Rap music has enjoyed an underground, rather cult-like following, tracing all the way back to its earliest incarnation as hip-cat street slang delivered with a groovy drum beat, made famous by the beat poets of the 1950's.The movement progressed slowly through the disco-stylings of the '70s. While polyester-clad Travolta wannabes were spinning to Donna Summer, the futrure hip-hoppers were breakdancing on the street outside the club to the revolutionary sounds of Run-DMC.

The early '80s saw a rap-beat explosion in cities such as PHiladelphia, Detroit and Los Angeles as young men took the streets and vented their emotions with a smooth beat and hard lyrics. Rap music, in its infancy, took over where blues and jazz left off as a call to social justice.The genre today, while admittedly more mainstream thanks to the likes of Will Smith, Dr. Dre and Ice T among others, is arguabley producing some of the best music around. At times both poignant and poetic, then with the skip of a beat, angry and antagonistic, rap music still has the look and feel of something that is best played only when the faint of heart are out of earshot.

In Athens - a virtual mecca for musicians - rap and hip hop has enjoyed the same underground appeal. Lately, however, with the formation of key production and recording studios designed to cater to the scene and with the release in 1998 of an album by a couple of Athens residents known as Lo Down and Duddy, rap music is beginning to peek its head out from under the water and take its long overdue breath of mainstream air.

Ken Richardson, better known as "Duddy Ken," one half of the group who will go down in history as the boys who broke the hip hop scene in the Classic City, is a 22-year-old Cedar Shoals High School graduate. He and "Lo' Down" (Carlos Jones) signed a distribution deal recently that has finally put the rap music scene in Athens on the map."We paved the way for everyone else," Duddy Ken says, referring to the national radio play their first album "Lo Down and Duddy" received. "We sold a lot of that CD here in town."

Recorded at Elixir, Jones and Richardson's first album sold 3,000 copies and earned them a distribution deal with Selecto Hills out of Texas."We sort of blew rap out," Richardson says.

In addition to being rap artists, the two also self-produce under their label Underground Sounds. "We lay down tracks for people and do some recording," Richardson says of his second job as producer. Then, as is the current trend in the hip hop scene, he admits that producing is wat really attracts him to the scene. "I may have to hang up rapping for producing," he says with a laugh, citing Curtis Mayfield and Dr. Dre as good examples.

In two years since Lo Down Carlos and Duddy Ken broke the scene, production and recording studios have cropped up like wildflowers in town. Chris Cates, founder and proprietor of Mealtime Brown Productions, estimates at least 10 companies in town that cater specifically to the hip hop scene."But we all work closely together," Cates says. "We draw from each other, and it is a pretty close knit group."

Cates, a native of Morganton, N.C., is a musician in the group Parakeet Nelson and has musical tastes that run a far cry from traditional rap. However, Cates says, he does listen to rap music and even lays down tracks on some of his clients CDs."People will come to me with a track they may have laid down on their own four-track at home, and I will try to mesh some traditional instruments into the beat," he says. "They come in with 20 bucks and I mix the music, record it and burn the CD. They leave with 300 or 400 CDs they can sell out of their trunk."

The idea according to Cates, who currently records at least 10 local rap hopefuls is to get those CDs out of the trunk and into the stores, which proves to be a bit more difficult. "In order to sell in the stores, all CDs have to have a UPC symbol, which takes time. But we have time and it has been a long time coming," he says.

Cates' roster of recording artis include names such as P-Noid, a young Athens man who sings of fear, love and what it means to be a black Southern man on his album "Manik Episodez."

Tragic, another of the groups who have recorded with Cates include Ken Bloodsaw, who goes by the name of Blood, and his partner, Coda Baerfider. Blood is a 29 year old Athens native who has been rapping since the early '80s. "I anticipate that in a couple of years, rap music here will be a major force," Bloodsaw says. "Dr. Dre started out this way and got where he is purely by perseverance."

Baerfider, also know as Rico Davenport, agrees, adding, "The only reason the scene is still underground is becasue we haven't done enough to get it out there." Davenport, who is currently at work on a solo album titled "Pieces of a Shattered Man," considers himself a poet before a rapper. "I am not just a rap artist," he says. "I am an artist, period."

Pulling from his own published poetry, he plans to include all different genres of music on his solo work.

"The pieces in the titles refers to the pieces of different music. Opera, pop, blues, rap. It will all be on this CD. It will appeal to everyone," he says.

To generalize the rap music coming out of Athens is to do it a great disservice. Mealtime Brown produced the CD "Tragic Click" which features both Blood and Baerfider, includes lyrics that will simultaneously scare and elate the average listener. Songs like "Maintain" and "The Game Keeps Callin," allude to the seamier side of life in this small Southern town. But that diametric pull on the emotional strings is exactly what has kept rap music alive, says Cates.

"These are hard working guys who are trying to rise above or make sense of their world," Cates says of the clients who have also become admired friends of his. "The real message of this music is to look beyond the situation and see a better future."

Whether a lover of rap or not, no one can deny, after hearing some of the floating beats, lyric poetry and philosophical undercurrent of local rap sound, that this music is here to stay. There is, however, one last obstacle to tackle in the battle for recognition. "We do need a place to put on a show," says Baerfider, citing the lack of venues available to the rap artist. "We have the music down and out, now we need to show the public something."

Blood agrees, citing the Georgia Theatre and 40 Watt Club as good places for a good street rap. "They have the capacity," he ssays.

When asked about the stereotypes that typically accompany rap music, particularly live shows, he waxes a bit visionary. "There is that element," he says with a touch of sadness in his voice. "But I know where to go in music and where no to go. Just like in life. You have to trust that other people do too."