The Indefinite Article
By Warren Allen | Photo by Ron Bellanti
The Indefinite Article started three years ago as a group of guys looking to make some straight-up hip-hop. The pieces finally came together when recent Harvard graduate MC Father Abraham papered the Berklee College of Music’s campus looking for some instrumental players to collaborate on innovative rap music.
Since then, The Indefinite Article has recorded two albums, The Grand Applause and last year’s Things You Don’t Know. They’ve played sold out shows throughout New England and placed third at last year’s WBCN Rock and Roll Rumble.
“It was funny,” says keyboard player Rick Umlah, one of the Berklee recruits Abe originally melded into the band. “The Rumble proved to us that we weren’t just another hip-hop band. We were versatile. We were a rock band, we were funk, fusion, jam band. We were a little bit of everything.”
Three of the current members remain from that first version of the Indefinite Article. The music that they brought into clubs started out strongly in the hip-hop vein, but it didn’t get great reactions.
“When we started playing in Boston on the hip-hop scene, people hated us,” Umlah says. “It wasn’t what everybody else was doing. MCs would get up there blasting a CD while rapping over it. We’d get up there and our instruments would be in their way.”
As drummers changed and different members brought more of their rock ‘n’ roll influences into the music, they started to mix up Abraham’s rapid-fire rhymes with extended instrumental jams.
They also wound up playing with a host of jam bands and even served as Slick Rick’s live group when the rap pioneer visited Boston. Over time, the Article’s musicality moved away from the hip-hop, leaning closer to simply rock ‘n’ roll with an MC. They toyed around with the blues, cutting some tracks with touches of slide guitar, harmonica and B3 organ, combined with Abe’s hip-hop vocals.
“There’s so much to say about Abe,” Umlah says. “Abe is a very creative writer. He can write about anything and have it make sense. He’s very intelligent and always portrays a message in all the songs. I think in a lot of our music, people neglect to see that. Because he raps really fast.”
Abe’s lyrics can frequently fly past in a blur of rhythmic hits, particularly when riding one of the crescendos of the band. His lyrics are frequently poetic and original, but it takes a special level of dedication for a fan to read the liner notes and listen time after time. But the group has found a fan base by catering not just to the hip-hop crowd but also to people who dig jams and entertaining rock ‘n’ roll with a twist.
“That’s the toughest thing, to get that crossover going on, says Umlah. It was just so hard for us, particularly in Boston. Boston as a music scene is pretty cliquey.”
Right now the group is focused on trying to get a major label behind them. There are some thoughts about a live album to capture the energy of the group, and individual members have also been experimenting with some alternative projects on the side.
At the same time, they all spent a lot of time and energy on Things You Don’t Know, and they’ve been sending it out to as many people they can in the hopes of getting lucky. So far though, the results have been disappointing.
“We’re super excited about the project, but we need to get somebody to friggin’ put some money behind us,” Umlah says. “We’re still grinding it out. It’s been three years, and we still love playing together. But if we had somebody who believes in us, it would just help to get this message in the songs out to everybody else.”
http://www.myspace.com/theindefinitearticle |
