Creativity is defined as the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination. Rap music at its roots defined the heart of the inner city and pumped the cadence of native drums, echoing the heritage of its forefathers, as they spun, sprayed, and popped. Sadly , in the over thirty years that rap has been apart of the American music family, like most philosophies in their purest form, hip hop has faced an almost inevitable dilution in the face of commercial compromise. Translation: the American Way. Few artists, in the throes of the popularity that stardom has afforded them have been able to maintain the integrity and grit which bounded them above their contemporaries. And though these few are applauded, and recognized, they sadly sit shoulder-to-shoulder with an embarrassment of a cookie-cutter studio-formula mercenary pretending to be king (or queen). Yet in the effort to refrain from a germ hunt-on which to blame the ills of hip –hop, instead , true lovers of expression find themselves pouring through music catalogs, between-frequency AM radio stations, MySpace, and underground Podcasts for the cure.

Queens based artist, Unorthodox, pours his passion for the art he calls emceeing over live instrumentals to create a movement he dubs, “Hip Rock.” Touting his African and Caribbean roots as influence, unlike many of his contemporaries, he humbly acknowledges his proficiency in five instruments and musical engineering as his backbone. In a recent interview , when asked about his electrifying live shows, he recalled , “I don’t understand it. When I perform among (predominantly) Black or American crowds, I get the strangest looks when my man comes out and sets up his guitars, like ‘What is this?’ And I’m thinking to myself, ‘Man, this is your music!’ ” “It isn’t until they look past what they see, and feel the energy of what I’m doing, that they really understand, that , ‘Yeah, this is real music. I’m feeling this.’ “ Through his live performances, he stirs among the rare breed of true hip-hoppers a call for the refinement in definition between rapping and emceeing. “Emceeing is for the love of the music—the artistry of it,” he stated. Like many non-commercial artists he cringes over the disparity between rap’s intentions, rap’s southern commercial intervention, and the prostitution of the greatest modern movement of the African Diaspora since the jazz era. “Rapping is for the time being—the lust of the material things that come from an industry not recognizing the history and death of pure expression. Me? I’m an emcee, which means I’m an artist.”

“Hip hop is in a state of an emergency, and the remedy is the rebirth of reality in rap. The reality is, you’re not always mad, and you’re not always in the club. Eventually, the weekend ends. What I write is the reality carrying you from Monday until Thursday."