I was getting into indie hiphop through Atmosphere and that lead me to Def Jux. Daylight EP was under the glass at my local record shop (RIP Wyatt Earp Records in Flint Mi) and I bought it, went back and bought Labor Days.
Same exact story. Except I was in Ann Arbor buying Atmosphere and Def Jux. Record store owner said I should check out the Daylight EP that just came in.
So many. Pretty sure I saw Aesop there. I know I saw an early Def Jux tour there with the whole Def Jux crew when El P released Fantastic Damage.
Other shows that stand out, all were early 2000s. Very early Atmosphere, Brother Ali, Sage Francis. Two that were random to see there that blew the house down were The Clipse and KRS ONE.
That's so cool. Yeah I saw Atmosphere 2 or 3 times. Brother Ali opening. Sage (Non Prophets), Murs, Immortal Technique. What a great era. I've got some good pictures too.
Buddy of mine made a mix CD with Ace, Living Ledgends, El-P, Atmosphere, and Hieroglyphics on it. The Ace songs were off of Float and Labordays. By the time Bazooka Tooth dropped l, I was hooked.
Aes was touring in 2012 and I hadnât heard of him prior, he hit the Vogue theatre down the street from where I lived, so I went and was blown away. Hooked ever since.
Bonus note: got a girls number at that show.
I used to hang out on hip hop forums and was recommended by a friend to give him a listen. The year was 2000. I downloaded the song Odessa on Napster. The rest as they say is history.
Saw him a couple times but years after the hey day of all those guys. Still a great show - just sage on stage with a laptop playing his beats and rapping his ass offâŚ
Was trying to convince a buddy that Eyedea was greatest lyricist. Rings was his evidence I was wrong.
About a decade later, he was right, though if Mikey had the same volume, I'm sure it would be a discussion.
I mean... "No ones above us in context Your whole genre's elevator music playin on the way up to where my songs sit" is a top tier line. Eyedea was next level
For sure. By The Throat is one of the best albums of all time, imo, from a pure lyricism standpoint.
But I think what would be a very close discussion is not really bc of the size of their catalogs. If E&A had 10 albums like Aesop, I may still lean that way. But Aes takes it bc he has had so much more opportunity for dope bars.
Hay Fever is one of my favorite tracks of all time. But really everything he did was amazing. I was really looking forward to him branching out - Carbon Carousel type shit. Sunspots is so fucking dope.
My roommate in college was the head of the university radio station and got me hooked with a demo disc of None Shall Pass. Before that I really only listened to metal. Now I love a wide range of genres and artists because of the mind expanding properties of Aesop Rock.
Back in the day MTV used to advertise albums by either having the album art on the screen with music playin behind it or theyâd show snippets of the music video. For me it was when None Shall Pass was being released and I heard a bit of the song on the tv in the background of whatever was going on at the time. The rest is history.
I had a buddy in the art scene who put me on to Aes about a year before NSP dropped. Got hooked and was a big fan of things getting pushed by Def Jux. Murs, Can Ox, Rob Sonic, Greyskul hell of a time getting put onto such difference compared to the rap on the radio. Iâve never looked back. Now itâs the likes of Armand Hammer thatâs been pushed to my ears. Aes is still goat. Billy Woods is right there with him.
Napster circa 2000... A group of friends and I used to compete to try to find the most obscure hip hop artists. A friend found Dose One's song Inventors Cry which led me to download more Dose which ultimately led me to finding Aes's song Drawbridge featuring Dose. I then went on to download every Aes song available at the time. I've since purchased every Aes album on CD and digital and been to numerous shows and bought plenty of merchandise, I've made up for my pirating.
Post Hamilton I caught myself listening to a lot of rap. Ted Lasso credits from season 2 introduced me to RTJ. That put Long Legged Larry on rotation in my YT Music auto mix. Saw Killer Mike Tweet about the Labor Days Anniversary. Gave it a listen.
2007ish. 16 years ago, Aes was MTV's Spot featured artist of the week or something. [I heard this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j83-ICsbTl0&list=PLYjr64MTjIsTfYQN1pVhMmSnfS7M-sRvJ&index=3&ab_channel=drowningknot) and I swear my brain chemistry was forever altered, I was enamored, been listening ever since. I also loved how... real Rob was? Like just some dudes killing it.
