achievement is still hard to grasp, highlighting the relative
disparity between territories: “culture is strange,” muses Xaphoon.
And the UK? How has that been? “Amazing,” “fun,” they both
agree. Having toured various UK cities with Tinie Tempah in 2010, Chiddy Bang
appear quite at home on British soil. Indeed, ‘Air Swell,’ the duo’s
mini-mixtape follow-up, draws heavily from UK artists for inspiration, sampling
the likes of Ellie Goulding, Kate Nash, Gorillaz, and Hot Chip: “we were just
listening to so much UK stuff.” This year the duo have appeared at a number of major
venues up and down the UK as part of their current worldwide tour.
It’s clear to see the appeal of Chiddy Bang’s creative
output: bouncy, colourful, erratic, and never afraid to poke about in the
richly-lined drawers of music history. But how do they define themselves? The
duo seem keen to come across as symptomatic of the listening habits of today’s
younger generations: “today the lines of genres are being blurred out,” says
Xaphoon, “people have iPods with hundreds of genres.” This diversity of taste
is reflected in Xaphoon’s own intense cataloguing of musical influences. He
credits a number of producers and artists in helping craft and evolve his sound:
“Boi-1da, the Knocks, the Neptunes,” amongst many other mentions, “combined
with a heavy dose of ADD.” “I don’t have ADD,” clarifies Xaphoon, referring to
the attention deficit and impulsiveness of his target audience, “but the people
I make music for do.”
So what next for Chiddy Bang? How about setting a new
Guinness World Record for a start? In March 2011 at the MTV O Music Awards,
Chiddy broke the record for longest freestyle rap, setting the benchmark at
just over nine hours and sixteen minutes. Riding out the enormous success of debut
album ‘Breakfast,’ Chiddy Bang are not short for work over 2012, and are currently
in the middle of a comprehensive worldwide tour. On future projects the duo are
coyly non-specific, but Xaphoon is ambitious: “Chiddy’s going to be writing
with tons of pop artists and rappers, [...] I’m going to be producing with
other artists and writing with them.” It seems the next stage in the Chiddy
Bang viral strategy is to infect as broad a spectrum of popular music as
possible: “spreading it out,” refines Chiddy. And if their success to date is
anything to go by, Chiddy Bang will be invading our unconscious musical tastes
whether we want them to or not. But what is there not to like? The incredibly charismatic
ego-trip of single ‘Mind Your Manners’ sets out the Chiddy Bang formula neatly:
cheeky, fun, and unstoppably infectious. This is audio breakfast. Don’t be
skipping it.
Interviewed by Andrew
Jackson
An edition of this article first appeared in 4Q Magazine, Issue IX, Sept 2012
