Music 15 Week Two The Beginnings. New York in the 1970s A series of social and economic pressures converged to make the city hit rock bottom in the mid.

Music 15 Week Two

The Beginnings

New York in the 1970s

• A series of social and economic pressures converged to make the city hit rock bottom in the mid to late 1970s (“white flight” to the suburbs, mass relocations within the city due to slum clearing by Mayor Robert Moses, the influx of heroin with the Vietnam War and “stagflation”)

• In 1975 President Ford refused a federal bailout of the city’s finances and things went from bad to worse

The South Bronx

• Of the 5 boroughs the Bronx was hit worst.• Many residents of previously middle class

apartment buildings left for the suburbs• Many residents of former slums in parts of

downtown Manhattan were relocated there• Highway construction destroyed the basic

structure of some neighbourhoods• By the mid 1970s many buildings were

vacant, abandoned and burned out

Bronx Gangs

• A thriving gang sub-culture filled the vacuum left by the collapse of many regular social services.

• While some were political, many were purely criminal

• Their style was distinctive, especially the “cut sleeves” denim jackets with the sleeves torn off decorated with patches and other designs

Parties

• The origins of hip hop are generally located in the street and club parties led by Bronx DJs in the 1970s

• The most influential early DJs were DJ Hollywood, DJ Kool Herc, Grandwizard Theodore and then Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa

• The basic model was that of the Jamaican soundsystem. Kool Herc was Jamaican and played reggae records on early outings

Parties

• Generally the DJs organized the parties, but each DJ attracted a crew of MCs, dancers and hangers-on that made their style distinctive

• The music tended toward rawer funk sounds, but was highly eclectic including rock, jazz and African records

• The primary musical organization was around the “break”

DJs

• As with disco, the Bronx party DJs were aware that particular sections of records inspired the dancers more than others, especially percussive breakdowns

• They concentrated on playing these sections of the records

• DJ Kool Herc, following earlier disco DJs, pioneered the practice of playing two copies of the same record and mixing between them to extend the break

DJs

• Grandmaster Flash took Herc’s basic technique and refined it by adding a headphone cue mix to his set up to help make the cuts cleaner and more in tempo

• The other main Djing innovation from this time was scratching, supposedly invented by accident by Grandwizard Theodore

• It quickly became a defining sound: the DJ manually spinning the record while it played.

Early MC’ing

• Early MC performers were closer to what we’d call hypemen today

• The main aim was to keep the crowd moving and into it, so there were a lot of short catchphrases and a lot of call and response

Graffiti

• While graffiti writers were perhaps not explicitly part of the party scene, the art form developed in parallel and many of the same people were involved

• Early graffiti involved simple “tagging” most notoriously “taki 183” but this quickly developed into highly complex and ambitious designs sprayed especially onto the side of NY subway cars

Graffiti

• Graffiti artists like Lee Quinones Rammellzee and Futura crossed over to the art world before any rappers made it in music.

• They also profoundly influenced younger gallery artists like Jean Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf

Early rap and the music business

• Because it was an informal practice linked to live social occasions, most of the early DJs and MCs had no commercial musical aspirations

• A number of older record label entrepreneurs quickly latched onto the sound though: Sylvia Robinson of Sugarhill Records, Bobby Robinson of Enjoy! Records and Paul Winley.

Early rap and the music business

• All of these label owners were African Americans veterans of the independent music business

• The early rap singles were a combination of exploitative cash-ins on what many thought was a novelty and “real” records by actual players in the scene

Sugarhill Gang “Rapper’s Delight”

• The first rap single and a huge hit, worldwide• Was totally “fake” in that the group was put

together just to make the record and consisted of relatives and friends of the label owner who were largely not involved in the actual scene

• Based on Chic’s “Good Times”• Sylvia Robinson, the producer had a long career

as singer and label owner, including the minor hits “Love is Strange” by Mickey and Sylvia in the 1950s and “Pillow Talk” on her own in the 70s

