Hip Hop always had a lot of front. If you grew up in a rotten neighborhood, anywhere, trying to out- nice each other is going to get you nowhere fast. That being said, just mumbling about messing someone up & chucking idle threats about wouldn't get you very far on wax either. You had to have skill, charisma, personality, flow, delivery, wordplay- and a DJ who knew the breaks & could rock up a fresh one for you to roll over, rocking the party in the process. Thats Hip- Hop.
The main ingredient was flavour. Things were bleak, times were hard, but behind much of the content up until the mid nineties was a scrap of positivity, a will to survive, a story to tell and the intelligence to turn tales of a stark reality into a party, which ultimately bought more people together than it did make enemies (despite all those media fueled beefs). Much of the lyrical content was dark, menacing and crass, but delivered often with wit and finesse over carefully picked drum loops of funk, disco, rock, latin and jazz- this contrast just making it even darker- tales of robbing, shooting, stealing & mugging over disco breaks? Cold.
In short, it moved you and it had skill. Equally of importance, it gave the art of sampling a voice, keeping its roots in Black and expressive musical forms with DJ's digging for breaks to break for the first time, before somebody else did... These were fast exciting times, with 100's of strong records coming out the USA on a weekly basis...
An obvious choice, certainly not underground, but as a commercially successful 'Hip- Hop' record, has it really been bettered, and if so, reaching such a wide scope of people?
To anyone who knew nothing of the music sampled by DJ and producer Prince Paul (Stetsasonic, 3rd Bass, Mc Paul Barman etc) this album was exciting regardless, perhaps due to it sounding like nothing else on a commercial level of the time. It was weird, and fun. Its the lack of experimentation and the hold that record label bosses had over popular music that allowed this original, highly creative record to fill the gap and cross over so successfully- this was almost instantly a household album.
Looking back in retrospective, if name checking every sample used in the making, its obvious that Prince Paul, De- La & Dante Ross were not just knee deep in the beats, but in knowledge: Lee Dorsey, Cymande, Jeff Beck, Edwin Birdsong, Taana Gardner, Melvin Bliss... Aside from the train-spotting, to the untrained ear, regardless of references, these were songs, sing-a-longs, ditties, dance tracks & positive messages. Wrapped in a cartoon universe which occupied a unique space, without the 'exclusivity' that can alienate many people from underground music, this was beyond classic and hugely influential.
If you didn't know better, you would assume it was all custom made, everything working together with total perfection- this is still the Jam over 20 years on & counting...
The video captured that 'better dayz' vibe, you know the one- Spike Lee's 'Do the right thing', summer time, roller skates, parks, ethnic stripe T- shirts like Burt & Ernie's on Sesame Street- in fact, wearing a hood & rebok classics might have put you down as a crack head without a second look. It was about intelligence, showing your progression, keeping your roots but moving on, looking for a better place or situation, dragging your mind out of negativity and hopelessness and into strength and positivity.
From Mc Shan to Biz Markie, Chub Rock to Heavy D, Kid Frost to Most Wanted, Gang Star to Lord Finesse, Sugar Hill to KMD, Grand Puba, DJ Premier, Jazzy Jay, Jazzy Jeff, Red Alert, Kid Capri- from the East coast to West, Hip Hop oozed personality & locked you in tight, it wasn't a fad, or a trend, it was political, you either lived it or loathed it...
FFWD to the mid 90's- After perhaps experiencing its peak (by popular belief) during the Jazz fueled, track after track marathon that defined much of 1993, It was clear that a darker path was emerging. After N.W.A, Ice T, Tim Dog and many more extreme Rappers with Gang glorified lyrics got away with murder (perhaps literally) due to top notch productions from the likes of Andre Young (Dr. Dre) among many others, it seemed that Gangster Rap took favor with a like minded audience- It's as if, after the world took notice, the money took hold, and what was shifting more volume off the shelves? Gang banging. Boys in the hood, Juice, New Jack City, Menace II Society, the films were reaching world wide audiences, many of whom living in relative luxury compared with the residents of many 'hoods' portrayed in these films, and so gang culture became a safe obsession for anyone who was, in reality, far removed from it. And, had enough income to buy the records...
