As a diehard fan of Star Wars, I often liken the hip-hop DJ to Han Solo piloting the Millennium Falcon.
While other DJs are maybe comparable to an X-Wing fighter, traveling through space in a generally normal fashion at a standard speed, the techniques of a hip-hop DJ, or turntablist, push the listener into lightspeed and enter hyperspace, somehow bringing strange noises and pulses out of a record that anyone can play, just not in a hip-hop way.
To be clear, hyperspace in Star Wars is not simply the act of making your spaceship go fast but is itself another dimension which is accessed by first reaching lightspeed. In a strange way, I believe hip-hop operates in a similar fashion.
The musical element of the art form was built from compiling sounds from disparate locations, which I believe many times are acting as conduits of a pulse emanating from a core dimension of energy, like hyperspace, that the entire composition revolves around.
Flowin' in the wind
To try to explain my point a bit clearer, I will clarify that my reference to Star Wars is not focused specifically on outer space, but the idea of space in a sonic sense, meaning what space do you have to play around with on a recording?
Instead of the Millennium Falcon going through hyperspace, a boat going down a river works as a metaphor for basically the same point.
If you put your canoe in a flowing river, it will presumably begin to be taken in by the current and move in that direction. In short, there is an energy source, be it hyperspace or a river, and the canoe, or spaceship, now becomes one outlet that the energy is harnessed within and can now be utilized through.
Each separately created piece of a rap record, from the lyrics to the music, to the interplay between vocalists and music, in my opinion all paradoxically point to a central energy source undergirding everything.
To give a foundational example, one need look no further than the work of Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five. In the “Raptivity in captivity” chapter of David Toop’s The Rap Attack: African jive to New York hip hop (1984), Toop describes the highly impressive rhyming style and showmanship the Furious Five showcased on “Superappin” in 1979.
Like Voltron, Captain Planet, or G-Force (Science Ninja Team Gatchaman), The Furious Five, comprised of Melle Mel, Mr. Ness (later Scorpio), Raheim, Keef Cowboy, and The Kidd Creole, are each an individual unit that connect to form a whole, along with the fact that they are all the MCs who perform and boast on behalf of the “King of the Quick Mix,” Grandmaster Flash, and his DJ assistants EZ Mike and Disco Bee.
On “Superappin,” The Furious Five are a unified group of lyricists, though each break out to give their own individual verse or verses. On top of this, they also have routines where they divvy up lyrics between one another, splitting a rhyme between themselves at some points, and at others all coming together to rap in unison.
As they famously say on the record, beginning with Melle Mel by himself before everyone joins in, “to prove to you all we’re second to none, we’re gonna make five MCs sound like one!”
From one perspective, you could say that The Furious Five are five different MCs coming together to form a group. However, as the previously quoted lyric states, you can also view them as one MC that has been sliced into five pieces.
To circle back to my argument around how hip-hop has a unified core energy that can have disparate conduits, The Furious Five would basically be those conduits. There is a unified MC presence that exists, and we can hear a glimpse of it once they all perform together.
“Superappin’” was released on Bobby Robinson’s Enjoy Records in 1979, and as was the style with many early rap records, featured musicians replaying a break beat, in this case “Seven Minutes of Funk” by The Whole Darn Family.
However, just because DJs such as Flash, Disco Bee, or EZ Mike are not directly DJing on the song, does not mean that their presence, or the energy they harness through the turntables, is not felt in some other way.
The choice of a song to interpolate is of course presumably based on what these DJs would have been playing in a live performance, and they are all of course woven into the routines The Furious Five perform, with Flash being the centerpiece if they discuss their DJs.
However, I would argue that the presence of the DJs on the song, Flash specifically, goes even beyond this. As David Toop points out in The Rap Attack, The Furious Five not only split lyrics up and perform them in unison, they also vocally mimic turntable techniques.
At one point very early in the song, they exclaim “knowing that Flash was on the beat box,” before saying “going that Flash was on the beat box” two more times in a row.
On their fourth time saying this lyric, the group instead says “going” and holds the word for a few seconds, before saying the word “an” four times, split between four bars. This is a very repetitive moment in the song, as in each of the four bars that begin with the Furious Five saying “an,” the musicians also replay essentially the same phrase of music, if that terminology is appropriate.
Basically, even though Grandmaster Flash is not DJing on the song, this section sounds as if it is recreating what it’s like for a DJ to continuously loop a specific groove in a record, or as David Toop puts it, to pick up and drop the stylus back in the same groove over and over, hence why The Furious Five keep repeating the same word.
I believe this directly relates to my point regarding energy in hip-hop, and how it can be harnessed in various ways. While Grandmaster Flash and his DJ techniques would usually be the source of a looping musical backdrop, The Furious Five themselves, along with the musicians playing on the song, can create that same effect in their own fashion.
Though hip-hop production and lyricism would certainly shift through the years after 1979, I don’t believe the tendency for hip-hop to use disparate pieces to harness a unified energy ever went away.
The trading of lyrics between multiple people within hip-hop groups is perhaps not associated with any artists more than Run-DMC, the name itself being a combination of the names of the group’s two MCs, Run (DJ Runnin’ Things) and D.M.C. (Devastating Mic Control).
