DJ a couple of bangers for Alpha Gamma Rho at Penn State, beatbox at the Friday Freestyle cyphers at Temple, and drop some tapes from an up-and-coming white rapper and you just might end up an expert on fratrap. Fratrap is what happens when you put hip-hop music, beer, and a bunch of white guys in a house on a regular basis, like what happens in most frat houses all across America. Eventually somebody gets up and starts rhyming. Some of them are actually pretty good, usually the ones who emulate true-school hip-hop the most, and at the very least it's not just radio music playing at the parties anymore. On the spectrum of white rap, it's a lot closer to Asher Roth-who was himself part of the fratrap scene at West Chester before dropping out-than Eminem, Mike Shinoda, or Yelawolf. Guide to this video: what is wrong with fratrap, Joey AX, his producer Michael Piffington One such scion of the fratrap scene is Joey AX, who hates the radio, Jersey Shore, and the false American dream our parents bought into so much that he is denouncing it all on concept street album The Goodbye America Project. Lead singles "Swagger Thru the Speakers" and "She's Gone" feature sample-based production and what sounds like live drumming, two signs that this just might be true-school hip-hop instead of imitation "I Love College". Download the mixtape he and Mike Piff, Joey's producer and fellow MC, dropped for free here and judge for yourself.
