THE NEW INDUSTRY

“The culture of hip-hop is a few levels flakier than other types of music,” says Larry Legend, a New York-based hip-hop producer and engineer who has mixed and made beats for mainstream stars like Nas and Jadakiss, as well as underground heroes C-Rayz Walz and DJ Logic.

“It’s my belief that those who stand out and prosper are those who transcend hip-hop’s often typical flakiness and irresponsibility,” he says. “They come into the studio, they do the shit—quickly and easily and well.”

Legend is talking about a rap world where the scales are tipping towards the self-made artist. More and more, big-name labels have been desperate to sign MCs with already-established, self-produced bodies of work. Take, for example, 50 Cent—his tracks were making waves on homemade “mixtape” CD-Rs for years before he got a major-label deal.

“If you have an artist who’s committed a hundred percent to making music, a guy who’s ready to quit his job and pursue it all the way, no matter what kind of music it is, it’s gonna be good, and it’s gonna be successful,” says Jesse Ferguson, label manager for Definitive Jux Records, one of the most successful labels for artists who shoot for music outside of the mainstream.

If the climate really is changing toward self-motivated artists, even white boys with Ivy League educations can make it.

Case in point: Paul Barman, a graduate of Brown University, has recently become a quirky hip-hop icon as the protégé of legendary De La Soul DJ Prince Paul. And he did it in much the way that Ferguson and Legend have described—self-recording his three EPs and an LP and developing a cult fanbase.

So the stage, to a certain extent, might be set. Then why haven’t any recent Harvard hip-hoppers made it big—even on a smaller, independent-label scale?

THE NEAR MISSES

Once upon a time, there were two hip-hop crews at Harvard, and they had the world at their fingertips: The Witness Protection Program and Tha League.

The WPP, as it was known, consisted of eight Harvard, Berklee, and Northeastern students—two MCs and a six-piece live band. Alan J. Wilkis ’04, former guitarist for the band, characterized their sound as “Bob Dylan meets Dr. Dre.”

Tha League’s Dominique C. Deleon ’04, Nicholas H. Barnes ’04, Brandon M. Terry ’05 and Kwame Owusu-Kesse ’06 met each other at an audition to open for major-label star Fabolous at Boston’s Orpheum in Deleon’s sophomore year.

Success came quick for both groups. The WPP caught attention at local venues, and within months were opening for big-name acts, such as Blackalicious and Jurassic 5. “We met with labels, had lawyers, different producers,” says Wilkis.

Tha League blew up, too. Start-up campus record label Veritas Records put their track on a compilation CD. Then, the Facebook advertised a League music video to all users. They started getting calls from Jay-Z’s Roc-A-Fella Records.

But then, both groups gave it all up.