In my opinion, the most dominant topic within rap discourse is the question of who innovates the genre. From old school legends such as Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash, to the likes of JID and Doechii today, there is a constant focus on finding who can be labeled as striking out against the norms of rap.
While it is well-intended, I think it has the unintended side effect of potentially detaching this artist from the genre they are a part of.
In P. Gabrielle Foreman’s essay “Black Organizing, Print Advocacy, and Collective Authorship: The Long History of the Colored Conventions Movement,” a chapter within The Colored Conventions Movement: Black Organizing in the Nineteenth Century (2021), she speaks on a tendency within the practice of American history to focus on and mythologize individual creation, something which can become problematic when studying black literary figures, whose work was very community based.
The hip-hop quartet conundrum
To be clear, Foreman is speaking within the context of 19th-century black history and print culture. However, I still believe her point regarding the need to more fully realize the importance of communal work resonates within a discussion of hip-hop, especially its history within the black community.
While the need to find and label innovators in the genre is important, I believe it can sometimes create an odd understanding of how hip-hop artists actually relate to the community and history they are now part of.
Especially for newer listeners, it may not even be clear how exactly artists emanate from the community of hip-hop culture in the first place, especially as there is a constant string of lists being made ranking rappers and competing them against one another rather than joining them.
When I say rap discourse may focus too much on trying to find individual innovators, I do not mean to say that it is bad to positively remark on someone being unique or doing incredible work. Rather, I feel that there is so much attention placed on rappers and artists as individuals that the communal side of rap music, which is how it originated, is not being properly presented.
My main theory as to why this is relates to our understanding of history and how to value it within the world of hip-hop.
For example, if you have been on social media within the past decade and are interested in anything related to rap, at some point you may have seen a black and white clip of a gospel quartet named the Jubalaires, previously the Royal Harmony Singers and Royal Harmony Quartet, performing their song "Noah," I believe in 1946.
Similar to the titling of the above linked video, when this performance showed up on social media it often was christened as the "first rap song." A part of this was certainly in jest, as people would sometimes joke that one of the members, I believe Theodore Brooks, resembled the Atlanta rapper Lil Baby.
However, as of now, whenever I hear the Jubalaires mentioned, it is somehow in reference to their being early pioneers or inventors of rap music due to their rhythmic style of talk singing.
As should be clear, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with giving praise to a quartet as amazing as the Jubalaires. But, something that does concern me is that the praise for their group was not coupled, at least not on social media, with any further exploration of the music scene they existed within during the early and mid-20th century.
They were simply labeled as the first rappers, and that was it. There didn't seem to be any further need to focus on them within rap discourse.
In short, the only focus on history in this context is to find people that can be labeled "inventors," rather than truly getting a sense of where the group came from. As I said before, my issue with the current approach towards rap history is that it can potentially mislead people.
If we made more room for a community-focused approach to history, it would be easier to discover that there were various other black gospel quartets and groups who rhymed and had routines like the Jubalaires.
If one listens to the recordings of groups such as the Pilgrim Travelers or the Golden Gate Quartet, to name a few, they will hear the same rhyme style and rapping cadence as the Jubalaires.
One very important reason to note for these similarities in style is that some of these gospel quartets would feature some of the same members at different points in their careers, particularly the Golden Gate Quartet and the Jubalaires, as men such as Orville Brooks and Willie Johnson had tenures working for both.
Another crucial aspect is that, in various cases, these gospel groups were doing their renditions of songs they had not written.
The Golden Gate Quartet's rendition of "Preacher and the Bear" is from 1937, preceding the Jubalaires' cover in the 1940s, but still long after the song was first written by George Fairman in 1904 and recorded by Arthur Collins in 1905 for the racist but popular "c**n song" genre of the era. The Prairie Ramblers' version of the song, also from 1937, retained the racist lyrics.
Before the Pilgrim Travelers' version of "Jesus Hits Like The Atom Bomb" was released in 1950, the Charming Bells had released what may have been the original in 1949, written by Lee V. McCullom. The overall rhyming structure of both is practically the same, though the ending of the second verse on the Pilgrim Travelers' version has extra lyrics.
In short, I hope it is clear that there are countless avenues for exploration one can take into the history of gospel quartets just based on the intrigue created by hearing the rhyming style of the Jubalaires. I feel that this exploration is, in a way, discouraged if rap discourse gets into such a rush to label someone as the "inventor" or the "pioneer."
If the individual becomes the focal point to that extent, there is probably no more reason to explore further into history.