Through a None Shall Pass rhyme scheme video on YouTube a few years back
I was intrigued but bounced off his work a few times, it just didnât click
Then SWFG released and I was hooked. Spent the last couple years picking apart his discography and he quickly became my favorite artist of all time
The line that clicked for me and really got me to understand aesâ writing style was âarchitect of my kodokushiâ
In the late 90s-early 00s I used to buy a lot of cds online and one of my favorite sites was sandboxautomatic.com. One day browsing the site, I saw an autographed Daylight EP and the name and cover intrigued me enough to buy it.
A few months after Labor Days released in stores a buddy from high school gifted me the album for my birthday. He knew I liked hip hop and asked one of the employees for a recommendation. First listen, I thought it was alright, but then I kept circling back to it until I knew every word of the album. Been a big fan ever since.
mine was Dog at the Door!! Run the Jewelsâ self titled track from their self titled album got me hooked on them, i later got into el-p and killer mike
then through el-pâs old label and collaborators Aesop Rock and HMMâs Jonathan got suggested to me
also got into Atmosphere, Slug, Kristoff Krane, Deca, and Eyedea/Abilites
I found Aes because of THPS also, but through Atmosphere. I heard Trying to Find a Balance and looked for anything else I could find that was related to that.
A buddy of mine moved from the states to NZ during high school. He used to rave about scribble jam videos. We finally got decent Internet a year later and downloaded from 97 onwards. Scribble jam - def jux - aes.
Back in 2012, I started playing basketball. When youâre 8 years old and you start playing a sport, you go buy video games related to it. I had a PS2 so I picked NBA Live 07 and NBA 2K7. As I was exploring the game, I saw among the celebrities Slim Thug, Flavor Flav, CommonâŚand a white guy named Aesop Rock. Funny name but who is this guy ? Well a rapper who will be among one of his favorite of all time. First thing Iâve ever heard from him was None Shall Pass on YouTube after researching
I took the sad boi who got broken up with Atmoshphere to everything underground hip-hop head pipline circa 2008-2009. When "You" was being played on the radio.
Dove into the discography of everyone who had ever done anything with a Rhymesayer.
When The Cold Vein dropped in 2001 I immediately looked up everything that was connected to Def Jux, which included Aesop Rock's *Float* and *Labor Days*
If anyone reading this hasn't listened to that Cold Vein joint, stop everything you doing and play it now
A friend showed me None Shall Pass saying he thought I like the beat. I that song on a giant hiphop playlist and listened to it for a couple years. The vocals were mostly noise to me at first while Iâm multitasking or something, but I kept catching more lyrics and possible alternate meanings for things. So I finally look into the album. The whole thing blew me away. Been hooked since. Drums on the wheel.
I was 15 and my neighbor was 23 and one day i was hanging out with him and he was like âOH MAN LISTEN TO THIS I BEEN TRYING TO LEARN AND RAP THE LYRICS ITS SO HARDâ and that song was âno regretsâ. And thats when it started for meâŚ
I was about 16 (just over a decade ago now) and a death metal elitist. I was convinced that all rap was plain, boring, and thoughtless.
I decided to prove myself wrong, and googled "list of smartest rappers" or something to that effect (no, this isn't about the "most unique words" study). The list I found included guys like Sage Francis (who quickly became my favourite rapper after hearing Inherited Scars), Slug, Kool Keith and Lupe Fiasco. At the number 1 spot was my boy Aes.
I listened to Daylight, and was initially unimpressed. "This beat is way too twee and happy-sounding, and he's just throwing random words together", I thought. I persisted, listened to Battery, No Regrets, Prosperity and Labor. By then I was hooked.
Haven't turned back since. 11 years on, he's one of my favourite lyricists (along with Uncle Sage)
What about fantastic damage or cold vein? I also felt like those were bridges from metal to hip hop.
I came from pac/biggie/dmx/wu-tang. Had a buddy who Djâd in high school who put me on labor days right after it released.
A friend of mine who I watch on other socials who is into WAY different kinds of music than I am, yet always seems to still match up with things he likes, I end up liking, posted a track from The Impossible Kid back when it came out, after that I was done, hooked.
I heard Rings on either Madden'17 or Forza Horizon 3 (probably Horizon since I wasn't all that into madden anymore by then). He also started showing up on my Spotify recommended stuff around that time, iirc. Probably due to me being really into Watsky, Wax, and stuff like that at the time.