It was a new direction, one which decided to shrug off 'selling out' & go for the $$$'s. In many ways the smart thing to do, the audience was now huge, and everything was ripe for the picking. In other ways, this marked the beginning of the end, pushing Hip- Hop into a very different place, and a different status.
Bad boy records, Sean Puffy Combs, 50 Cent- you were probably long gone by now if you were around for the 80's- Not due to age, more so the fact that the ingredients that hooked you in the first place seemed to be rapidly disappearing. The lifestyle was guns, clubs, expensive clothes, drug dealing- pretty much everything most early rap at least portrayed in a realistic light as being negative. The onslaught of obscure samples were giving way to generic beats & repetition. The wordplay, wit, intelligence and personality was giving way to a kind of lazy, out of tune singing, making words like 'Crystal' (Champagne) rhyme with anything it didn't via slurring or miss-pronouncing words to make them fit. Evolution is the way of nature, everything changes, everything has a beginning and an end- yet in terms of progression, and talent, this was $$$ fueled devolution.
Despite brilliant runs from producers like The Neptune's, groups like The Roots (who had been around a while anyway), Outcast and other talent emerging from places like Detroit in the form of Slum Village, J-Dilla & Dwele, on a whole, Hip Hop was transposing into modern, pop chart R&B. Perhaps the pairing of the Notorious B.I.G rapping aggressively over smooth soul hooks was misinterpreted by the money cows, missing the irony, as floods of poor 'R&B' rap flooded the charts with trends defining track after track of Indian beats and melodyne tuned vocals- this was now fashion, relying on sales generated by mainstream medi(a)ocre hype.
In the USA/UK and the rest of the world, real Hip Hop has slipped right back into the darkness of the underground, finding little support from record labels now that the shiny sound of modern R&B has taken over. In reality, that is no bad thing, if its back with the people where it belongs, however on the overground the reality is bleak. Positive messages for the kids with questionable futures? Don't count on it... Its grim.
Now back in the select company of those that know, real Hip- Hop continues to reach levels of creativity & vision way beyond that of its commercial namesake, which masquerades as truth in the i- tunes of the jaded. Labels like Stones Throw have kept quality consistently high, with Indie labels and artists around the world contributing real music via the social networks and in relative low- fi make up compared to the achingly over produced 'chart hop' it succeeds. The music was always raw, so to see so much production being pumped into it feels wrong to start with. Its pure theatre, and miles away from the roots of black music.
Produced by Otis Jackson Jr. (formally of Lootpack) under the Madlib guise, Jackson's output is of consistent brilliance under a number of aliases also including Yesterdays New Quintet, DJ Rels, The Beat Conductor, Loopdigga, Ahmad Miller, Malik Flavors and The Last Electro Acoustic Space Jazz & Percussion Ensemble...
A true progression of Hip Hop with real understanding of its past, present & future- and blessed with an unearthly talent.
Here under the King Geedorah alias, MF DOOM (Daniel Dumile) goes beyond creativity, sculpting a comic book world where art mimics life. Echoing the story of Marvel villain Doctor Doom & donning the metal face mask to hide his true identity- the story goes deep after Dumiles brother & co member of early Rap crew KMD, DJ Subrock, was tragically killed in a car accident, leaving DOOM (Then Zev love X) in a dark place, now using the music as a platform to transform from a grief stricken lost soul into the twisted arch nemesis of Doom.
Despite such pockets of imaginative and interesting music around the globe still flying the flag, not just in Hip- Hop but in all forms of music, it seems that on the mainstream, technology, money and education are contributing to throw away junk culture. The soul is seemingly now a rare commodity, and even in light of you tube & accessibility to music, much of the most important material of the last 70 years of black and expressive music is escaping the ears of the youth, in favor of the tripe they are being spoon fed as rap, Hip- Hop and R&B. It would seem that both the idiots, and the devil, are winning...
