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The New York hip-hop revival and renaissance

Photo Credit:

Flickr Handle: iwishmynamewasmarsha - https://www.flickr.com/photos/morganmorgan/

FCC: https://www.flickr.com/photos/morganmorgan/29322482192/in/photolist-LF8onN-wZMyn-8ey8R5-5sCMg9-gXtH1-8kpkuN-aS4eLe-2arLZy8-97aNj8-4ds9Q9-egQKYS-jFpuJU-4rfJbq-52WGq8-dTVCK-czEtwC-jbAmp-7qjSYc-AwQUpH-FzAvSh-8owLw1-8Ek7B5-a9fmSd-KqVsnJ-9Bf2N-71uYm1-9BePm-9SSVar-9SSV5z-JsB8Kx-9SVKX3-6iEKck-4PJg6V-NYTVZ5-86X9hp-9BePn-Dz2ZZM-4Qs1aB-2hPxuSk-baRa3i-2hQ25Qk-2hPMRm7-2hPDvL6-2hPeeM7-6BSDkU-9SSYvB-x9quMA-xrC5ap-4Hz4u3-xqeiUS

Graffiti of the Notorious BIG on the wall of a New York building. Though representing Brooklyn, Biggie came to be an icon for all boroughs of New York and the rap scenes in them.

After the west coast’s rap prominence, the east coast fought to become the leading sound of hip-hop in the 1990s.

The birth of gangsta rap in the late ‘80s drew a lot of attention towards west coast hip-hop, away from the east, which had its own gritty story to tell. Artists like A Tribe Called Quest and KRS-One helped keep New York rap afloat into the ‘90s, but not enough to sell as well as LA was.

It was the release of Illmatic, an album from Queens rapper Nas, that began to renew interest in the east coast as a hub for rap. Telling tales of crime, rooftop snipers, and street culture in Queensbridge, Nas delivered lyrical heights which many rappers at the time could not match, and New York was now in full swing with artists and producers attempting to match the skill and attract listeners back to the city.

One of the new artists in particular, going by the name of the Notorious B.I.G., or Biggie Smalls, would deliver fresh new lyrics and a smooth flow which would come into the mainstream in the form of his debut album, titled Ready to Die. The album described crime and street life in Brooklyn, as well as the idealistic life of Biggie referring to his future success coming from nothing into fame and wealth.

This album proved to be widely popular among audiences of all kinds, and the east coast finally became a formidable foe to the west coast style that the early ‘90s had come to favor. It represented an upturn in the hip-hop scene of New York coming into the mid ‘90s, where the east and west coasts would see tense competition in rap markets.

Nas and Biggie gave the east coast the push they needed to move back into rap prominence, and their legacies are still seen today on the streets of Brooklyn and beyond.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2010/08/02/128916682/biggie-smalls-the-voice-that-influenced-a-generation

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Formulation of the west coast identity and gangsta rap

Sign Photo Credits - Flickr handle: Roo Reynolds - https://www.flickr.com/photos/rooreynolds/

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Donut Photo Credits - Flickr handle: Joe Wolf - https://www.flickr.com/photos/joebehr/

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Popular landmarks in the Compton area are the boulevard signs and donut shops, such as Dale’s Donuts. Compton is a city located south of downtown Los Angeles, so it has a major influence on the culture of Los Angeles as a whole, especially in the hip-hop scene.

Hip-hop saw major developments on the West Coast in the late 1980s with the formulation of gangsta rap, and the introduction of this subgenre to the mainstream with NWA.

The Los Angeles area during the late ‘80s saw a period of high gang crime rates and a boom in the cocaine industry. Areas such as Compton saw spikes in crime related to gangs and crack cocaine, while also experiencing very high rates of police brutality by the LAPD, who many felt had targeted the black community with no distinction between them and the real criminals in the area.

During all of this violence, an emerging artist known as Ice-T released the song “6 in the Mornin’,” which was the first album to describe life in the crime-ridden areas of Los Angeles. Describing the life of a criminal in LA county and the gangs and drugs that surround him, the album would come to define a specific style for the west coast, which would become known as gangsta rap.