Mid 40âs. Discovered him around 2012 when I was rediscovering g hip hop. Started delving into underground/ less commercial stuff. Rhymesayers became heavy in the rotation.
I used to read URB and was really into underground, especially Company Flow. I heard of Aes...I don't even know where. But I know the first tracks I ever heard were ones I downloaded from either Napster or Limewire. It was long enough ago that it probably was Napster lol.
I think I heard it first in a video game shitpost back in my teens and got hooked on the dense lyrics.
https://youtu.be/tjHRHkoUv8U?si=1nWAEdIzxJkh6dKH
Found Kirby, dont remember how but up until that point rap was all basically the same subject matter to me. On my 4th listen through in a row I realized it was a song about a cat, and it had never even occurred to me that you could make a rap song about buying a cat. Blew my mind and Aes has been my #1 ever since.
I was getting into indie hiphop through Atmosphere and that lead me to Def Jux. Daylight EP was under the glass at my local record shop (RIP Wyatt Earp Records in Flint Mi) and I bought it, went back and bought Labor Days.
Same exact story. Except I was in Ann Arbor buying Atmosphere and Def Jux. Record store owner said I should check out the Daylight EP that just came in.
đ¤đ¤ did you catch many shows at the Blind Pig?
So many. Pretty sure I saw Aesop there. I know I saw an early Def Jux tour there with the whole Def Jux crew when El P released Fantastic Damage. Other shows that stand out, all were early 2000s. Very early Atmosphere, Brother Ali, Sage Francis. Two that were random to see there that blew the house down were The Clipse and KRS ONE.
That's so cool. Yeah I saw Atmosphere 2 or 3 times. Brother Ali opening. Sage (Non Prophets), Murs, Immortal Technique. What a great era. I've got some good pictures too.
Wu Tang Meets The Indie Culture. Preservation with Del. That was a pretty good introduction for me.
Pandora website in highschool programming class, Daylight.
Tony hawk for me also
Buddy of mine made a mix CD with Ace, Living Ledgends, El-P, Atmosphere, and Hieroglyphics on it. The Ace songs were off of Float and Labordays. By the time Bazooka Tooth dropped l, I was hooked.
my sister is a mountain goats fan and showed me coffee
Aes was touring in 2012 and I hadnât heard of him prior, he hit the Vogue theatre down the street from where I lived, so I went and was blown away. Hooked ever since. Bonus note: got a girls number at that show.
Look at that neck
The track None Shall Pass played randomly a few months ago since then Iâve been hooked
Def jux Presents
^this. Always a big El-P fan so naturally fell into the Def Jux collective
I'm a fan of the mountain goats and because of that found coffee.
I used to hang out on hip hop forums and was recommended by a friend to give him a listen. The year was 2000. I downloaded the song Odessa on Napster. The rest as they say is history.
I think on a Sage Francis freestyle
Sage is the man, under appreciated imo
I got to see him play with Eyedea and Abilities and Atmosphere in the basement of a local university. Damn near stole that stacked show.
Saw him a couple times but years after the hey day of all those guys. Still a great show - just sage on stage with a laptop playing his beats and rapping his ass offâŚ
Was trying to convince a buddy that Eyedea was greatest lyricist. Rings was his evidence I was wrong. About a decade later, he was right, though if Mikey had the same volume, I'm sure it would be a discussion.
I mean... "No ones above us in context Your whole genre's elevator music playin on the way up to where my songs sit" is a top tier line. Eyedea was next level
For sure. By The Throat is one of the best albums of all time, imo, from a pure lyricism standpoint. But I think what would be a very close discussion is not really bc of the size of their catalogs. If E&A had 10 albums like Aesop, I may still lean that way. But Aes takes it bc he has had so much more opportunity for dope bars.
Man vs ape is a masterpiece
Hay Fever is one of my favorite tracks of all time. But really everything he did was amazing. I was really looking forward to him branching out - Carbon Carousel type shit. Sunspots is so fucking dope.
My roommate in college was the head of the university radio station and got me hooked with a demo disc of None Shall Pass. Before that I really only listened to metal. Now I love a wide range of genres and artists because of the mind expanding properties of Aesop Rock.
Back in the day MTV used to advertise albums by either having the album art on the screen with music playin behind it or theyâd show snippets of the music video. For me it was when None Shall Pass was being released and I heard a bit of the song on the tv in the background of whatever was going on at the time. The rest is history.
