The Big Stogie Boys

The Big Stogie Boys is Pop Hitchcock’s 7th studio album, originally conceived as a collaborative project inspired by Dawson Rakers, also known as Dawson G. What began as an idea for a collaboration eventually became a project that Pop Hitchcock carried forward, turning the original concept into a strange, fun, gritty, and psychedelic album deeply rooted in the culture and everyday life of southwest Missouri, the Midwest, and the Ozarks.

The album explores the underbelly of the Midwest and Ozarks — not through a polished or romanticized version of the region, but through the people, places, experiences, humor, and unconventional lifestyles found within it. The Big Stogie Boys is about simply being out here, living life, figuring things out, and getting it how you can. The record captures a particular kind of Midwestern existence through abstract storytelling, strange characters, psychedelic ideas, and an unapologetically underground perspective.

Sonically, The Big Stogie Boys is heavy, gritty, trippy, psychedelic, and deliberately unorthodox. Pop Hitchcock uses unconventional beats, unexpected production choices, abstract lyrics, and experimental arrangements to create a sound that doesn’t fit neatly into one genre. The album carries the weight of underground rap and electronic production while maintaining a playful and bizarre personality throughout.

One of the standout tracks is “Swaganese,” a strange, vulgar, and intentionally hilarious song that developed a following through Bandcamp, receiving countless downloads and feedback. The track is difficult to compare to anything else in Pop Hitchcock’s catalog — or much of anything else in music. Its absurdity is part of the point, turning an intentionally ridiculous concept into one of the album’s most memorable moments.

“Swaganese” originated from Swag On, one of Pop Hitchcock’s more infamous and mysterious creative projects. Swag On was a roughly three-hour improvised manifesto recorded on an old camcorder while Pop drove around Joplin, Missouri. Much of the original project has since disappeared into the depths of the internet, becoming something of an underground piece of Pop Hitchcock’s creative history. Finding the remaining material is part of the fun — if you know where to look.

That same spirit of spontaneity and absurdity runs throughout The Big Stogie Boys. The album isn’t afraid to be funny, strange, uncomfortable, heavy, or completely ridiculous. Beneath the humor is a genuine document of a place and a particular way of life, filtered through Pop Hitchcock’s experimental approach to music and storytelling.

As a studio album, The Big Stogie Boys represents Pop Hitchcock’s ability to turn seemingly random ideas, regional experiences, collaborations, and pieces of underground culture into a larger creative work. It is a psychedelic Midwest rap record, an experimental music project, and a snapshot of the stranger side of life in the Ozarks all at once.

The Big Stogie Boys is for listeners interested in underground hip-hop, experimental rap, psychedelic music, abstract music, lo-fi production, Midwest music, Ozarks music, Missouri hip-hop, unconventional beats, underground culture, and bizarre independent music.