What pushed gangsta rap to the mainstream was the formulation of NWA around the time Ice-T’s single was released, who would go on to release the album Straight Outta Compton. In very profane detail, the lives of criminals and regular people in Compton was outlined, including details about police brutality, the crack epidemic, and gang violence.

This album pushed west coast rap into the mainstream, and along with the popularity came controversy about the content of the album, which was considered highly profane for the time. With all of the criminal activity described and vulgar language used, many people around the country wished to censor or ban album sales, claiming it incites violence, especially against the police. In the streets, however, these depictions deeply resonated as pieces of truth about the world around them, and sales of the album were incredibly high.

NWA and Straight Outta Compton would come to define the nature of west coast hip-hop and gangsta rap as a whole, and would solidify an identity for the west coast that no one had heard prior.

Source: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/gangsta-rap-hits-the-mainstream-with-the-release-of-n-w-as-straight-outta-compton

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Shell-toe shoe craze and the kickstarting of sneaker culture

Photo Credits:

Flickr Handle: Raymond M. - https://www.flickr.com/photos/optikalblitz/

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Sculpture of an Adidas Superstar sneaker on display at the 2011 SneakerFriends Convention, held in Atlanta, Ga. The large tribute reflects the grand legacy that the Superstar has on sneaker culture to this day.

One of the defining staples of early hip-hop is when the Adidas Superstar made a debut into the music of Run-DMC, and kickstarted a sneaker culture in the community.

Before the creation of Run-DMC, most large hip-hop groups, such as Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, would sport the same apparel that common glam rock stars of the ‘70s and early ‘80s would wear. It wasn’t uncommon to see rappers and DJs walk on stage with flashy leather apparel from head to toe, born out of a wish to be on the same level as rockstars.

What set Run-DMC apart from these other groups was their relatively regular clothing, representative of the Hollis Avenue neighborhood in Queens, New York, where they grew up. Their concert clothing consisted of black fedoras, gold chains, Adidas tracksuits, and most importantly Adidas Superstar sneakers. This was a common outfit for their Queens neighbors, and wearing it on stage made them appeal much more to the streets than any of their competitors around New York.

The release of the song “My Adidas” from the group was representative of their signature style, which became widely popular as their fanbase grew, though the song also resonated on a more personal level with their fans, as it sent a message that people shouldn’t judge the youths who wear these shoes just because of their street-style appearance.

When an Adidas representative attended a Run-DMC concert in New York, he saw the impact of the song in how many people in the crowd held up Adidas shoes with the group, and signed a shoe collaboration deal with the group afterwards. Adidas released limited edition Run-DMC Superstar sneakers, which created a collection craze for shell-toed shoes in the hip-hop community.

While the shell-toe shoe reformed what style was among hip-hop artists, it also began a shoe culture among the fans in the community, and no matter the company, the effects of hip-hop’s shoe craze remains apparent to this day.

Source: https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/video/run-d-m-c-s-adidas-birth-hip-hop-sneaker-culture

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Kool Herc and the founding of hip-hop

Photo Credit: Flickr Handle: Hugo - https://www.flickr.com/photos/hugosimmelink/

Flickr Creative Commons - https://flic.kr/p/3i4id2

Closeup of a standard turntable, with the needle and a spinning record in focus. Prior to Kool Herc’s parties, the turntable itself was not seen as an instrument someone could use to make music with. 

It’s safe to say there would be no hip-hop if not for the parties of a local DJ in the South Bronx, New York, going by the name of Kool Herc.

Born in 1955 as a Jamaican native, Herc (given name Clive Campbell) moved to New York when he was 12, living with his family in an apartment complex in the South Bronx. He threw back-to-school parties in the rec room of his complex during the early ‘70s, where he played different funk and soul records for the crowd that gathered.

These parties came during an economic downturn for the Bronx: social services were cut, crime was on the rise, and the Civil Rights movement was at its peak. To escape these things, as well as the other problems in the US during the decade, people went to Kool Herc’s parties for a slice of fun.