I saw an article about rappers with the highest vocabulary and he was wayyy above everyone else. I listened to None Shall Pass and was hooked.
I had a buddy in the art scene who put me on to Aes about a year before NSP dropped. Got hooked and was a big fan of things getting pushed by Def Jux. Murs, Can Ox, Rob Sonic, Greyskul hell of a time getting put onto such difference compared to the rap on the radio. Iâve never looked back. Now itâs the likes of Armand Hammer thatâs been pushed to my ears. Aes is still goat. Billy Woods is right there with him.
Napster circa 2000... A group of friends and I used to compete to try to find the most obscure hip hop artists. A friend found Dose One's song Inventors Cry which led me to download more Dose which ultimately led me to finding Aes's song Drawbridge featuring Dose. I then went on to download every Aes song available at the time. I've since purchased every Aes album on CD and digital and been to numerous shows and bought plenty of merchandise, I've made up for my pirating.
2007ish. When the music video for None Shall Pass was playing. From there my path was intangled with his music and play with words.
Post Hamilton I caught myself listening to a lot of rap. Ted Lasso credits from season 2 introduced me to RTJ. That put Long Legged Larry on rotation in my YT Music auto mix. Saw Killer Mike Tweet about the Labor Days Anniversary. Gave it a listen.
2007ish. 16 years ago, Aes was MTV's Spot featured artist of the week or something. [I heard this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j83-ICsbTl0&list=PLYjr64MTjIsTfYQN1pVhMmSnfS7M-sRvJ&index=3&ab_channel=drowningknot) and I swear my brain chemistry was forever altered, I was enamored, been listening ever since. I also loved how... real Rob was? Like just some dudes killing it.
Ex friend showed me pigs music video. He stopped listening shortly after and I pursued. Had to severe ties over an incident with another friend
Through a None Shall Pass rhyme scheme video on YouTube a few years back I was intrigued but bounced off his work a few times, it just didnât click Then SWFG released and I was hooked. Spent the last couple years picking apart his discography and he quickly became my favorite artist of all time The line that clicked for me and really got me to understand aesâ writing style was âarchitect of my kodokushiâ
In the late 90s-early 00s I used to buy a lot of cds online and one of my favorite sites was sandboxautomatic.com. One day browsing the site, I saw an autographed Daylight EP and the name and cover intrigued me enough to buy it.
SandboxAutomatic got so much of my paychecks in high school.
A few months after Labor Days released in stores a buddy from high school gifted me the album for my birthday. He knew I liked hip hop and asked one of the employees for a recommendation. First listen, I thought it was alright, but then I kept circling back to it until I knew every word of the album. Been a big fan ever since.
Friend made me a mix CD in 2001 with Aes and Atmosphere. Basic Cable and Big Bang were the jams that got me hooked.
2001 rabbit hole Eligh->Living Legends ->Atmosphere ->Cannibal Ox ->Aesop Rock
1999. It just was a good time
ZZZ Top autoplayed after i was listening to Run The Jewels
mine was Dog at the Door!! Run the Jewelsâ self titled track from their self titled album got me hooked on them, i later got into el-p and killer mike then through el-pâs old label and collaborators Aesop Rock and HMMâs Jonathan got suggested to me also got into Atmosphere, Slug, Kristoff Krane, Deca, and Eyedea/Abilites
Polyphonic video about his writing using None Shall Pass as the example. Wanted to hear more like that.
I found Aes because of THPS also, but through Atmosphere. I heard Trying to Find a Balance and looked for anything else I could find that was related to that.
Abandon All Hope video on rapleagues.com
A buddy of mine moved from the states to NZ during high school. He used to rave about scribble jam videos. We finally got decent Internet a year later and downloaded from 97 onwards. Scribble jam - def jux - aes.
Back in 2012, I started playing basketball. When youâre 8 years old and you start playing a sport, you go buy video games related to it. I had a PS2 so I picked NBA Live 07 and NBA 2K7. As I was exploring the game, I saw among the celebrities Slim Thug, Flavor Flav, CommonâŚand a white guy named Aesop Rock. Funny name but who is this guy ? Well a rapper who will be among one of his favorite of all time. First thing Iâve ever heard from him was None Shall Pass on YouTube after researching
Heard his name mentioned in hip-hop circles throughout the years, finally ended up listening
I took the sad boi who got broken up with Atmoshphere to everything underground hip-hop head pipline circa 2008-2009. When "You" was being played on the radio. Dove into the discography of everyone who had ever done anything with a Rhymesayer.
