Navigation

You are here: Home › Hip hop

Tag Archives | Hip hop

There is only 1 KRS.


Some — though not all — hip-hop historians include “knowledge” as the fifth pillars of the art form. At All Around This World believe in the power of philosophy; for us, “knowledge” is a clear number five. Hip hop rose in the context of the politics of the 1960’s and ’70s, the politics of decaying American cities, the politics of classism, the politics of poverty and race. Hip hop’s early poets used the form as the way to speak their truth. Pioneers such as Afrika Bambaataa — recently disgraced, but that’s another story — and his “Zulu Nation,” brought global political consciouness to the form, broadening the perspective and purpse of raps. One of hip hop’s primary prophets  has always been KRS-One, an icon of the artform who rose to priminence in the mid-’80s as part of Boogie Down Productions. In this video we see KRS-One, joined by Doug E. Fresh, performing “2nd Quarter.” You don’t have to agree with everything KRS-One is saying to appreciate that he is taking full advantage of hip hop’s power to make you think.

 

 

Pillars of Hip Hop: MC-ing

In the late ’70s rappers (deejays speaking rhymes over rhythmic breaks) began to attract attention from musicians outside the Bronx, and even outside their own African-American and Latino communities, such as Debbie Harry of the punk/New Wave band Blondie and members of the British band The Clash. As rap music moved from the Bronx Streets to the Manhattan mainstream, record producers became eager to bring this music to a wider audience (or, as some may say, cash in on it). At just this time a fledgling New Jersey-based label called Sugar Hill Records pulled together a group of MC’s (MC=”master of ceremonies”) into an entity that became known as The Sugarhill Gang. The Gang’s three rappers–Wonder Mike, Big Bank Hank and Master Gee–were not experienced MCs who hadcome up through the street party ranks, but they sure put together one catchy tune; in 1979 the Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” became the first rap song to become a radio hit. In this video we watch Sugarhill Gang go for it at the Beat Club.

Pillars of Hip Hop: DJing (Grandmaster Flash!)

Grandmaster Flash was an innovative and highly respected DJ who had begun to rival DJ Kool Herc as the most popular DJ on New York’s street party scene in the earliest ’80s. Flash was among the first to employ a technique that allowed him to take lyrics and rhythmic phrases from one record and play them simultaneously over other records. Also, while he didn’t invent “scratching“–hip hop histories generally agree that Grand Wizard Theodore was the first DJ to popularize it on the streets–Flash perfected the technique and became well-known as a disc-spinning master. He and his crew of rappers, known as the Furious Five, rose to prominence in the New York hip hop scene. In 1982 Sugarhill records released “The Message,” a rap about the many frustrations and struggles non-white youth faced on America’s streets and the song became a massive hit. (“Don’t push me ’cause I’m close to the edge, I’m trying not to lose my head….It’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from going under.”) The rap’s success assured lyricists that they didn’t necessarily have to dilute their messages to find radio play or even achieve stardom well beyond the boundaries of the Bronx. In this video we watch Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five perform “The Message” on Soul Train in 1983. The group’s main rapper on the song isn’t Flash himself, but Mellie Mel.

Pillars of Hip Hop: Breaking


This week in our online classes we exlpore the five “pillars” of hip hop. Today: B-boying! Break dancing, known more commonly as “Breaking” or “B-boying,” originated on the streets of New York in the 1970s and ’80s, mainly among African-American and Puerto Rican youth, but has since spread worldwide. “B-boys” and “b-girls” took to street corners to demonstrate their dancing, using cardboard at their dance floor and the city as their arena. The term “breaking” may have originated as a ’70s as a slang term for becoming excited or causing an uproar. It may also refer to dance moves which would take place on the “breaks,” the drum beats that stand out fill the space between a song’s lyrics. In this video we meet some masterful B-boys  from the ’80s.  Yeah!

Hip Hop is Elemental


Let’s tour the Bronx of the 1980’s in this video as we meet the five “pillars” of hip hop. Hip hop historians sometimes disagree about the exact number of the elemetns of hip hop, but all agree there are core principles that unite the culture. In our online classes we’ll go with five: B-BOYING: acrobatic dancing on the street (also known as B-Girling, Breaking), GRAFFITI: including tagging: drawing or spraying designs in a public place, MCing: expression through insightful rap or lyrics, DJing:  Spinning/Scratching/mixing music, originally using records and a turntable, and KNOWLEDGE: a broad consciousness that binds all the elements of hip hop together.

What you hear is not a test, I’m rapping to the beat

All Around This World US and Canada "Everywhere Map"

This week in our online class we  hip hop the hippie the hippie to the hip hip hop and we don’t stop. Yeah, it’s hip hop time.

Much history of hip hop has been written since the first B-Boy upped his first uprock, and while almost each has its own claim as to who was the first, who was the best and who made the old sound new, most agree on a few pivotal figures without which hip hop would never have formed. For example, after paying due homage to West African Griots, who use music to accompany their epic tales, and drawing direct ancestral lines from them to late ’60s and early ’70s revolutionary African-American poets like The Last Poets and Gil Scot-Heron, every history of the music worth its salt describes Jamaican-born, Bronx-based DJ Kool Herc as “the godfather of hip hop.”

Over the next week we’re going to visit some of our old school hip hop ancestors. We may even try to top rock, down rock, or just plain rock some dance moves ourselves.