Funky 4 + 1 “Rappin and Rocking the House”

• The first “real” rap single, released by Enjoy! Records

• The group were mainstays of the Bronx party scene

• The record is very much like a club performance just recorded to tape: lots of back and forth between the mc’s, rhymes not really deep and meaningful

• Built around “To Be Real” by Cheryl Lynn

Spoonie Gee “Spoonin’ Rap”

• Spoonie Gee, who was the nephew of Enjoy’s owner Bobby Robinson was one of the early MCs whose skill set is still largely legible today

• Instead of short catchphrases and rhymes, he built longer narratives, if often highly circuitous ones

Treacherous Three “New Rap Language”

• The Treacherous Three were probably the most accomplished early MC crew: Kool Moe Dee, L.A. Sunshine and Spoonie Gee (later Special K)

• This song was the B/side of “Spoonin’ Rap” and is notable for the dexterity and speed of the rapping (essentially they’re going at twice the speed of anything we’ve heard on any of the other records)

The Sequence w/ Spoonie Gee “Monster Jam”

• Released on Sugarhill records• An early attempt to integrate rapping

into a more conventional pop/R&B format by pairing Spoonie Gee with The Sequence, an all female trio from North Carolina

• This record was frequently cut into many other early rap performances

Lovebug Starski “Live at the Fever”

• Lovebug Starski (or Busy Bee) was one of the most dynamic and charismatic of early MCs

• His style was almost exclusively about moving the crowd, incorporating a lot of call and response and a lot of nonsense syllable vocalizing reminiscent of early rock and roll radio DJs

• This record was supposedly recorded live at Disco Fever, the Bronx club that was central in hip hop’s crossing over into the broader nightlife of the city

Busy Bee/Kool Moe Dee battle

• Not a released record, but widely circulated as a bootleg

• A real watershed/changing of the guard moment: Kool Moe Dee steps up and destroys Busy Bee’s party schtick

• After this, the hype/party style was not enough

Grandmaster Flash “The Official Adventures …”

• One of the first times that the hip hop DJ’s art was recorded

• In the parks and clubs rappers always worked with DJs playing breaks but on the early recordings a band was generally hired to replay parts similar to what a DJ might provide for copyright and fidelity reasons

Grandmaster Flash “Wheels of Steel…”

• This routine features Flash cutting between and scratching a number of famous break records: “Apache”, “Good Times” and some songs that included his name by Blondie, Sugarhill Gang and the Furious Five

• One of the first records to feature scratching

Grandmaster Melle Mel “The Message”

• The first major rap song with socially conscious lyrics

• It speaks to real life and the real situations of the people who made up the audience for the music

• Even though Grandmaster Flash is named, the record is mostly the work of Melle Mel, his long-time MC

Bambaataa “Planet Rock”

• The song incorporates a futuristic sci-fi feeling that draws on the work of George Clinton and Sun Ra

• The song is based on two songs by German electro group Kraftwerk: “Numbers” and “Trans Europe Express”

Afrika Bambaataa “Looking for the Perfect Beat”

Rammellzee vs. K Rob “Beat Bop”

• The first experimental hip hop record?• Rammellzee was visionary graffiti artist and

MC• He had strong art world connections, and this

record was “produced” by Jean Michel Basquiat

• It has a long stream of conscious narrative and uses a lot of echo and reverb, in a way similar to dub reggae

“Wild Style”

• An almost documentary film by artist Charlie Ahearn

• Shows many of the most significant early hip hop artists in action on their home turf

• Deals with tensions of getting the music and art out of the neighbourhood and into the wider world

• Features Fab Five Freddy as a stylish hustler/go-between, basically the role he played in real life

Afrika Bambaataa and Soul Sonic Force “Planet Rock”

• Bambaataa was a charismatic former gang member from the Bronx who re-framed the social structure of the gangs to more positive ends

• Bambaataa preached a positive political message that embraced a wide diversity of sources