Grieves - The Elliott Smith of Hip Hop?

I'm just going to embed this without even listening to it, because I heard another tune by this dude and thought it was great. Kind of a random connection to this guy: reading about the rock band The Hold Steady (whom I also like) on Wikipedia, where the lead singer mentions that he is a fan of Brother Ali from The Rhymesayers, so I'm like "who are the Rhymesayers?" ... Rhymesayers website has a tune from Grieves, Grieves is on YouTube, etc. Random connections. White guys doing black art. The potential for cheap commercial bullshit, see Justin Bieber in the previous post. But it seems to me, based on 90 seconds of one song, that Grieves is real.

I wish, though, that people doing hip hop could get beyond the sort of gestural vocabulary of hip hop, if that makes any sense. This tune (okay I listened to it now) is intensely painful, right? So why is this guy gesticulating like he's the Shit on Toast? I mean, yeah, that's what rappers do. But it's sort of a stylistic cage, is it not? (But what else would ya do, on the other hand? Might be kind of strange to make head-nodding music and not acknowledge that you're feeling it.)

Unedible from Griff J on Vimeo.

Here's the first tune I heard. How fucking great is this? Sad too. Reminds me of one particular point in my life, but now that I'm old and boring my pains are different and more vague.