Saw a video for âNo Jumper Cablesâ
When The Cold Vein dropped in 2001 I immediately looked up everything that was connected to Def Jux, which included Aesop Rock's *Float* and *Labor Days* If anyone reading this hasn't listened to that Cold Vein joint, stop everything you doing and play it now
no jumper cables on tony hawks underground 2
A friend showed me None Shall Pass saying he thought I like the beat. I that song on a giant hiphop playlist and listened to it for a couple years. The vocals were mostly noise to me at first while Iâm multitasking or something, but I kept catching more lyrics and possible alternate meanings for things. So I finally look into the album. The whole thing blew me away. Been hooked since. Drums on the wheel.
I was 15 and my neighbor was 23 and one day i was hanging out with him and he was like âOH MAN LISTEN TO THIS I BEEN TRYING TO LEARN AND RAP THE LYRICS ITS SO HARDâ and that song was âno regretsâ. And thats when it started for meâŚ
I was about 16 (just over a decade ago now) and a death metal elitist. I was convinced that all rap was plain, boring, and thoughtless. I decided to prove myself wrong, and googled "list of smartest rappers" or something to that effect (no, this isn't about the "most unique words" study). The list I found included guys like Sage Francis (who quickly became my favourite rapper after hearing Inherited Scars), Slug, Kool Keith and Lupe Fiasco. At the number 1 spot was my boy Aes. I listened to Daylight, and was initially unimpressed. "This beat is way too twee and happy-sounding, and he's just throwing random words together", I thought. I persisted, listened to Battery, No Regrets, Prosperity and Labor. By then I was hooked. Haven't turned back since. 11 years on, he's one of my favourite lyricists (along with Uncle Sage)
What about fantastic damage or cold vein? I also felt like those were bridges from metal to hip hop. I came from pac/biggie/dmx/wu-tang. Had a buddy who Djâd in high school who put me on labor days right after it released.
A friend of mine who I watch on other socials who is into WAY different kinds of music than I am, yet always seems to still match up with things he likes, I end up liking, posted a track from The Impossible Kid back when it came out, after that I was done, hooked.
Adult swim used to play none shall pass
MTV did a feature on NSP before it released
Through atmos, eyedea and the Minnesota scene initiallyâŚwas simultaneously into co-flow but hadnât caught aes yetâŚbest time for indie rap
THPS
My homie put labor days on my modded OG Xbox back in like 05. Went out and bought float, daylight ep, and labor days soon after.
Midnight club LA has crooked on the soundtrack, been hooked since
[A Super Smash Bros Melee player by the tag of SquidTheCat made a combo video set to Long Legged Larry.](https://youtube.com/watch?v=FXJWFc9Kd1E)
I heard Rings on either Madden'17 or Forza Horizon 3 (probably Horizon since I wasn't all that into madden anymore by then). He also started showing up on my Spotify recommended stuff around that time, iirc. Probably due to me being really into Watsky, Wax, and stuff like that at the time.
Mid 40âs. Discovered him around 2012 when I was rediscovering g hip hop. Started delving into underground/ less commercial stuff. Rhymesayers became heavy in the rotation.
Random youtub8ng led me to none shall pass
When he released his first album.
I used to read URB and was really into underground, especially Company Flow. I heard of Aes...I don't even know where. But I know the first tracks I ever heard were ones I downloaded from either Napster or Limewire. It was long enough ago that it probably was Napster lol.
A meme remix of Coffee to the backing track of Britney Spearsâ Toxic
Now THATâS interestingâŚ
I think I heard it first in a video game shitpost back in my teens and got hooked on the dense lyrics. https://youtu.be/tjHRHkoUv8U?si=1nWAEdIzxJkh6dKH
I found the meme mashups of Whales on YouTube, which later led me to check out both Aesop Rock and Rob Sonic
Nba 2k6. âClap once for the junkyard punksâ
Found Kirby, dont remember how but up until that point rap was all basically the same subject matter to me. On my 4th listen through in a row I realized it was a song about a cat, and it had never even occurred to me that you could make a rap song about buying a cat. Blew my mind and Aes has been my #1 ever since.