thehiphopbreakdown-blog

[thehiphopbreakdown-blog]

Rapper Big Pooh had a solid set on 1/24/2017 performing a mix of solo cuts and Little Brother joints. He did his verse from the song "Watch Me" off the 2005 album The Minstrel Show. This is one favorite songs from this album! (at Regent Theater DTLA)

[thehiphopbreakdown-blog]

In my short wave of attending hip hop shows I was so glad to catch The Beatnuts on tour with Rapper Big Pooh and Termanology. Although it was low turnout because it was a Tuesday night (1/24/2017) all the artists gave it their all and I left happy! This is Rapper Big Pooh rocking the stage. (at Regent Theater DTLA)

[thehiphopbreakdown-blog]

Boombox: Early Independent Hip Hop, Electro and Disco Rap 79-82. Released by Soul Jazz Records in May 2016, this compilation give you a good start on learning hip hop history. The linear notes are pretty thorough and offer a detailed account of hip hop’s early roots. 

[thehiphopbreakdown-blog]

Disco Meets Rap: Recycle, Rework, Reuse

My first memory of Disco rap was The Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight.” They used the band Chic’s 1979 disco hit “Good Times.” This song went on to make music history and helped create some of the foundational roots for hip hop.  I recently bought the compilation Boombox: Early Independent Hip –Hop, Electro and Disco Rap 1979-82, which features raps from early pioneers like Love Bug Star-Ski and The Harlem World Crew and Spoonie Gee and The Treacherous Three. At first listen, the lyrics sound fairly simplistic in comparison to the lyrical titans that would follow decades later such as Rakim, Nas or Kendrick Lamar. However, the cleverness in these early recordings was apparent and helped mark the beginning of the music we know today. Disco rap merges creativity, recycling and problem solving in the best way.

Goal: Make a new rap song.

Problem: No access to a live band or have the skills to play musical instruments.

Solution: Use an instrumental of a disco track and record new lyrics over it.

Result: The creation of a brand new song.

Just a decade before Disco rap, middle income African American families in Oakland, California, Dayton, Ohio and Atlanta, Georgia also sought to solve a dilemma. Parents wanted to occupy the time of their teens with safe, productive activities. With empty basements and disposable income they bought their kids musical instruments. The result was the formation of funk and soul bands like Rolls Royce, Ohio Players and Brick. With the emergence of hip hop in the late 1970s and early 1980s, these funk records along with soul, disco and jazz would be sampled and reworked to make new creative productions. Unlike teens growing up in the 1960s, many early hip hoppers would not readily have access to instruments and instruction due to budget cuts in arts programs in public schools.

Everyone thought that rap was just a phase, but it still continue, to muse and amaze/It  gives people chance to show their true talents, instead of submittin’ to the crime and violence. - Biz Markie,  from “I Hear Music” off The Biz Never Sleeps, 1989

The next wave of hip hop production would involve sampling, which is reusing and reworking a portion of the song to make an entirely different beat. In 1988, Brooklyn-based rap group Stesasonic addressed the claim that sampled songs lacked creativity and stole from musicians. In their song “Talking All that Jazz,” off their album In Full Gear, group member Daddy-O offers,  “Tell the truth, James Brown was old 'Til Eric [B] and Rakim came out with 'I Got Soul.'" Then group member Frukwan delivers, "Rap brings back old R&B/And if we would not, people could've forgot.”

Although some producers believed that sampling paid homage to the past, all musicians did not agree. In the 1990s, a slew of rappers were sued for copyright infringement. Among them were Miami-rooted rap group 2 Live Crew. In 1992, they were sued by rock singer-songwriter Roy Orbison, for their use of his 1964 song, “Oh, Pretty Woman.” The court ruled in favor of 2 Live Crew on the grounds that the song was used as a parody under fair use.  

Early hip hop is a great example of using what you already have to make a new creative production. Early pioneers could have waited to get resources and technical know-how to start, but they didn’t. The concept of starting from where you already are is how hip-hop got off the ground. How else can we use this idea in other areas of our lives?