Run-DMC’s trademark was not only great music, but their tag team approach as a duo, rather than a larger crew such as The Furious Five or Cold Crush Brothers, that could finish each other’s rhymes, and of course co-ordinate routines with Jam-Master Jay.
The title track of the group’s sophomore album King of Rock (1985) features lyrics such as “They call us ill, we’re gettin’ illa. There’s no one chilla. It’s not Michael Jackson, and this is not Thriller.” These two bars could very easily be said by one MC, but are instead cut into pieces and passed back and forth between Run and DMC.
This is the same phenomenon The Furious Five were displaying on “Superappin,’” though it was now been condensed to only go between two people.
The two-person rhyming dynamic Run-DMC is famous for had certainly been showcased or experimented with by others by the time they debuted on record in 1983. There had been duos off record since the '70s, such as Melle Mel and his brother Kidd Creole, and by the time rap records were being made in the early '80s, there were artists such as Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde.
Like Run-DMC, Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde primarily recorded for Profile Records, with their first song on the label as a duo I believe being 1981's "Genius Rap," based on "Genius of Love" by Tom Tom Club. Previously in 1980, and before they joined Profile, the pair had been featured on the A-side of "Rappers Convention" and on "Love Rap" with Lady Smiley, the B-side to Smiley's "Let's Rock."
Both of these singles from 1980 were on Jack Taylor's Tay-Ster label, which had a few very early '80s rap releases that featured Harlem World affiliated acts who, save for Lovebug Starski on "Positive Life," were credited in writing only as "Harlem World Crew," though in the songs you can often hear the artists say their names multiple times.
As a quick aside, "Harlem World Crew" was the name of an actual collective based at the club rather than only being for record, as explained in JohnG's 2010 post on OldSchoolHipHop about the group, which featured information given by some past members, specifically MC Charlie Rock, who along with MC Son Of Sam performed on the B-side of "Rappers Convention."
The back and forth rhyme style was also famously utilized by the duo Double Trouble from Wild Style (1982), directed by Charlie Ahearn, which consisted of K.K. Rockwell and Lil' Rodney C, who had both been members of the Funky 4 + 1.
According to the overview of the group's history by JayQuan The Hip-Hop Historian, Charlie Ahearn had wanted to do a documentary, which I believe became Wild Style, in which he wanted to showcase the Funky 4 + 1, but they were unable to join the project because of their contracts with Sugar Hill Records.
Only two members, K.K. Rockwell and Rodney C, were willing to get out of their contracts with Sugar Hill Records to join Ahearn's project, which they did with help from a lawyer they met through Debbie Harry of Blondie, Harry having befriended the group and gotten them to perform on Saturday Night Live on Valentines Day 1981 when she hosted, making television history as Kaitlin Kimont notes in her 2025 article for NBC.
In short, the exit of K.K. Rockwell and Rodney C from the Funky 4 + 1 and their involvement in Wild Style resulted in their appearance as Double Trouble, though the two would continue to release music together, such as under the name The Deuce when they signed to Capitol Records. The name change was due to guitarist and singer Stevie Ray Vaughan owning the rights to the name "Double Trouble" on account of his titular band.
In 1998, Yasiin Bey (then Mos Def) and Talib Kweli, comprising the duo Black Star, directly referenced Double Trouble’s “Stoop Rap” and performance at the amphitheater, both from Wild Style, on their song “B Boys Will B Boys” from their self-titled debut project.
The following year, Yasiin Bey would do a similar homage alongside Black Thought on the aptly named “Double Trouble” for The Roots’ fourth album, Things Fall Apart (1999). The song also featured references to artists like The Honey Drippers, James Brown’s emcee and "cape man" Danny Ray, Run-DMC, Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, Kurtis Blow, and Pow Wow of Soul Sonic Force, largely conjured through Bey mimicking a DJ scratching and mixing records.
Now, if a quintet like The Furious Five or a duo like Yasiin Bey and Black Thought can link together to create a unified musical front, you could probably guess that through the ingenuity of using a recorded format, one could also multiply themselves to play multiple roles for a song which may otherwise require various people.
This is a signature style of Slick Rick, perhaps best displayed on his debut solo project The Great Adventures of Slick Rick (1988).
In terms of his career before going solo, Slick Rick, or MC Ricky D, was a founding member of the Kangol Crew, formed at LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and which also featured the likes of Dana Dane, before Rick joined and started his recording career as a member of The Get Fresh Crew alongside Doug E. Fresh and the DJs Chill Will and Barry Bee.
Within The Get Fresh Crew, Slick Rick could rap and sing, exchanging lyrics between himself and Doug E. Fresh, who provided the beatbox as he rhymed. If Slick Rick was telling a story, such as on “La-Di-Da-Di,” Doug E. Fresh could beatbox and voice some of the supporting characters, like the magic mirror on Rick’s wall.
As Slick Rick explains in his 2011 lecture and interview with Jeff “Chairman” Mao for Red Bull Music Academy, he was highly influenced by classic groups such as The Cold Crush Brothers, who were led by a master storyteller and lyricist in Grandmaster Caz, who also crafted routines that allowed the group to sing, often interpolating preexisting songs, and pass lyrics between each other.
