How indie label Rhymesayers inspires loyalty in its rap acts

Brother Ali is sitting on the end of a couch in a dingy dressing room, backstage at The Garage in London. It's the final night of his European tour with labelmates Dilated Peoples, and he's desperate for a moment to himself before he goes on-stage. He's eating dinner - something unidentifiable from a place down the street, smothered in a gloopy red sauce.

Dilated's frontman, Evidence, is in and out of the dressing room, trying to make arrangements for his flight back home the next day. "They had me flying from London to Atlanta, 11 hours," he says to Ali. "Two-hour layover, then five-and-a-half hours back to California. Cost me US$600 to change it, but now I can fly Air New Zealand direct."

Ali smiles in sympathy: he knows the score. When you're a rapper on an independent label, this is your life. You might be touring Europe, rocking sold-out venues in front of eager fans, but you still have to get your own food, eat in dingy dressing rooms, fight over flights.

Not that Ali and Evidence are complaining too much. The label they belong to, Rhymesayers in Minneapolis, is arguably the finest independent rap imprint in the world. It has been consistently better - for consistently longer - than any of the competition.

Other independents have folded, split, been absorbed by outfits with bigger pockets and bigger appetites, but Rhymesayers has kept on trucking. It is a label built on struggle: a place for brutally honest rap music that has captured the ears of thousands of fans. Rhymesayers is based in a city that has never been regarded as a hip hop stronghold, and it has worn the underdog patch on its sleeve proudly.

Rhymesayers rests on the bedrock of its flagship act, Atmosphere. Its members Slug (Sean Daley) and Ant (Anthony Davis) co-founded the label in 1995 with buddies Musab Saad and Brent "Siddiq" Sayers. In 1999, they opened a record store, Fifth Element, and the label and shop still share the same office space in uptown Minneapolis. For the past five years, Rhymesayers has taken over Canterbury Park in nearby Shakopee for Soundset, a festival that drew 20,000 attendees in 2013.

Rhymesayers has three dozen artists on its roster, from Atmosphere, Ali and Dilated Peoples to the ultra-complex rapper Aesop Rock and former Jay-Z affiliate Freeway. MF Doom released his classic Mm … Food on the label. Sales are solid, even though - as Ali says - "it still operates outside of the music industry. There are music industry connections, but it's still the guys in Minneapolis doing it."