Wild Style 30th Anniversary - History Revisited!

I couldn't make this hip hop historic event held at Manhattan's East River, but luckily I read Steven Hager's blog (he's the author of "Art After Midnight".)

I've taken the liberty of replaying his article below. You can read the original here.

"The East River Park bandshell filled to capacity for the 30th Anniversary tribute to the first Hip Hop film, Wild Style, and many leading lights of that first generation showed up in force. It felt like a high school reunion for the Uptown-Downtown connection.
Afrika Bambaataa and Fab 5 Freddy arrived around the same time from different directions and drew immediate swarms of autograph seekers, paparazzi and shout-outs from the stage. Grand Wizzard Theodore, inventor of scratching and undisputed grandmaster of all deejays, opened the show. 

Chief Rocker Busy Bee delivered an important message, which was that hip hop really stood for "peace, love and unity," which is the original message as conceived by founder of the Universal Zulu Nation Afrika Bambaataa, who dates the birth of hip hop as 1974. As a former leader in the Black Spades Bambaataa is the Moses who led his people out of violence and focused everything on art and culture and having fun." 

Busy B drops some rhymes over the classic break beats!

"Strange how the first generation really never got their due. Most of the innovations in hip hop were worked out in the first four years. The power and freshness of the performances last night proves once again how powerful the original scene really was. Lisa Lee opened with a Zulu Nation rap, and those peace vibes continued throughout the show, a real antidote to the rap music of today. You don't have to promote gang attitudes to have a hard style. 

Rodney Cee and KK Rockwell just blew everyone's minds with their performance of an old Double Trouble routine. I hope somebody puts that up on youtube. There were plenty of video cameras crowded around the stage." 

"Of course Grandmaster Caz and the Cold Crush highlighted the event. Charlie Ahearn, who produced and directed the film, managed to capture the greatest living hip hop act of that time, a title the Cold Crush inherited after Flash and the Furious Five were broken up by Sugarhill Records. Some of the early Sugarhills records were soft disco versions of the South Bronx style. But soon, Run-DMC would chart a return to that original hard style and take over the music world. But the ones who created that hard style, that first generation? Most of them remain relatively unknown and uncelebrated, which is sad because it was their creative juices that changed the world."

Cold Crush Brothers, there ain't no finer!

"Lee Quinones, who plays Zorro in the film, was one of the most difficult to pin down for an autograph as he was darting around and being pulled in a half dozen directions at once. I did not see Futura 2000, although I later saw a picture of him in the crowd so I know he was there. Sorry I missed you Futch. 

Charlie [Ahearn] should take this act on the road." Steven Hager, 2013

Fantastic 5 MCs reviving their Wild Style lyrics over Heartbeats!



RIP Rammelzee
One of the key players for Wild Style couldn't be there. Rammelzee sadly passed in 2010. Here's a video of him with Death Comet Crew.

Chairman Mao interviews legendary God M.C., Rakim

Which M.C. would you want to spend two hours with? To learn from and hear about their influences and life story? Are you new school...Lil' Wayne or B.O.B. May be you're in between..."mid school" like Wu-Tang or Tribe Called Quest? Or real old school...Grandmaster Caz, Kool Moe Dee and Grandmaster Melle Mel?

Top three on my list would be Rakim. This Red Bull sponsored interview has so much unheard dope stories. Did you know Rakim's original M.C. name was Kid Wizard? And that he used to rock the mic with Biz Markie at Rakim's high school? This is the first time in my hip hop habit that I've heard these rhymes! That's insane - I've been in this game since 1983! Go collect those original mixtapes from 1980s. I'm on the search!


Lecture: Rakim (New York 2013) from Red Bull Music Academy on Vimeo.

Only after watching this interview did I learn about the history of Rakim's "take seven M.C.s in a line..." lyrics from "My Melody."

CHAIRMAN MAO: "...explain to the people what that is....'I take seven M.C.s in a line...'" 

RAKIM: "Bascially, the whole concept right there came from my name. My government name is 777. I came up with the three sevens and started doing different rhymes off it....battling in the park, battling in high school, battling in Harlem. So, I started incorporating battle rhymes..This one here was mostly freestyle. Whenever I got down with Biz it was off the top of the head and just throw a couple of joints you had made already in there. That was when I started doing a lot of battle rapping and that little 'seven M.C.' theory just came into play."   

CHAIRMAN MAO: "But that's one of the most famous lyrics of hip hop history, especially from your catalog. That lyric for people who don't know is from the song "My Melody" which is the b-side of Eric B and Rakim's first single. And often quoted, endlessly quoted, but yet you had it already at least a year before.It's interesting that this was something that was in a high school jam, but then became this iconic lyric."  

RAKIM: "No doubt, it was one of those things that I figured had some value to it. So I brought it with me from my old style to converting it to the Rakim that we know now. It's ill that we can look back and hear things like this. It tells you where I came from and tells you where I started...It's not too far from where anyone starts. But it's how much you want it and how much you want to take it to the next level is what counts. This is good to play to a new artist that may not think he's good enough or may thinks he needs to be the best person in the world or you gotta quit. Nah, man...I came out and I was a regular dude, but I loved it so much I just tried to get better and luckily I did!"

