If anything is definitively said regarding hip-hop, it is usually that it is an art form of endless competition. In terms of rap music specifically, its competitive nature is often depicted as a consequence of the hyper-masculine "keep it real" identity the genre is claimed to always wear in its default form.
However, I am not sure if that explains the full origins of competition in hip-hop. At least in its earliest stages, the urge to compete was something hip-hop inherited due to its origin as an art form practiced at the neighborhood level. In fact, the competition inherent within hip-hop and rap music is likely the same competition that existed in an earlier genre such as doo-wop.
Though kids standing on a corner singing nonsense syllables and lyrics about falling in love may not sound too similar to the aggressive rhyming we associate with rap battles, I believe the competitive edge of the latter was present in the former.
It is always important to make clear that doo-wop was a dominant art form in some of the same black urban communities where hip-hop would emerge in the 1970s, only a decade or so into the future.
The kindred competition of doo-wop and hip-hop
Even if hip-hop has a more rugged and macho appearance on the exterior in comparison to doo-wop, upon further inspection, I believe there are direct links and interactions between the two art forms, in particular because of their urban setting.
As a good geographically placed example of both genres interacting with the same space, Mark Naison’s article “Morrisania: The birthplace of hip hop,” first published in The Bronx County Historical Society Journal in 2007, paints an expansive picture of the musical history of the Morrisania neighborhood in the South Bronx.
Amongst the many artists who had lived or played at venues in Morrisania, encompassing genres like rhythm and blues, funk, soul, bebop, Latin jazz, and mambo, Naison also points out that Morris High School and Public School 99 were home to a vast array of teenage doo-wop acts, who were able to hone their skills and get exposure at talent shows like the ones held at PS 99’s night center.
Outside of school, Morrisania’s street corners and stoops were home to an endless number of groups, some of the most notable in the recording world being the Chords, known for “Sh-Boom” from 1954, and the Chantels, perhaps best known for 1957’s “Maybe” or 1961’s “Look in My Eyes.”
As Naison points out, there were important socioeconomic shifts in New York City that surrounded the doo wop and hip-hop eras. The black and Latino families who moved from Harlem to the South Bronx during WWII, in the years prior to doo-wop's beginnings, did so based on the resources they possessed to move to what was then a more affluent area of the city compared to where they were coming from.
Conversely, hip-hop emerged in the post-Civil Rights era as the blacks and Latinos in the South Bronx who lacked said mobilizing resources were forced to live amidst increasingly impoverished conditions and intentionally declining social welfare structures within the nearly bankrupt New York City of the 1970s.
Still, even with these huge shifts within the city, Morrisania was a breeding ground for hip-hop artists just the same as it had been for doo-wop. DJs such as Lovebug Starksi, Grand Wizzard Theodore, and Grandmaster Flash, as well as their associated crews like the Cold Crush Brothers, all spent time honing their craft and approach to performance in the neighborhood.
Future artists such as KRS-One and Fat Joe both lived in Morrisania for a time in their lives, the latter in Forest Houses, while the former stayed in a homeless shelter in an armory on 166th Street and Franklin Avenue.
In short, I mention all of this just to show how close both doo-wop and hip-hop can be in terms of locale, and in their prevalence amongst black youth. By establishing these basic similarities, I think it can become clearer how hip-hop's drive for competition emerged, at least in part, from this earlier genre.
In particular, in their extensive guide The Complete Book of Doo-Wop (2009), Dr. Anthony J. Gribin and Dr. Matthew M. Schiff discuss a sub-genre of doo-wop they title “Gang Doo-Wop,” which is basically a category they use to describe doo-wop groups who in some way patterned their identity and singing style after the tough and boastful personas associated with street gangs.
This is connected to a larger trend in doo-wop, as there were various vocal groups who were connected to the gangs or clubs that formed within their communities, gangs which convened in the streets in locations such as local parks or sometimes playgrounds.
These are of course the same kinds of spaces where hip-hop began, as an offshoot of the mobile DJ scene and the various traveling sound systems in the boroughs of '70s New York. MC Shan famously stated that “hip-hop, was set out in the dark, they used to do it out in the park,” on his 1986 classic, “The Bridge” with Marley Marl.
In a way that is possibly similar to how Bronx DJs like Disco King Mario and Afrika Bambaataa were members of the infamous Black Spades, gangs of the doo-wop era and even earlier sometimes had singing groups within their ranks, who instead of fighting could engage in “singing rumbles,” basically a singing competition or talent show that could be held at a community center or a park.
