A fledgling St. John's rap group is the unlikely subject of an academic paper linking hip-hop to the traditional Newfoundland music canon.
Gazeebow Unit was formed last summer by three 15-year-olds who live in Airport Heights in the east end of St. John's, and who go by the monikers Mike $hanx, Alpabit, and M to the C. Their songs, with titles such as Trikes and Bikes, Mugsy and The Anthem, haven't been performed live. Their followers are drawn by word of mouth and on-line file sharing of the music.
Despite the trio's hip-hop focus, Philip Hiscock, a folklore professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland, says they fit the folk-music lexicon in two important ways: What they write about, and how they disseminate their music.
At a recent MUN Folklore Society conference, he presented his paper, "Gazeebow Unit: Local Language and Vernacularity in a St. John's Rap Group."
Prof. Hiscock, 53, said he heard about the group through his students.
"I'm interested in how well it seems to fit the folk song of 150 years ago. What they've made up to fit the rap music format is not too different from the guy making up [the folk song] Tickle Cove Pond."
He said the music of Gazeebow Unit is "about local life, about specific people. Local references are built into it. It fits the . . . Newfoundland stream of culture as well as it draws on other formats.
"You'd think it's the opposite of folk, but, like folk, it's not divorced from everything around it.
"Folk in the 1970s and 1980s was rock inflected; in the 1960s, it was country inflected; in the 1930s, it was influenced by American hillbilly; and before that, it was influenced by church music.
"The international influence was always there. Gazeebow Unit wouldn't describe themselves as folk musicians. But they are."
Mark Cumby, an entertainment reporter with CBC Radio in St. John's who dubbed Gazeebow Unit's genre "hardcore skeet," agrees.
"In some ways, I don't think they fit in at all," he said. "They don't have a home. I haven't come across anybody who's doing the same thing."
He said the closest comparison is Buddy Wasisname and the Other Fellas, a popular Newfoundland trio who mix folk with skits.
"But Buddy Wasisname writes lyrics about the quirky kinds of things happening in small communities, while Gazeebow gives uncensored, cut-throat humour," Mr. Cumby said.
The references that caught Prof. Hiscock's ear are a shopping list of teenage suburban living: riding motorbikes, hanging out at the gazebo (a public octagon-shaped structure on their turf), eating take-out chips and gravy, underage drinking and the ensuing unfortunate results.
"Lyrically, it's a real social commentary," Mr. Cumby said of the music. "It's almost amateur anthropology."
That Gazeebow Unit confines its releases and distribution to the Internet also deftly parallels the spread of folk music, Prof. Hiscock said. "Folk music was always passed on by informal means. Software is the perfect 21st-century version."
The group uses a home computer to make their music, downloading samples and drum loops.
But Gazeebow Unit -- whose reserved members dislike talking to reporters -- may not be posting new works on the Internet. They say they write as a lark, not for attention or musical stardom.
"It's not funny to us any more," a spokesperson for the group said. "We won't be releasing a CD or anything like that. We make stuff but we don't send it out."