ETSU’s Dr. Ted Olson helps create Appalachian hip-hop album

Earlier this month, Appalshop’s record label June Appal Recordings released “ No Options: Hip-Hop in Appalachia .” Organizers timed the release to coincide with two important historical observations: Aug. 8, which many Black communities celebrate as Emancipation Day, and Aug. 11, National Hip-Hop Day.

“During the pandemic, Dr. William Turner (a noted scholar on African American communities in Appalachia) and I co-hosted the podcast series ‘Sepia Tones: Exploring Black Appalachian Music,’ and we produced an episode celebrating hip-hop in Appalachia. It was obvious that a number of talented hip-hop artists lived in the region, yet few of those artists were known beyond their home communities,” said Dr. Ted Olson, a professor of Appalachian Studies and Bluegrass, Old-Time and Roots Music Studies at East Tennessee State University.

Part of the album was recorded in the ETSU Recording Lab, and Olson served as co-producer and co-curator.

“Dr. Turner and I applied for a grant from the nonprofit organization Appalshop allowing us to produce an album to showcase the music of many of the region’s hip-hop artists,” he said. “Taking two years to complete, with several of the recordings being made in the ETSU Recording Lab, ‘No Options’ is the first album to document the diversity of hip-hop music from Appalachia.”

Previous compilations of historical and contemporary American hip-hop have tended to ignore recordings by Appalachian artists, organizers said, choosing instead to focus on more urban areas of the American South. “No Options,” meanwhile, purposefully celebrates the unique perspectives of small-town and rural hip-hop artists. Artists hail from throughout the region, including Alabama, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee and New York. One of the artists, Stunna T, has a track called “Show Up” that was recorded via phone in Wallens Ridge State Prison in Big Stone Gap, Va.

The album is available for preorder now through June Appal’s Bandcamp .

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