Like the b-boys and girls within hip-hop performing in these same kinds of locations, a singing rumble essentially meant each side was singing to protect the reputation of their gang and neighborhood, especially considering that the audiences for these competitions were largely people from the respective neighborhoods counting on their side to win.
Dr. Gribin and Schiff also mention that people connected to record labels could attend singing rumbles, or that the event itself may have been attached to potentially getting a record made. Just like the talent shows held for the kids in Morrisania, these were important ways for groups to get exposure.
This same format of fishing for talent amongst black youth in New York was famously utilized for the fictionalized origin of the Fat Boys, or Disco 3, in Krush Groove (1985), directed by Michael Schultz. In the film, the Fat Boys' continually try to gain entrance and compete in talent contests at the Disco Fever, facing off with acts like New Edition and the Beastie Boys.
They group also battles their young Sutra Records label mate Chad, who performs a cover of Frankie Lymon & The Teenager's 1956 hit "I Want You To Be My Girl," which he also released as a single in 1985. As a result of the exposure they get from competing, the Fat Boys gain the backing of Kurtis Blow, and in the end win a record contract with Tin Pan Apple as a first place prize.
Past the point of simply finding talented doo-wop artists, the strategy for marketing said talent could also rely on the use of competition. Dr. Gribin and Dr. Schiff point to The Paragons Meet The Jesters, an album released I believe in 1959 on Jubilee Records, which was basically marketed and crafted as if these two New York doo-wop groups were having a singing rumble.
The cover photo for The Paragons Meet The Jesters, taken by Charles Varon, featured two bikers, or greasers, one visibly showing the word “Jesters” written on the back of his jacket. The perspective of the photo also shows a third figure standing in the foreground, presumably a member of the Paragons, meaning a rumble was about to occur.
Though the actors on the cover were white, unlike the groups on the album, the cover reinforced a connection between their competition as music artists and urban gang feuds, with the write up on the back clarifying that it wasn't a physical beef, but a "rumble on the 'beat.'"
Though the Paragons and Jesters were singing about romance on many songs, they were both amongst the more stylistically tough and rugged doo-wop groups that Dr. Gribin and Dr. Schiff categorized as "Gang Doo-Wop," a good number of whom were from New York.
Still, compared to what toughness would eventually look like in rap songs, this was much tamer. Jubilee would continue using this marketing strategy on The Cadillacs Meet The Orioles, a follow-up released, I believe, in 1960, with essentially the same format used for these two groups instead.
Even though The Paragons Meet The Jesters had been released on Jubilee, to my knowledge this was in collaboration with the label that the Jesters and the Paragons actually recorded many of their singles for, which was Winley Records.
Winley would go on to reissue this album on their label multiple times, and in the early ‘60s released War! The Jesters Vs. The Paragons, their own follow up to the previous rumble. Instead of sequencing the songs of each group to go back and forth, this album split the group’s music. The A-side was for the Jesters and the B-side was for the Paragons.
This marketing scheme of putting groups in competition would still be utilized in later eras of soul music, which featured many acts who had began as doo-wop groups that formed at school or in the neighborhood, and whose singers many times began honing their voice in the church or within a more familial environment prior to their teenage years.
As one example,The Dells Vs. Dramatics album from 1974, featuring cover art by cartoonist Jack Davis, depicted the two groups in a chaotic basketball game, while the overall design, courtesy of Neil Terk, Ted Amber, and the agency Davis Fried Krieger Inc., followed this same idea of treating the groups like basketball rosters.
The Dells Vs. Dramatics was also made of new collaborative material, where the groups not only had their own songs, but also ones where they performed together. This use of the album format was some steps further thanThe Paragons Meet The Jesters, which was basically a collection of singles.
Outside of soul music, hip-hop records, which were very much focused on singles rather than albums in their earliest era, relied on the same strategy of using musical competition to market their artists. In 1981, Sugar Hill released “Showdown,” a song in which the Furious Five met and battled the Sugarhill Gang. This song was also featured on the Sugarhill Gang’s sophomore album 8th Wonder (1981).
In 1983, Sugar Hill, in collaboration with a French label called Disques Vogue, released the Crash Crew Meets Funky Four, a compilation album I believe made specifically for France. Like War! The Jesters Vs. The Paragons, the A-side was Funky Four singles, while the B-side was the same from the Crash Crew.
Doo-wop is certainly not the only factor in how hip-hop gained it's competitive edge. However, I hope these examples do demonstrate that it contains many significant parallels with hip-hop, particularly in how they were marketed, and how they achieved their popularity, first within urban black youth culture, and then American popular culture on the world stage.