Fifty years ago today, Hip Hop was born in a ‘back to school jam’ party in an apartment building in The Bronx. DJ Kool Herc span the discs.
Hip Hop is a combination of four elements: DJ/Turntablism, MC/Rap, B-Boy/Break Dancing and Visual/Graffiti Art. All four are equally valued. It’s a musical genre that has dominated the world for decades, arguably outliving Rock, Soul and Reggae.
There are plenty of great articles published today in celebration. Let’s just see which Hip Hop records are loved by the Afterword?
My favourite is Public Enemy’s Fight The Power from Do The Right Thing with a fantastic sax solo in the code by Branford Marsalis
As two of our tip top hip hoppers are presently on Vaycay from the site..
..here’s Vic Mensa to start you off
(*may contain the N word*)
There’s a lot going on in that one. It’s almost Pro g with all the time changes.
I’m not really a fan of proper full on hip hop. Too much verbal for me but I enjoy it as an element of modern pop, as a style – the beats, the sound, which has become ubiquitous. The Message is a great record. One hip hop sceptics will give the thumbs up. Empire State Of Mind does it for me. The more pop approach.
I do love Salt ‘n’ Pepa Push It. That’s a cracker. Erik B & Rakim Paid In Full I like too. Probably prefer the remix Seven Minutes Of Madness.
How about Run DMC?
Not for me I think. That’s the way it is.
Arf!
Come back, Moosey! This thread needs you.
Relax. Hip Hop is deeply ingrained in the Afterword psyche. I’m confident that this thread will earn at least two hampers. 😎
“At least two hamsters?” At the beginning of August when the hippest hoppers are lying on a beach somewhere and clubbing by night. You are an optimistic chap, Tigger.
But I will do my best to ensure you get a tasty Corsair Chicken snack.
I’m kicking off in Brazil with a magnificent track from Marcelo D2 who recycles Claudia’s Deixa Eu Dezir.
Absolutely irresistible!
Next stop, New York, where the Digable Planets sampled some excellent cool jazz tracks.
And now to Paris for a splendid Francophile wordsmith, MC Solaar.
I’m grateful for your help. Only ninety more posts to go. 😄
Just stumbled across this: M C Solaar with a symphony orchestra.
For me it really confirms what a talented chap he is. And that hip hop is one of the most potent, most enjoyable musical genres of our time.
From the sublime to the absolutely ridiculous.
Off to Seattle and another symphony orchestra with Sir Mix-a-Lot.
Heresy perhaps but …Hip hop can also be a lot of fun.
I liked early hip hop but then it morphed into more extreme stuff I did not like.
The same happened with heavy metal.
I starts highly melodically and then goes fully mad and unlistenable.
I struggled a bit with Gangsta when the beat was a medium paced head nod. I preferred something I could dance to, such as White Lines.
Rap is enjoying an imperial phase, Uncle. Whatever you think of Kanye as a person, he is an astonishing performer, writer and producer and Lamar can do no wrong. Plus, there are so many brilliant female Rap artists.
Arthur Lee beat them all to it on ‘You Set The Scene’ from Forever Changes.
While the Kool Herc detail might be accurate, it does feel funny to think of it as a 50th anniversary. On the tapes we were buying in 1986 it was still called Electro. Sure, we had heard the Sugarhill Gang, The Message and The Crown, but for me and, I think, a lot of other people it was only in the mid eighties that we really started to get it. Rather like the first verse of this tune..
(The Impossebulls – The Getback)
Apologies for the Twitter link but Ian Wade posted this last week so I had a listen. Hip hop is not my thing but I’d did find myself enjoying this. It’s a great selection for Amy hip hop novices like me.
Excellent list. But we can do better! 😉
Have to say I have never looked hard for or at it, finding the commercial elements, as heard on the radio( when I did) mainly clumsy bolt ons of staccato speech over a well known lifted melody. My son was a huge fan, so I also heard and was a bit afeard of all the NWA type stuff, feeling middle aged middle class white Brits not the appropriate look. Seeing Arrested Development slay the old, white and grey audience at Cambridge was an interesting point to start pondering. And they were jeffing great!
