In a previous article I wrote on Kendrick Lamar's "Not Like Us" and rap's place within popular music, I argued that since the beginning of rap records, hip-hop culture's relationship to the music business in one way or another sought to package the art form into a popular product.
In particular, I took issue with the fact that many times rap is spoken about retrospectively as if it's purpose was always to elevate to it's current level of popularity within mainstream culture. Conversely, I argued that mainstream brands utilize hip-hop to elevate their own image and prospective profit.
However, in making this argument I feel I may have too narrowly defined hip-hop's relationship to the recording industry as being something that ran against the roots of hip-hop culture. While putting rap on record did augment it, there was still a close connection to the art form as it existed in live performance, which was sometimes recorded on bootleg tapes, or maybe even on film.
The Wild Style Effect
Beat This!: A Hip-Hop History is a 1984 BBC documentary directed by Dick Fontaine. Hosted and narrated by legendary rhyming disc jockey Gary Byrd, the film showcases or interviews various artists and musicians including Malcolm McLaren, Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, and Soul Sonic Force, all in an effort to showcase where hip-hop culture was going at the time and where its roots were within New York City and black history on a broader level.
In one among many great scenes, the Cold Crush Brothers perform a routine while DJ Charlie Chase plays the instrumental of “Gettin’ Money” by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
"Gettin' Money" was produced by Pumpkin, or Errol Eduardo Bedward, a legendary multi-instrumentalist and producer responsible for the music on various early rap records from labels like Enjoy, Profile, and Tuff City. The beat on this song in particular is based on Level 42’s “Starchild” from 1981.
In any case, I had not yet heard Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde's "Gettin' Money" when I first saw the scene of the Cold Crush performing over the beat, but I was blown away, and immediately began trying to shazam the performance and look up the lyrics, hoping to uncover what song this originated from.
I eventually found out that this particular performance did not come from a Cold Crush song, which on a certain level disappointed me. As someone who was born and started listening to rap music in the 2000s, my understanding of hip-hop culture was tied overwhelmingly to recorded songs and albums.
If you were a rapper, I expected you to have albums with songs that were easily accessible, an expectation that became challenged as I was exposed to groups like the Cold Crush Brothers, who while they do have songs on record, are probably best known for their live performances which are recorded on tape if at all.
In the " Whiplash snuffs the candle flame" chapter of The Rap Attack: African jive to New York hip hop (1984) by David Toop, Afrika Bambaataa explained that cassette tapes that recorded live performances were basically like the precursor to rap albums.
These tapes could be recorded by audience members, or by the artists themselves, like the Fearless Four, who would then sell them. Both through the tapes being played through boomboxes, and their being dubbed and traded, hip-hop traveled through New York's boroughs, the Tri-State Area, and even further throughout the country.
In the "Herculords at the Hevalo" chapter of Steven Hager's Hip Hop: The Illustrated History of Break Dancing, Rap Music, and Graffiti (1984), Hager states that bootleg tapes also passed through prisons as well as army bases across the globe.
While it is true that what you would hear on an early rap record was a departure from live hip-hop performances, they were still in many cases based off of the same format that was preserved on the tapes.
In my article on hip-hop production, I briefly mentioned that labels like Sugar Hill and Enjoy would use their house bands to replay break beats that were popular in the street, and which can be heard on tape. For example, on 1979's "Superrappin'" by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, the music is basically an interpolation of "Seven Minutes of Funk" by The Whole Darn Family.
Essentially, "Superrappin'" is a reworking of how the Furious Five would have performed their routines over the original beat, which you can actually hear on a 1979 tape of them rapping at T-Connection in the Bronx, archived on the YouTube channel of Troy Smith, who owns an extensive collection of hip-hop tapes.
As explained in JayQuan The Hip-Hop Historian's YouTube video on Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, the fact that beats were replayed by live bands on many early rap records is viewed by some as the beginning of the music industry's destruction of hip-hop, as the records excluded the DJ and essentially put them beneath the MC, breaking the core bond of hip-hop's musical elements.
However, even with this being the case, as rap music continued to develop there were certainly attempts to further the use of live recordings, transferring them from tape onto record, to show more fans the core source of hip-hop music.
“Death Mix – Live!!!,” a 12” single released by Paul Winley Records in 1983, originated as a taped recording of a performance of Afrika Bambaataa and other members of the Universal Zulu Nation at James Monroe High School in the Bronx in 1979.
The specific members present for this performance were Bambaataa, DJ Jazzy Jay, Kool DJ Red Alert, and Soul Sonic Force, whose line up at the time was Mr. Biggs, Pow Wow, Hutch Hutch, Lisa Lee, Sundance, Ice Ice, Master Bee, and Master Ice. Based on what Sundance says while emceeing, the Funky 4 + 1, with DJs Breakout and Baron, were also in attendance at the high school jam, possibly in competition with Bambaataa’s crew.
True to Bambaataa’s moniker, the “Master of Records,” the recording features the group moving through various beats from the likes of The Jackson 5, Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, Rick James and The Stone City Band, and Yellow Magic Orchestra.
