After transcribing my video interview with Tuff City founder Aaron Fuchs recently, I came across this intriguing quote:
Aaron Fuchs: The Bronx and Harlem were worlds apart cultural by the time the 70’s happened, because Harlem’s a community and The Bronx was burnt-out, but they were geographically very close to each other. You had hip-hop evolve like a weed, like top seed and bang! The Harlem record guys take over. You had Spoonie Gee, who was really an R&B guy who was rapping instead of singing. You had this truncating of what hip-hop was into the constraints of the Harlem record business. These couple of [Cold Crush Brothers] records actually reflect what hip-hop was before it was a record business. This crazy, formless, sprawling kind of music. You wonder sometimes would would have happened to hip-hop had The Bronx had not been so close to Harlem and was so quickly engulfed by the vastly deeper traditions of Harlem.
Certainly an interesting idea. Did the Harlem (and New Jersey) record label influence dilute what hip-hop may have been if it had been left to it’s own devices and never not hit the radio for another ten years? While ‘Fresh, Fly, Wild and Bold’ makes for a compelling case for the free-form potential of recorded rap, the goofy novelty of ‘Punk Rock Rap’ is sorely lacking in any actual ‘rap’ nor ‘punk’ qualities, it’s only saving grace being providing the source of the ‘Oh my god!’ sample for Doug E. Fresh’s ‘The Show.’
Do you think that hip-hop might have evolved into something else if the record business hadn’t gotten involved, or wouldn’t it have made a difference?
Cold Crush Brothers – ‘Fresh, Fly, Wild and Bold‘
Cold Crush Brothers – ‘Punk Rock Rap‘
Look at graffiti and where it is at now. That should give people a idea of what would’ve happened to the music part.
@Wilizm: Getting repackaged as ‘street art’ so that people could sell owl stencils to hipsters?
I wrote some enlightening shit earlier but it didn’t go through.
It’s a very interesting idea Robbie. The Rammellzee vs KRob “Beat Bop” 12” is another good example of what Aaron Fuchs describes as “crazy, formless, sprawling kind of music” that had no record label intervention (Basquiat sold it to Profile after it had been recorded).
Supercat once said there was a big difference between “recorded reggae” (on vinyl) and “soundsystem” reggae. They are mutually exclusive and (with absolutely no disrespect intended) soundsystem reggae could be regarded by some as a “crazy, formless, sprawling kind of music”.
Despite some outliers, sadly reggae has never had the same kind of “success” that hip-hop has had and as a result maybe these two forms of reggae have been able to co-exist. The recorded version was unable to “dominate” the soundsystem version or perhaps the strong tradition of soundsystem reggae meant that it was never going to be extinguished.
This doesn’t seem to be the case with hip-hop though. As Aaron Fuchs highlighted, the record business quickly put confines around hip-hop to make it meet the 12”, radio, club formats and as a result the “crazy, formless, sprawling” version that we hear in some of the early hip-hop records seems to have been eradicated before it got a chance to really develop. Maybe that’s what the Jungle Brothers were trying to resurrect with their “Crazy Wizdom Masters” EP?
If you were an aspiring rapper in the 1980’s what version of hip-hop are you going to do? The “formless, sprawling” version or the “constrained” and “truncated” version that is getting pressed on wax and played on the radio?
@Robbie Ettelson Pretty much. Look at Go Go and they still stay kinda true to their roots because they didn’t have a downtown punk or Negril scene like “hip hop” music did.
@Wilizm It’s a good point. Go Go also fits the description of a sprawling, freestyle, jam style of music that (aside from some excellent exceptions) is not easily transferable to the 12″ vinyl format.
@Nick Exactly, because Like Go Go, hip hop music is suppose to be performed. In order to capsulize hip hop music, you have to capture properly the performer(s), the crowd & the energy between the two & you can’t do that properly with audio or video because the feeling is missing. Also, like said earlier, that punk scene snuck in when they went downtown & songs like Punk Rock Rap (mentioned Robbie) & Planet Rock show it so it was bound to change.
@Wilizm I completely agree. It’s interesting that you mention “Planet Rock” as I suspect that a contributing factor to the move away from the more “formless, sprawling” version of hip-hop is due to the advent of samplers etc. Whilst samplers have had a massive positive impact (PE’s Nations – just to cite one of thousands), there is nothing like a band of musicians jamming and riffing off ideas from one another. If we exclude blockparties (mostly turntable events), the majority of early “sprawling, free-form” hip-hop records had musicians playing instruments to create the groove and, therefore, there is a certain drive and energy to them.
I never understood why Tupac’s music seemed to sound slightly cold to me until I found out that as he got more successful and therefore busier, he often laid down the vocal without even hearing the backing track, which the producer added at a later date. I believe you can hear that lack of connection in some of his latter records.
As the use of samplers progressed, the emphasis on “loops” and “beatchopping” truncated hip-hop even further. I am not saying that hip-hop sampling is not a true artform that has given us some absolutely amazing music that will stand the test of time. It is and it has. (My 2 year old son for one is going to be subjected to the Beatnuts, DiamondD and MF Doom as he gets older!) But, to some extent samplers have taken hip-hop down a musical dead end.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both the Roots & the Beastie Boys have had such longevity. All that “woodshedding” ultimately paid off by giving them much more freedom to expand on musical ideas.
This can be said of all music, and all artforms even. It’s the age old Art Vs Commerce conundrum.
I reckon grime in the uk is similar to reggae and gogo its really about performing long sets at dance parties or pirate radio when the artists get signed and release music commercially they invariably change there sound to have more elements that the wider public can understand and to fit into the traditional 3 minute verse hook verse hook song structure,