I give hipsters a lot of shit for, well, being hipsters, but there’s another group of people who were around before the hipster fad. They dress a certain way, listen to music “you’ve never heard of,” and are generally people in their 20’s and early 30’s. Some could even say they directly contributed to the hipster fad. I’m talking about hip hop’s very own hipsters, the backpackers.

So what is a backpacker? Well, here is the definition that Wikipedia has for the minority group of hip hop heads.

“Backpacker” was originally a slang term from the 1980s for a graffiti artist who always wore a backpack containing his music collection and, more importantly, his spraypaint cans, markers, and spray tips. Typically, the music collection would consist of local underground rap/hip-hop music artists. The term gradually came to refer to someone with this musical taste, and now has almost nothing to do with graffiti (although certain “backpackers” may participate in graffiti “tagging.”)

It has come full circle now and is sometimes used as a derogatory term by the mainstream to describe underground hip hop fans.

One thing the Wikipedia entry left out is the typical dress of a backpacker. Yeah, the backpack is an essential item, just like white belts or aviator sunglasses are for hipsters. What else might a backpacker wear? They are not rocking hipster flannel. Backpackers don’t wear the typical clothing associated with the urban youth: baggy jeans and XXXXXXL t-shirts. Since backpackers tend to be more educated, or want to appear so, they would wear more “preppy” clothing. Remember when Kanye West hit the mainstream and you saw him wearing polos and sweater vests? That’s what a lot of backbackers wore or still wear. Perhaps you can think of the style as urban prep.

The biggest thing that hipsters and backpackers have in common is their love of music. Hipsters are always on the cutting edge of music and like obscure bands you’ve never heard of. I’m sure you’ve probably heard the joke “How many hipsters does it take to screw in a light bulb? Some obscure number you’ve probably never heard of.” Backpackers are the exact same way. They want you to know who they listen to and that what they listen to is the best. Aesop Rock, CunninLynguists, Blue Scholars, Tonedeff, Binary Star, Atmosphere, and Little Brother might all be in the playlist of these hip hop hipsters. Their love for these artists might not last long though. Like a lot of hipsters, backpackers will lose interest in a musician as soon as they hit the mainstream, uttering phrases like, “I liked him before he went mainstream.” The same backpackers that rallied around Kanye when he released College Dropout are the same ones that are saying how much he sucks on 808’s and Heartbreaks.

So, am I a backpacker? Well, I am and I’m not. I don’t carry around a backpack and I don’t wear sweater vests. That being said, I do think the music I listen to is better than what is played on mainstream radio. That has less to do with me liking an artist just because they are underground than it has to do with anything played on the radio is so broken down and formulaic that it just sucks. Most of the artists I listen to are “underground,” but I would love to see them hit the mainstream. These artist deserve a wider audience and I would celebrate that fact. So there you have it. Hip hop has hipsters too.