There’s a band! Their debut was the Big bit and it’s a beauty. By the mid nineties, they dropped off the radar. Still going though, gigging and recording. Last album was released in 2021. Speech has still got it going on.
This video contains all the elements. Bambaataa DJing at the Camden Palace was the best DJ set I ever witnessed. He played and mixed incredible music, none of which I knew.
I remember hearing this for the first time on pirate radio on a Sunday afternoon and being completely blown away.
It is of course Planet Rock.
Back in the day when I was teaching in a Special Dept. that had originally been a ROSLA unit (look it up) I used to let my fourth year group play a few games on a Friday afternoon. Simple things like Hangman. Simple rules – no profanity, no deliberate filth, just things like favourite band names, TV programmes and such like, favourite books was probably asking too much.
One kid in the group was a huge music fan, and used to break-dance in the hall on wet playtimes. He got his turn as the Hangman at the blackboard, and put up the spaces carefully, spelling the name of the band out in his mind’s eye as he did so.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
The class started guessing – put your hand up for a try, no shouting – they’d learnt to start with vowels, so after two guesses we had this (spaces don’t render properly here):
A _ _ _ _ A _ A _ _ A A _ A A A _ _ _ _ E _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ E
The class went silent as he filled in the last A. That scary bunch of arrayed As really had them stumped. “That can’t be right!” came the call. “You’re having us on!” “Give over!”.
I raised my hand, smiled at the lad and quietly said, “I know who this is!”. His jaw dropped, then he smiled, as he thought I was bluffing, and asked me what I thought the answer was. I said, “Do you really want me to answer that?” The whole class were gob-smacked and said, “Yes! Tell us sir! Go on!”
So I did. Massive cred. My cool went through the roof. For at least a week.
He spelt Alabama Three wrong.
Not to steal your thunder but the NYT did a piece a couple of weeks ago on the anniversary (paywalled but good):
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/01/arts/music/hip-hop-rap-mahogany-browne.html?searchResultPosition=1
I could have written a long think piece but decided to leave it to the professionals.
I enjoyed this article, too:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/11/50th-birthday-hip-hop-voice-truth-new-york-world-protest
Hip Hop, y’say?
Mos Def- Hip Hop
How is it outliving rock? Around 80 years old and counting ….
Rock is a doddery old white man on its last legs. Hip Hop dominates the entire world, including Africa and Asia, still on a youthful rise. Rock, globally speaking, is almost a niche genre for places like The Afterword.
*ducks*
“Calm down la, calm down, it’s 2023.”
… and so, with a well-stocked CD shelf and the radio programmed on to BBC Radio 4 Extra, you can effortlessly avoid both, forever. Outside sporting events (rawwwkkk! – We Are The Champions, Rockin’ All Over the World etc.), I couldn’t tell you the last time I heard either. 1998? Is there hip hop in The Bear?
No Hip Hop on The Bear. That’s set in a time warp when REM were moody. I like the fact Durutti Column get a toe-in.
Yeah it’s a shame that festivals like Glastonbury with their mainly rock line-ups have had to be cancelled these last few years due to lack of interest ….
Mainly rock at Glastonbury? I don’t think so. A fair bit on the main stages, maybe, swamped into an also ran position around the edges.
A lot of dancey pop on the main stages, some with hip hop elements I suppose but next to no full on pure hip hop. Says something about Glasters I guess.
Says something about how half arsed a lot of live hip hop is too..
D’you mean Castle Donington, dai? 🤘🤘
Reading (Leeds)?
My son went to his first gig aged fifteen. It was 50 Cent at the MEN when Wayne Rooney and Rio Ferdinand got up on the stage. He got a poster on the way out that he still has to this day. He had a wonderful time, so much so he has never been to another since. How could anyone compare to the best?
This was a staple at our early 80s parties.
Yup. This exchange is etched in my mind. Jools being surprisingly patient here. He somehow became worse at interviewing people as he got older..
As we discussed on a pod this is arguably the John the Baptist to hip hop.
It is no accident that DJ Kool Herc was from Jamaica. All the ingredients of Hip Hop are present in the cultural phenomenon of the Sound System, dating back to the 1940s: DJs, MCs, dancing and style.
King Stitt was the first MC to cut a record.