Author: Casey Gallenberger

When is a piece of art truly finished? When is it time to shift gears, call things quits, or reinvent?

These are questions that have inevitably been on the mind of Hodera’s Matthew Smith. The band itself began as Smith’s solo effort before becoming a true collaborative effort. And in a move that could be seen as overcompensation, Smith has once again found himself with a solo project, this time under the Bravely moniker.

This particular movement toward solo releases happened some point after 2017’s First Things First (and its supplemental follow up, Besides). And while reasons for the band’s informal hiatus remain shrouded in mystery (at least to me), the group decided to resurface earlier this year with another EP.

The band had this to say: We really only decided to get back together due to the constant online support. We thought our journey was done but you all pushed us to keep going!

Admittedly, it’s hard to keep tabs on which bands are active, which ones are putting out releases, which ones are on the cusp of new releases, and any of the multitude of factors connected to the music industry. It’s weird to realize how much time has past since some of my favorite albums. And when a band chooses to silently fade away, it’s even more confusing as to just what’s going on. They’ve decided they’re done, but fans don’t realize it. Needless to say, prior to reading this, I guess I missed the hint that Hodera was no more.

So, their return is certainly a welcome surprise (though their back catalog does indeed hold its own), but the bigger question surrounds why they stopped in the first place. After all, First Things First was a definite change of pace from United by Birdcalls, and while Bravely deviates stylistically, the sound is adjacent enough that it could have easily been published under the Hodera moniker – I’ve seen several bands turn to solo projects or rely on guest features but carry the same brand forward.

Certainly, there are few sure answers in this case. Maybe the whole spirit behind Bravely, the mental state where those songs originate, is vastly differently than what facilitated the Hodera songs. Maybe Hodera’s identity became a true cooperative work. Maybe everything that needed to be said was already out there. Maybe it was time, distance, money, priorities. We might never know, and it’s not imperative we do. But we do know that communal support was enough to bring the band back together for another recording.

And that seems pretty interesting – that Hodera and Bravely for once exist concurrently. It’s undeniable the new iteration of Hodera is a bit different after a few years off, but it’s not a detriment. The two projects have unique purposes enough to warrant a brand separation.

But what about bands like Thrice who have seemingly run the gamut on genre? The Alchemy Index on its own carried enough stylistic variety to surpass most bands, and that’s only a microcosm of what the band has explored. Cool Hand Luke has gone from midwest emo to alternative rock to piano-based indie and has seen several lineups, including a solo iteration. There’s something to be said about a band that, in a sense, manages to have a career that lasts a couple decades. And while that’s harder and harder in the modern world, uprooting the brand you’re most known for can seem like career suicide – or at the very least, akin to starting over. Compare the social draw of Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s to Richard Edwards’ solo work – the same artist under two different names is seeing disproportionate success.

Now, Hodera is smaller than all of the bands listed; arguably, they have the most to lose starting over. It’s hard to get the first hundred or 500 people to care, and doing it all over again is excruciating.

That’s not to say this distinction is wrong by any stretch or that Hodera is the only band that has done this sort of thing; what’s unique is that the band quietly dissolved but reappeared. Whatever defines their music, whatever unites the members… these are the core parts of Hodera as a project. It would seem other artists have fewer firm definitions for their art, allowing it to be malleable to some stretch. But others, in the case of The Felix Culpa, simply exist under the pretense that they’ve reached their magnum opus and that to carry on further would be a mistake. Some reasons naturally carry a greater degree of permanence, even if the band may later decide to do some sort of reunion after reconsidering things.

But Hodera was very much a young band with a small catalog. It’s hard not to feel that the end was untimely, much like a high school romance torn to shreds when the couple go off to separate colleges. All the band has said is that they’ve stopped playing a few years back.

But just as easily as Hodera vanished, they reappeared (perhaps with more longevity). So, much like we should consider the constraints for when a project is complete, we should too ponder when perhaps a project was sunset too soon and where there is still room to continue.

In the case of Hodera, You’re Worth It definitely feels like a chapter that was missing. It’s inviting and familiar, rife with the sort of comforting wordplay Smith’s lyrics are known for. The title, the impetus for reunion, and the band’s stance on mental health seem to point toward one major driving force for their persistence: their support base. It seems that a project once decidedly introspective has shaken its telephoto roots for a wider angle based around community – that this release, and the band’s resurgence, is for the community. It’s a sort of musical thank-you card. This alone was able to break whatever confines had been placed upon Hodera, if not expand the definition of Hodera as an entity.

Ultimately, it’s good to have Hodera back with this release. In all the questions and unknowns, the band have their reasons for their actions. Hodera’s career trajectory is one of intermittent rest and forceful rise, and the end result are songs that shimmer with struggle and endurance.

I’ll start with this: I’ve spent my entire life in suburban Wisconsin. I grew up listening to punk rock and metalcore. I spent much of my time on creative endeavors rather than physical ones. All this to say, I might be one of the last people you’d expect to talk about Bubba Sparxxx.

Indeed, there probably is not much that Bub and I have in common by any stretch, what with his primary focus on Southern and rural culture. Thematically, it’s completely foreign to me. But the powerful thing about art is it’s able to transcend some of these barriers.