While this is a legendary tape and 12" single, "Death Mix" was vehemently disliked by Afrika Bambaataa, particularly because of it's terrible sound quality due to it apparently being a dubbed copy of a tape, as he states in the "Raptivity in captivity" chapter of David Toop’s The Rap Attack.
Though Bambaataa's first songs were released through Paul Winley Records in 1980, "Zulu Nation Throw Down" with Cosmic Force and "Zulu Nation Throw Down (Volume #2)" with Soul Sonic Force, he actually only approached Winley as a last resort following unsuccessful attempts to work with Sugar Hill and Enjoy to get his ideas put out on record.
They weren't paid for the first "Zulu Nation Throw Down," though it became popular in the predominately white new wave scene in downtown Manhattan, while "Volume #2" didn't really do anything. Bambaataa had big ideas for his songs, but it seems that Paul Winley was not really matching his energy the way he wanted him to. In any case, the "Zulu Nation Throw Down" releases were not liked by Bambaataa or Winley.
I am not really sure if Bambaataa made the tape that became "Death Mix," or if he just gave a copy to Paul Winley, or if Winley ended up getting a hold of it later on. I also am not positive on why he decided to release it four years after it was recorded and three years since he last released something from Bambaataa.
Based on the description on the back, and the release year being 1983, it seems like Winley was not only trying to showcase Afrika Bambaataa's skills as a DJ, but also capitalizing on the success he and Soul Sonic Force were then getting from their widely acclaimed foundational electro classics on Tommy Boy Records like “Planet Rock,” “Looking For The Perfect Beat,” and “Renegades of Funk.”
Regardless of his reasoning, the vinyl release of the "Death Mix" tape is certainly a classic example of using the format of the rap record to showcase the party jam roots of the genre, unlike the previous records Bambaataa did with Paul Winley Records, which featured the house musicians known as the Harlem Underground Band.
As a more personally formative example, one of the earliest live recordings I heard was DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince's legendary "Live at Union Square, November 1986," which was featured on their sophomore album, He's The DJ, I'm The Rapper (1988).
I grew up thinking the four minute version on the album was the full length recording, but eventually discovered that a much longer version existed which Mr. Magic premiered on his "Rap Attack" radio show on WBLS as an exclusive. Mr. Magic also emceed for their performance at Union Square and introduced them onto the stage, which I believe explains why he had the tape.
The YouTube music channel Digging The Greats, run by the musician Brandon Shaw, just released the first of a four part series on the history and importance of mixtapes, which is very informative on this relationship between hip-hop, cassette tapes, and the radio.
In any case, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince's 1986 performance at Union Square again showcases how live performance and routines were the basis for how rap songs were created during the era. At the end of the recording, the Fresh Prince and the group's beatboxer, Ready Rock C, perform what would become the song "Rock The House," the title track of their debut album, which I don't think came out until 1987.
There were some attempts at live rap albums during the earliest days of hip-hop being put on record, particularly Live Convention '81 and Live Convention '82, I believe both recorded between T-Connection in the Bronx and the Celebrity Club in Harlem, before being released on Disc-O-Wax Records.
Disc-O-Wax was the label of Johnny Soul, a record store owner on 125th Street, right across from the Celebrity Club, who was responsible for getting the records marketed and pressed.
The Live Convention albums that were released were possibly following a failed attempt to get a Live Convention 1977-1979 album made from a mixtape edited together by a Bronx based engineer named Kenny Wilson, according to a 2007 interview with Wilson archived on the blog of Jeff Chang, author of Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation (2005).
Hip-hop artists such as Melle Mel, Sha Rock, Spicey Dee, Kool Moe Dee, Chief Rocker Busy Bee Starski, The Fantastic Five, Grand Wizzard Theodore, AJ Scratch, Grandmaster Flash, Easy Mike, and Disco Bee, are among those featured on the Live Convention albums from the early '80s.
In The Rap Attack, David Toop describes Live Convention '82 as a "bootleg" recording, and Kenny Wilson's interview also says that both albums that did get released were made from cassettes, which is apparent in their audio quality. The cover of Live Convention '81 also features a cartoon depicting what I believe is a DJ, hoisting up records while standing before a reel-to-reel tape machine, though on the next volume, this is changed to turntables.
Still, even with grainy audio the quality of the records is still note worthy, as they both utilize a sample of dialogue from the 1973 track "Academy Awards" by Masterfleet, in which Nichelle Nichols, known for portraying Uhura in the Star Trek franchise, reads the Academy Award nominations for best actor in a dramatic role, who in this skit are all black actors from black films in the early '70s.
Outside of the Live Convention albums, the most famous example of an attempt to transfer hip-hop culture directly to record, and film in this case, is probably Wild Style (1982), directed by Charlie Ahearn. He created the film in close collaboration with Fab 5 Freddy, a legendary visual artist, director, media personality, and musician within hip-hop, who also appears in the movie.