What distinguished these parties from any other was the technique Herc would do to get the audience to dance. His method involved playing two of the same record simultaneously on a dual turntable, but when the break in the song came, he would wait and switch to the break in the other record as it was ending, while rewinding back to the break in the first record.

The technique was very well received by the partygoers, who would often dance during the beat of the song. These people would usually perform in groups, and because they danced during the break in the song they were given the title breakdancers. Herc would also give a microphone to people if they wanted to rhyme over the beat, which led to the creation of rapping.

Eventually, other people such as Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa would mimic this DJ style and take it to different boroughs in New York, but the credit for this technique would always go to Kool Herc. If not for his parties, the entire genre of hip-hop, along with the basic staples of the genre, would not exist today.

Sources: https://teachrock.org/people/dj-kool-herc/

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The Backspin Blog’s inspirations and inception

Spinning on the turntable in the first picture is Beats, Rhymes & Life, an album from rap group A Tribe Called Quest, one of my personal favorite groups of all time. On the bottom is me, spinning a copy of Zapp II by Zapp, a band whose music is some of the most sampled in hip-hop history.

The Backspin Blog was inspired by my own personal love of hip-hop, and my attachment to it and the history behind it.

Hip-hop was always the music I heard when I was growing up, usually from my siblings or friends, and I always had something of a taste for it. For me, it felt like a connection to people I knew, and while I wasn’t a frequent listener I always liked to keep up with what was happening in the genre and what new singles came out.

When I entered my private high school, there was next to nobody who shared the same interests as me, especially when it came to music, something which I hold dear to me. I felt like the odd one out for it, and that’s when I began to get more into the genre. It felt nostalgic and comfortable, so it always managed to make me feel at home wherever I was.

My sister recommended me documentaries on Netflix about the origins of hip-hop as a genre, and this made me interested in how the genre developed from its earlier stages into what it became today. Hip-hop is one of the few genres that still has living pioneers, as most of the people who made major developments or changes in the genre are still alive and making music, and the fact that we can accurately document the genre’s changes in highly accurate detail is very impressive to me.

The blog is something of a way to share the music I like to listen to, and I’m personally happy if I’m able to give people the same experience I felt listening to the music for the first time.

Backspin Blog is about hip-hop history, from events in the development to phenomena in the genre, which I would say gives a great impression of what hip-hop is about.

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Springtime in Florida tends to be a busy time for many people - between spring break and upcoming finals, places like the UF campus generally see a lot of traffic, something that the outbreak of COVID-19 quickly put a stop to. 

These pictures were taken on Tuesday, Mar. 24, during the late afternoon (right before sunset) during a time usually teeming with people walking back to their dorms and various school buildings for late classes and study sessions. Walking around the areas of campus that were often occupied, such as the Reitz Union, Turlington Hall, Plaza of the Americas, and Library West showed many eerily empty courtyards usually teeming with life. 

The appearance of COVID-19 cases in Alachua county among four UF students led to the university’s subsequent transition from all in-person classes to virtual variants, prompting many students to move out of their campus housing and apartments to go back home, and others are following the self-quarantine suggestions stated by President Trump and Florida Gov. Robert DeSantis, leading to the absence of people around campus portrayed in these photos. Most of the life in these usually-busy areas comes from the nature within these areas of campus, with all the growing trees and flowers in the area brightening up scenes that would otherwise make the area feel like a ghost town. 

The people that remain around campus stay for a variety of reasons, and are finding different ways to alleviate the cabin fever, such as guitarist Ian Bathurst, 24, an Econ major living on campus with his dog, Peanut, looking to find some relief during a hard time between Coronavirus and personal issues.

“I don’t really have many friends, and the Coronavirus made the friends I did have move back home, and my girlfriend broke up with me,” said Bathurst. “It could be worse, I just wanted to get out of the apartment.”

Coronavirus is unfortunately dampening the spirit of springtime in Florida in many ways, and it can seem like a large weight on people’s shoulders. It’s important to remember, however, that there’s always a way to find relief in a troubling time, and it’s most important to find that alleviation and be safe during this troubling time.