You may know Bubba Sparxxx for his hit, “Ms. New Booty”. The track dropped in 2005, and it took off pretty well. Perhaps the inclusion of the Ying Yang Twins on the song had something to do with this.

However, that’s probably where most people’s knowledge of Bubba Sparxxx ends. To the uninitiated, he dropped a song about hitting the club, looking at butts, and “rockin’ everywhere”. And that alone fails to impress the critic in me. It’s a base effort with a fairly commercial slant to it. The music video attempts to impress some added meaning about body positivity, but let’s be honest: it’s at a best a party track, and at worst, a song for thirsty dudes to bump-n-grind to. To distill Sparxxx’s identity to the content of the track is remiss.

Here are a few quick facts. Sparxxx’s real name is Warren Anderson Mathis. He was born in the late 70s in LaGrange, GA (about an hour southwest of Atlanta). LaGrange’s population is in the mid 20,000s, so it’s not completely rural, those it certainly has a plurality of staple Southern restaurants like Chick-Fil-A (bless up). It is unlikely that Sparxxx has access to “playa’s clubs” in LaGrange.

But one thing he did have access to was hip-hop. His start was mostly with west coast acts. And let’s not overlook the fact that there was already hip-hop in the South; Outkast was from nearby Atlanta. This ended up being foundational for his later life.

Sparxxx moved several times throughout the South and eventually found success in Athens. This may seemed drawn-out or regurgitation of a Wikipedia article (which, let’s be honest, it kind of is) but there is a point to all of this. Sparxxx’s Southern roots are undeniably authentic, his interest in hip-hop had deep roots back before trap-type beats even existed, but it’s hard to discern just how rural his actual experience was. We’ll dive into why this is important shortly.

Sparxxx’s career was largely contingent on Timbaland’s production, and even his earliest releases don’t feel entirely estranged from the larger hip-hop scene. Sure, his lyrics have been referential to his Southern surroundings at times, but these were woven authentically into albums that were, frankly, just rap. It wasn’t until the 2010s where his music started to deviate a bit, incorporating banjo and other country and bluegrass instrumentation fully. This is also around the time where new country-rap artists where on the rise, and Sparxxx was no enemy of collaboration.

Colt Ford and Brantley Gilbert released “Dirt Road Anthem” in 2008, but it wasn’t until Jason Aldean’s version surfaced in 2010 that it really found success in the mainstream. And this is perhaps the most pivotal point of this entire conversation – bro-country has been scorned for being generic, disingenuous, inhumane. This is only augmented by a dude in a cowboy hat and tight jeans attempting to rap about the most cliché Southern things. It’s catchy to the point that most listeners won’t even process the absurdity of what’s happening here. But, as mainstream country loves to do, appropriating yet another genre isn’t surprising – there are plenty of great small and independent country acts out in the world, but most of what you’ll hear on the radio is just “pop with twang”.

Now, the original song is perhaps less egregious to some degree since Colt Ford is known for his country-rap elements. But at this point, Bubba Sparxx has almost a decade of rap cred cemented in several albums of material. The country-rap premise had arguably been tried and tested for years now, and it did fine with what it had. It’s akin to the popification of worship music; the substance was inherent but it needed to be repurposed for commercial means.

Most genres seem to come in waves, and the early 2010s was a second wave of country-rap; arguably, this is when it shifted to what many know as hick-hop. And that name alone should tell us something.

While Sparxxx’s music has not always taken itself too seriously, these following waves read more like parody. It’s founded on self-deprecation. It feels like a Mad Libs sheet filled in with country clichés stolen from Luke Bryan songs. Ultimately, it’s no longer rap with country elements. It’s country songs in rap form.

I’m not arguing that Bubba Sparxxx is one of the greatest modern rappers, but he certainly was a forerunner in his own right. His music is certainly not perfect and it’s not without its own clichés, but it’s also the kind of music he loved. It’s not on par with the bastardization that is Zac Brown Band’s The Owl, a terrifying frankenstein of country and the indescribable ingredients of a hotdog. Rather, Sparxxx crafted songs that, while quirky at times, are arguably no stranger than what we’ve seen from some of rap’s most popular icons. They just happened to have Southern influence. And while Sparxxx may have done a bit of pandering in the recent years as well, in his most unobserved stage of his career, things never felt gimmicky.

So, the genius of Bubba Sparxxx really isn’t built on some secret ingredient. He managed to stand out in the scene because of his background, connections, and authenticity. Hip-hop is a genre with a lot of history and ethnic roots and it’s counter-cultural for white, Southern men (the unfortunate stereotype of racism and prejudice) to participate in this verbal ceremony. There’s a tradition to be respected, an art to be honored. And seeing country musicians shameless twist this into music that is often antithetical to the cultures which created propagated hip-hop to begin with is uncomfortable.

Bubba Sparxxx ultimately managed to help bring forth a whole wave of Southern artists who were eager to put their own take on hip-hop, and it probably wasn’t even intentional. Whether or not you actually like Sparxxx’s music, his approach is noteworthy. It’s certainly more organic than what has come to pass in recent years.