13: Rapper’s Defeet
Autodidaction in action
Here’s the song - hail YouTube.
Just in case:
Hip Hop
was coming to prominence, slowly, from this early moment - but it was not in my sphere of experience. By the late 80s, it would be well-known, but not the music of my crowd. The kids of a couple years later would see it as home, but I was too early to be a citizen.
I personally saw it, eventually, as part of Pop Music (b/c what I got to witness was the Rap that got onto Video Hits), and I was self-consciously “over” Pop music. Music that was for dancing was not for me.
I wouldn’t really delve into Hip Hop until I started working with kids in the early 90s, and from them I would hear the thrilling work of NWA and Ice T, discover how deadly Hip Hop earworms were, how deliciously dense the music and the ideas in it could be. I’d lose interest shortly after with the entrance of Thug Life, and regain it a decade later with Dead Prez and Mos Def - I’m a total tourist. I hop on and off.
But I love learning about music: I’ve taught myself to understand/appreciate most of Rock, Jazz, and Country through their histories, and am very open to experimental and non-western musics. To do this, I used file-sharing, magazines, allmusic, Books and whatever DVDs I could find in the USED section at BMV or Sonic Boom or on eBay on any musical subject (most of which are now on youtube). Also, lately, podcasts*.
* I foresee a discussion of music podcasts, soon. Some are so good, and some are sooooo bad.
I really want to know it ALL - how all the musics fit together. If it’d been a Legitimate Thing when I went to school I would’ve studied that - but it was Super-Not a legitimate thing. I found out later that I’d missed the one great course, and I’m quite sure I didn’t take it because I was ashamed to have my father see and remark that I’d signed up for “more nonsense”. [TRANSFERABLE LESSON: TAKE THE COURSE THAT MAKES YOU EXCITED]
Thus far I’ve tried and failed to appreciate Opera and have little interest in Classical music. I know they’re valuable, but I find them off-putting. NOTE: this isn’t a boast, or a combative statement, like “Fuck Opera!” - I get no power out of ignorance. I mostly dislike it b/c my Mother + CBC on the bookstore radio = it feels oppressive. That’s an emotional reaction, not a critical stance, and means that I have nothing valuable to say about those two styles beyond how I feel. Critics should have to memorize that idea.
The MOST interesting musical style to study, I’d argue, has been Hip Hop, despite its youth, because the WHOLE THING is recorded. Many of its “firsts” were recorded for posterity, just cuz the recording technology was around. The parties it came from were filmed - so it’s an immersive education, really immediate - and completely, ragingly interesting. And most of the people involved can still be interviewed.
If, like me, you were born a bit too early for Hip Hop to be your home base, you can grow your appreciation through some great films and resources:
SCRATCH (2001)
This amazing film is currently watchable on YouTube, for now at least. Turntablism is reallllly cool up close, and I wish I’d learned how to do it. Maybe at some point.
FREESTYLE: The Art of Rhyme (2000)
Freestyle is Word Jazz. Connects and discusses Freestyle ciphers to the long arc of improvised art. Great movie.
Hip Hop Evolution
Shad’s Netflix show showed the CBC what he could DO after they screwed him, and I am glad. He’s a great host - a next gen interviewer who doesn’t need to showboat or preen. Hip Hop Evolution is a fantastic look at the evolution of the art form with loads of reflection by people who were there. Must watch if you want to know, and probably still fun if you already know.
Hip Hop Family Tree - Ed Piskor
I’d come across Piskor in a collaboration with Harvey Pekar and dug his style, and read his first comic, Wizzywig, about early hacking - then he launched this amazing series detailing the people and moments that make up the early history of Hip Hop. Four collections cover the period from the Seventies through til 1985. The style’s an homage to the comics of the same era - they’re beautiful books. Piskor’s also got a YouTube show called Cartoonist Kayfabe.
It’s Bigger Than Hip Hop - by MK Asante
I found this 2006 book randomly but it’s a gem. Wikipedia says it well: “It's Bigger Than Hip Hop employs hip hop culture as a vehicle to explore important social and political issues facing the hip hop and post-hip hop generations.” Good book.
Dave Chapelle’s Block Party
I saw this in the theatre with Marjan, and had a profound experience. This is when I found out that the politically dangerous stuff was still around [TRANSFERABLE LESSON: IT IS ALWAYS THERE. YOU HAVE TO LOOK FOR IT.]
Mos Def, Dead Prez, The Roots, [check credits], in a holy moment of community with Brooklyn and Chapelle post-Africa and an Ohio marching band… I haven’t watched it in a while, and now I must. It reinvigorated my faith in everything.
I found this photo of Brad and my sister Jenny and me taken on Halloween 1984. Brad did not always look like this, but it’s a pretty illustrative picture: this is what his spirit looked like (on the left). (I painted on top of it with Procreate.) I kept the Rappers Defeet single for years, and then returned it to him after we reconnected in our thirties. He has a Blue Oyster Cult tattoo now.
Thanks for reading. Share if you dig it and can be bothered. It’d be good for me.
peace out
jep