This would all appear in Slick Rick’s work, both when he was with The Get Fresh Crew, and afterwards when he went solo.
Instead of having another person like Doug E. Fresh who he could go back and forth with, if Slick Rick was playing multiple characters on The Great Adventures, or simply rapping in a question-and-answer format, he would have to multitrack, basically recording one side of the exchange before rewinding the tape to record the other voice.
For example, on “Mona Lisa,” Slick Rick plays every character, not only performing rapped lyrics from various perspectives, but also saying conversational ad-libs in the background as another character performs, immersing the listener in the setting, in this case primarily the pizza shop where Rick and Mona Lisa meet.
Even if Slick Rick isn’t switching between characters on “Mona Lisa,” he still utilizes multitracking and does one person's lyrics in a what sounds like a back-and-forth rhythm. This effect is given a contextual explanation at the beginning of the song, which opens with an emcee at a show, voiced by Rick, introducing Slick Rick The Ruler and MC Ricky D, who are performing “Mona Lisa” together.
So, if you imagine the idea of “Mona Lisa” as the source of energy, then the various pieces brought in to execute the song sonically become the conduits of that energy. Slick Rick could have easily gotten other people to voice the other characters, but he decided to fill those spots himself at different points in time.
Different from Rick’s approach, but equally intriguing, is the option to utilize direct samples to provide the other voices, a method utilized heavily by Public Enemy, and their production team, The Bomb Squad, whose members included the likes of brothers Keith and Hank Shocklee and Eric Sadler, the latter two also doing production work on Slick Rick’s debut project.
Public Enemy’s sophomore album, It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988), is often viewed as one of if not the game changing album for hip-hop sampling techniques in the late ‘80s, which I believe relates directly to this question of harnessing energy in the music.
On one hand, It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back sounds like it was made from very disjointed pieces, which it was. However, in another sense, it sounding like so many pieces being strung together highlights the unity in the underlying message and formation of the group.
Chuck D and Flava Flav are polar opposites, which makes sense for why they make such a perfect duo as MC and hype man, with Flava also being an MC by himself, such as on “Cold Lampin’ With Flavor.”
Furthermore, even though their personas are not similar, Chuck D and Flava Flav still utilize the same back and forth format of Double Trouble and Run-DMC.
On “Don’t Believe The Hype,” the fourth verse opens with Chuck D saying, “I got Flavor, and all those things you know,” before Flava gives the follow up bar, “Yeah boy, part two Bum Rush The Show.” Flava than says “Yo Griff,” which is immediately followed by Chuck D coming back to finish the line with, “get the green, black and red and. Gold down, countdown to Armageddon!”
Chuck D and Flava Flav are both playing the roles that “Don’t Believe The Hype” requires of them, whether that means rapping multiple bars or splitting one bar between themselves, with the overarching goal being to express the message the song is trying to convey.
Coupled with Terminator X as a DJ, and the sampling frenzies brought on by The Bomb Squad, using equipment like the E-mu SP-1200, and Public Enemy can essentially bring any recorded material into the fray to harness and express their message.
Near the very end of “Louder Than A Bomb,” Chuck D, who has been going off for the entire song, splits a pair of bars not with Flava Flav on this occasion, but with Kurtis Blow and Lyonie James.
On paper, the bars are “The voice of choice, the place shakes with bass, called ‘One for the treble,’ the rhythm is the rebel!”
Chuck D says the first half, but the word “One” is said by Kurtis Blow, sampled from the intro to “AJ Scratch,” which has been sampled many times, the song itself featuring triggered samples, including of Kurtis Blow's voice, through the use of a Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument), according to part two of JayQuan The Hip-Hop Historian’s overview of Kurtis Blow’s discography.
After Kurtis Blow says “One,” the “for the treble” part is said by musician, vocalist, and MC Lyonie James, sampled from her iconic spoken intro to Davy DMX’s “One For The Treble (Fresh).” Chuck D then comes back in to say “The Rhythm is the rebel!”
Simply put, the second bar in this pair was stitched together rather than simply said by Chuck D. However, within the context of "Louder Than A Bomb," having three people say the bar adds particular weight, as the entire premise of the album, of needing "a nation of millions to hold us back," is made clear sonically through hearing how much sound Public Enemy has at their disposal.
Even though Chuck D may be the only voice you hear at times, he is not actually the only voice speaking, or the only source of energy behind Public Enemy. Through their use of sampling, you in a way gain more audible awareness of the larger scope of people they are attempting to speak to and enliven in their music, particularly black youth, and the figures the group identifies with, such as Malcolm X, whose voice is also sampled on It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.
In short, I believe that all hip-hop, seeing as it is a communal art form, deals in some way with this idea of harnessing energy through various avenues. There is a core energy, but it does not have to be expressed or channeled in one location.
Like the idea of everything being on the musical and spiritual "One" in funk music, in hip-hop, MCs, DJs, producers, breakdancers, graffiti artists, audience members, and the various people who are sampled or referenced in their works, are all brought together to channel a base energy in whatever way they can.