Watch the video...all 105 mins of it and you'll get schooled in hip hop history. Do you know who Marley Marl is? Or M.C. Shan? What about the Bronx vs. Queensbridge battle rhymes? Oh, man! This is what kept me excited about hip hop. Always some drama! ;)

Who is Chairman Mao? He was the editor in chief at rap magazine, Ego Trip, in the 90s. This is a cool interview with him done at UCLA.

Big up to Red Bull!

#Cinefamily represents #ArtInTheStreets

This evening, Cinefamily in the Fairfax district of Los Angeles presents "Downtown '81," starring Jean Michel Basquiat and made in around the same year. Hope you can make it.

Last Friday, Cinefamily and Levi's hosted the first of a series of films to celebrate the "Art in the Streets" major exhibition of graffiti and street art presented by Los Angeles' MOCA.

The inaugural film had to be Charlie Ahearn's "Wild Style." There's not much to say about this film that hasn't already be said. Just enjoy these video clips from the evening's extra curricular activities.

"The Cinefamily is an organization of movie lovers devoted to finding and presenting interesting and unusual programs of exceptional, distinctive, weird and wonderful films. The Cinefamily’s goal is to foster a spirit of community and a sense of discovery, while reinvigorating the movie-going experience. Like campfires, sporting events and church services, we believe that movies work best as social experiences. They are more meaningful, funnier and scarier when shared with others. Our home is the Silent Movie Theatre, one of Hollywood’s most beloved and beautiful cultural landmarks. There, The Cinefamily will provide a destination spot for Los Angelenos and others to rediscover the pleasures of cinema.

Built in 1942 by John and Dorothy Hampton, The Silent Movie Theatre ran for decades as the only fully functioning silent movie theatre in the country. It has been fully restored to its original, vintage 1940s art deco design, along with a brand new screen and sound system, to help a new generation enjoy the pleasures of cinema in a beautiful theater." Cinefamily website

#Rap and #Yale University Press - The Anthology of Rap

A new book charting the rise of rap music has been released by Yale University Press. "The Anthology of Rap" was written by Andrew Bradley and Andrew DuBois two Professors of English at the University of Colorado and the University of Toronto.

Type bookstore, Canada

Why is rap so interesting to these academics of the English language? NPR recently interviewed Professor Andrew Bradley, one of the co-authors, and we learn how our favorite raps tunes can be broken down to the intricate lyrics, social commentary and syncopation. These Professors are telling us why we love these tunes!

"Now, even with my poor MCing skills, you can hear within that something pretty tremendous. And what that is, is this is what I've discovered by actually transcribing it [Rapper's Delight]. It's written in ballad stanza. This is the form of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner.' But it's also the form of the 'Gilligan's Island' theme, you know, the ballad stanza of storytelling form that's been with us in our culture and finds its way, whether intentionally or not, into these lyrics." Adam Bradley (Co-editor, "The Anthology of Rap") discussing The Sugarhill Gang's 1979 classic, "Rapper's Delight."

"The Anthology of Rap" explains how the original M.C.s were actually party D.J.s. And if you watch Doug Pray's 2002 "Scratch" documentary you'll also hear various hip hop legends explaining how the hip hop D.J. (or in the 70s more likely a break D.J.) ceded the spotlight to the M.C.

"What developed out of DJing was the very concept of MCing, of putting words in rhyme to the music. So some of the early innovators in the art of rapping are actually DJs: Eddie Cheeba, DJ Hollywood. Even Grandmaster Caz of the Cold Crush Brothers, these are people who started often as DJs and then made the transition into the lyrical art." Adam Bradley

Legends vs. The Hits This isn't a book about the best-selling rap records. There's no Vanilla Ice, M.C. Hammer or even Young M.C. The Anthology is about the lyrical prowess of rap and the artists that wrote those rhymes. In particular, Rakim is held in high regard. No doubt! God M.C.

"People had to go back and really start over with their lyrics once they heard Rakim. He's that kind of artist. Take one of his most famous lyrics, 'Microphone Fiend': 'I was a fiend before I became a teen. I melted microphones instead of cones of ice cream.' Just that little play of language." Adam Bradley

The Last Word

"What do I want people to take out of the book? I think I want people to take away a sense of rap in full. I think rap at its best is a keyhole into American culture over the last 30 plus years. It's a way in to think about all of the things that matter to us about this past four decades. And it's also something you can dance to. So how good is that?" Adam Bradley

My hip hop summer, 2010 in New York City

I went to New York to celebrate hip hop the old skool way...In the parks and graffiti walls across the boroughs. I went All-City: Bronx, Manhattan and Queens.

Here's my first attempt at a Google Map. It lists all my major hip hop destinations. I've customized the map icons and added some multimedia to the map so check it out by clicking on the (My hip hop summer New York, 2010) link at the bottom of the map. The full stories can be linked to below.


View My Hip Hop Summer, New York 2010 in a larger map

Turn the page The next five blogs will each cover my adventures, starting with the Tools of War "True School" park jam with DJ Cash Money from Philly on July 29th and ending with the "Digger's Delight" session with legendary DJ Muro from Japan on August 3rd.

• Tools of War True School NYC, Crotona Park with DJ Cash Money
• Cold Crush Brothers' 32nd Anniversary at the Hip Hop Cultural Center in Harlem
• All-City Blackbook Show at 5 Pointz
• Tuff City Styles tattoos, Bronx
• Tools of War Digger's Delight with DJ Muro