In his 1998 interview with Frank Broughton, digitally archived by Red Bull Music Academy in 2019, Fab 5 Freddy explains that being from Bed-Stuy, his earliest interaction with the beginnings of what would be hip-hop was through Brooklyn DJs such as the first grandmaster, Grandmaster Flowers, Frankie D, Master D, DJ Plummer, and Ras Maboya. There were also DJs from outside Brooklyn, such as Pete DJ Jones, who inspired Kurtis Blow and Grandmaster Flash among others.
While there is internal disagreement between the boroughs over if these DJs, who Fab 5 Freddy says are called "disco DJs," can be considered as hip-hop, they are clearly just as important as a Bronx DJ like Kool Herc in terms of laying the groundwork that hip-hop would spring forth from within New York's mobile DJ communities in the '70s.
As stated in Broughton's intro to the interview, and in the “Underground to the Mainstream” episode of Hip-Hop Evolution, directed by Darby Wheeler, an important factor in Wild Style being created was that Fab 5 Freddy's career as a painter, which started through graffiti, gave him close connections to the art scene in downtown Manhattan in neighborhoods like the East Village.
He was an associate of artists like Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and music groups like Blondie, Talking Heads, and Tom Tom Club. He is essentially one of the most important factors in how hip-hop culture began to be exposed to the predominantly white art, new wave and punk rock community.
This occurred both through Fab 5 Freddy introducing them to graffiti art, and through using his own connections and art shows to start the process of hip-hop acts like Afrika Bambaataa, DJ Jazzy Jay, Grand Mixer DXT, and the Cold Crush Brothers getting booked at downtown venues like the Mudd Club, Club 57, Negril, the Ritz, the Roxy, and Danceteria.
In David Toop's The Rap Attack, Bambaataa says that another very important factor in this process was once again the proliferation of cassette tapes that were played in boomboxes on the street and spread the music downtown as well.
In any case, Wild Style began in part as an attempt by Fab 5 Freddy to make sure that graffiti could not be ignored and pushed aside, through racism or pure ignorance, as a small "folk art thing" as he describes to Frank Broughton. He had read somewhere that for something to be considered culture it had to have music, painting, and dancing, so he wanted to show how graffiti was linked to breakdancing, and how both were linked to DJs and MCs.
I believe this is the first time that hip-hop culture was formulated in this way, which is common to do as of today, though back then each element was not necessarily linked together in such a direct fashion. Like an expansion of the cassette tapes, Wild Style was trying to do the best job to capture exactly what was happening in the very early '80s.
Charlie Ahearn did write a narrative for the film, centered on an artist name Raymond, whose graffiti writing persona is Zoro. He is played by Lee Quiñones, a graffiti artist who was a friend of Fab 5 Freddy's and a fellow member of the Fabulous 5 graffiti crew. Ahearn had been trying to make a film about Quiñones for a few years before Wild Style began filming in I believe 1981 according to his recent interview with Woodbury House.
However, the film is probably best known simply as a celebratory archive of the many artists, musicians, and dancers of the hip-hop scene, as well as other appearances from downtown figures like the actress Patti Astor, who plays the reporter named Virginia.
As Steven Hager states in the "But Is It Art?" chapter of Hip Hop: The Illustrated History of Break Dancing, Rap Music, and Graffiti, like her character in Wild Style, Astor became very interested in graffiti, co-founding the Fun Gallery with Bill Stelling, which showcased and sold the work of many artists, including but not limited to graffiti writers. Kenny Scharf, Fab 5 Freddy, Lee Quiñones, and Keith Haring are among those whose art was displayed there.
If, like me, you never directly saw battles that were captured on cassette tape, such as the Cold Crush Brothers and the Fantastic Five at Harlem World, Wild Style is perhaps the closest thing to being able to witness it in person through showing both groups perform at the Dixie Club, which was on Freeman Street in the Bronx. The Fantastic Five are credited as the Fantastic Freaks in the film, though.
Fab 5 Freddy was also the musical director for the film's soundtrack, which featured Charlie Ahearn and Chris Stein, the guitarist from Blondie, as producers. Fab 5 Freddy, along with a group of musicians including Chris Stein, created original break beats for the film since Ahearn didn't want to risk being sued, though some outside songs are featured, such as when Grand Mixer DXT plays "Good Times" by Chic during the credits.
The original song entitled "Down By Law," which features Fab 5 Freddy's voice, is rhymed over by almost every rapper in the film, which features a plethora of DJs including Grand Wizzard Theodore, Charlie Chase, Toney Tone, AJ Scratch, K. K. Rockwell, Stevie Steve, Grandmaster Flash, and Grand Mixer DXT.
In short, I believe Wild Style and the previous examples of live recordings showcase an important and very close relationship between hip-hop culture and recording mediums on various levels, from cassettes to vinyl all the way to film. While this relationship has certainly shifted as technology advanced and hip-hop's place in mainstream culture and the music industry developed, I don't think it's significance in archiving specific points in hip-hop history will ever go away.