Why Chiddy Bang Is Pretty Much Amazing

Chiddy Bang, maybe you’ve heard of them, maybe you haven’t. People who follow hip-hop and rap closely will undoubtedly be familiar with the name but for the more mainstream audience the name still may be foreign.

Chiddy Bang specializes in alternative hip hop. The group is made up of four guys. Chidera “Chiddy” Anamege and Noah Beresin aka Xaphoon Jones are the founders and the face of the group while Zach Sewall provides drums and Pat Braz provides guitar. Chiddy Bang really only started to become popular in the last year or so and although they haven’t fully broken into the mainstream yet they are still pretty much amazing.

Sometimes the best music is the music that is also the least known. There are literally thousands, probably millions of blogs out there that feature music from unknown artists who are trying to make it big. For the most part, alot of these artists sound the same and offer the same boring, generic music that has been rehased multiple times. But then there are the gems, artists who are unique, original and really offer something fresh and exciting. Chiddy Bang is one of those groups.

Chiddy Bang started off as a group of college kids, just everyday college kids from Philadelphia who used to play some parties at Drexel University in Philly. Pretty soon people started talking about the duo and their music started to spread further than just Philadelphia, within no time the group become very popular. Enter Pretty Much Amazing.

Pretty Much Amazing is a fairly well known music blog and back in February 2009 they posted five Chiddy Bang songs from Chiddy Bang’s MySpace page. This was the first big break for the duo. They broke into the underground music scene and started to build their fanbase.  As time went on, Pretty Much Amazing posted more songs from the group and in November 2009 they debuted the group’s first mixtape, The Swelly Express. The mixtape was an instant hit. Featuring songs like Truth, All Things Go and The Opposite of Adults, the album helped boost the popularity of the group and in January 2010, EMI signed a record deal with the group.

Shortly after their record deal Chiddy Bang went onto release Opposite of Adults, their first commerical single. The song sampled the hit song Kids by MGMT. The song did extremely well and a few months later Chiddy Bang dropped another mixtape, Air Swell. Well not as highly praised as The Swelly Express, Air Swell still had some great songs and was a solid effort. Now the band is hard at work on their upcoming album Here We Go which is set to drop August 24th, 2010.

So why is Chiddy Bang pretty much amazing you ask? I’ll tell you.

Chiddy Bang posseses a musical talent that is far superior to most rappers out there today. In a time when the rap game is so diluted with all this junk, Chiddy Bang truly rises from the pack and offers something different and better.  They sample songs so well and we can see with songs like Opposite of Adults, Under The Sheets and Because that they are able to retain the original vision of the songs while still adding their own fresh and unique take to the track. I’ve heard a lot of artists sample a lot of tracks and Chiddy Bang always does it so eloquently. They move from their own beats to the samples with fluency and ease and it’s great to listen to.

Another area that Chiddy Bang excels in are lyrics. Anamege is nothing short of a lyrical genius. His witty rhymes are full of pop culture references and they all roll out smooth as can be. Emulating a Jay-Z style with his lyrics, Anamege would have most people fooled about his age. His poetic sense is so good that you’d probably think the 19 year old was in his 30’s. Take a look at some of my favorite lines below.

“Can I please get a little bit of knowledge
somebody tell Roth that I don’t love college”

“I was writin’ all day ’til my hands would hurt

Professors didn’t appreciate it, called me a jerk

New boy needed to learn, but I never would

Pay attention in school is something that I never could, uh”

“Noah’s like the captain of the ark and I’m like a modern day Rosa Parks”

“Yea, I’m inbox like Gmail.

I get head, I need tail.

But let me quit it ma’, no play.

I was tryna’ break in like O.J.

Okay, I be puffin on a Starbury.

So if I interview, I’m acting like Marbury.”

“Uh and that’s word to the UK, I keep it kickin n pushing like I was lupe
My definition is high, I think it is blue ray”

The man behind the beats for Chiddy Bang is Xaphoon Jones, who has an incredible knack for using indie samples and sampling underground classics. In the song “Truth” he samples indie stars Passion Pit to create an upbeat jam. In my favorite Chiddy Bang song “Because” he uses an incredible sample of music legends Radiohead.

Other notable samples are Joe Strummer in the track “Silver Screen”, Sufjan Stevens in “All Things Go”, Biggie in “Now U Know” and of course MGMT in their hit “Opposite of Adults”.

Some will give Kid Cudi the credit for bringing indie samples to the top of the hip-hop world, however I think many would agree that Chiddy takes it to a new level.

At the end of the day, Chiddy Bang is undeniably talented. Everything they do is unique and enjoyable and this is a group that needs to be heard. I’m eagerly anticipating their upcoming album and I sincerely hope it gets the attention it deserves.

Check out two awesome Chiddy Bang songs below.

Truth ft. Passion Pit

Opposite of Adults