[thehiphopbreakdown-blog]

Each One, Teach One

I think I was in the 5th grade when I attempted to write my first rap. It was 1988 and I was immersed in Slick Rick’s “The Great Adventures of Slick Rick” and N.W.A.’s “Straight Outta Compton,” courtesy of music videos. By this time hip hop was a major part of my musical landscape along with soul and R&B, some spurts of jazz while traveling in the car with my dad and popular rock. My mom was a big fan of Jackson Browne and The Fine Young Cannibals.

As it turns out, I don’t have the physical evidence of my first attempt at mcing. I’m sure it was exceptional. Spectacular. I probably used the word whack a lot and added some particularly vicious line like, “you can’t beat me.” Hopefully, excluding the work sucker. I was 11-years-old and was attempting to emulate what I heard at the time.

Have you ever stopped to think about how incredible wordsmiths are self-taught, not schooled in classes or under the tutelage of a more skilled rapper? No one formally teaches mc’s how to be good, write quality lyrics or how to pen songs. However there is definitely an informal schooling that happens with all of the hip hop elements (djing, graffiti art, mcing and dance) and mcing is no exception. There is a passing on of knowledge, history and technique from one to another.

When I got to high school I hooked up with a rap crew called Stayte of Myndz (yes, we did spell it that way. It’s not a typo and we changed the name two more times) where all the members went to other local high schools. With their help I learned how to format songs, write hooks and be an mc on the mic as opposed to reciting lyrics acapella. Although I thought we were the best thing since Wu-Tang, when I look back we were or I was in the need of serious work. However, if I would have kept it up instead of abandoning rapping for a regular 9 to 5 job things may have been different. I bought into the perceived security of being in the working world instead of learning that polishing would have came through repetition, time and practice. Lots and lots of practice.

Popular social writer, Malcolm Gladwell has a well known formula that suggests it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in a particular field. This soon applied to the ones in my crew who kept rapping post high school and through changes, doubts and knocks at self-confidence. My good friend L. Scatterbrain who I’ve known since those early crew days is one of the best freestylers that I know. When he freestyles, I can hear the growth, development and see the tenacity in his attempt to become a better mc. Since I’ve known him he’s become a fixture in the Los Angeles underground hip hop scene. He stuck with it. I remember him mentioning how he looked up to a particular mc in the scene who’s freestyle he admired.

Although we don’t explicitly say it-- our corner ciphers, writing sessions, impromptu battles in the parking lots of fast food restaurants were our classrooms. Our workshops. Our places to be corrected, to sharpen swords, dream up better bars to slay future opponents if they didn’t quite cut it this time. By replaying that verse over and over, we learn to emulate then graduate to innovate, often without pausing to realize this lesson.

I would have totally missed it. With this newfound insight I try to put in the work and pass along what I have to others. I feel like hip hop, street dance and artistic communities embody the motto each one, teach one. How do you pass along to others the lessons you’ve learned?

[thehiphopbreakdown-blog]

Hello, I’m so glad you could join me

For many in my parents generation hip hop is a dirty word. It can represent violence, disrespecting women and the reckless pursuit of money. However, it can also represent creativity, innovation and ingenuity.The truth is hip hop, which is the culture, dance and music represents the people who do it. It’s a mix bag of honesty, contradictions and people trying to find their way through the mediums of dance, mcing, djing and graffiti art. It’s imperfect. Just like people.

This platform was created to take a deeper dive into hip hop. Beyond the standard reviews, news and gossip about the hip hop world. I want to look at the core of hip hop, which includes the four elements (mcing, dance, graffiti art and djing) and surfaces in the form of history and stories.

As an avid reader, (watcher and listener) of most things hip hop I looked for what I didn’t get when I was reared on hip hop in the 1990s. I wanted to know how record labels got started and why hip hop was so demonized in the media when I loved everything about it (well, most things). As a teen, I didn’t get many of my answers. Now my questions have grown and evolved into more complex diatribes about how mcs or rappers can sway listeners into a trend with just one song and how street dancing is popular overseas but gets little press in the United States.

I figured instead of waiting for someone else to do it, I’d take a crack at it. I also wondered why dance, graffiti art and djing were no longer a part of the mainstream face of hip hop? I can wonder on like this for days, but I know I’m not the only one who feels this way.  And I have to add, it’s not about going back in the day and acting like the last 30 plus years didn’t happen. It’s about giving equal footing to dance, music, culture and the people. And that’s what I plan to write about. Welcome to The Hip Hop Breakdown.