Experimental/Alternative Hip-Hop from Dayton, Ohio!

O’Shea the Wicked is part of Dayton’s underground hip hop scene. While there are some prominent venues involved, such as Toxic Brew Company, Oregon Express and the Gulch Saloon in Yellow Springs, much of what constitutes the underground are the more unconventional house and basement shows, and an overarching DIY mentality.

The underground involves a lot of boots on the ground, homespun promotion, including, but not limited to: leafleting handmade flyers, small-run T-shirts, self-produced mixtapes (or duplicated CD-Rs or SoundCloud links), graffiti, the willingness to experiment and a blatant disregard for commercial algorithms in pursuit of truth.

It’s a new school informed by the old school. It’s the difference between lo-fi and overproduction, indie versus mainstream. It’s a pioneering movement.

“Hip hop has always been experimental,” O’Shea said. “The underground encompasses the outcasts. I see it with all of us. We all felt like the outcast in some way, shape or form. The underground is this unification of authenticity, and a willingness to put that first to connect with others through sound expressionism and abstract ideas.”