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GEETEE(HPK) (geeteehpk)
3-Pundit
Username: geeteehpk
Post Number: 46
Registered: 9-2004
Posted From: 24.12.70.162
| | Posted on Thursday, October 07, 2004 - 11:24 am: �� |   ��� |
I was wondering if anyone on the forum is watching the 5 part series on hip hip, that aired this week on VH-1. Any thoughts about the program? |
Gary (gary)
5-Doyen
Username: gary
Post Number: 210
Registered: 4-2004
Posted From: 66.73.238.2
| | Posted on Thursday, October 07, 2004 - 11:47 am: �� | ��� |
I watched the two episodes that were aired last night and I thought the documentary was very well done. I'm not a member of the hip-hop generation, but my daughter is, so are my nieces and nephews, therefore, I've been exposed to rap and hip hop since the very beginning. I've always enjoyed and appreciated much of the early, pre-gangsta rap music; particularly Public Enemy and Run DMC.
To think that a relatively small group of young people from Brooklyn, and The Bronx could create a style of music, dress, dancing, language and culture that would eventually become recognized all over the world and become what we now call "Hip Hop Culture" is truly amazing. I gotta give it up to those young folks. Their contributions to music are no less significant than those of the early R&B/Rock and Roll/Pop music pioneers that came before them. |
Juicefree20 (juicefree20)
6-Zenith
Username: juicefree20
Post Number: 2754
Registered: 4-2004
Posted From: 56.0.103.24
| | Posted on Thursday, October 07, 2004 - 12:23 pm: �� | ��� |
As a New Yorker, I've been following & taping this show. What I appreciate about this series is that they finally got it right. So many other "documentaries" have been written by folks who clearly didn't know what they were talking about. In this one, they truly went to the roots! From everything that I recall of those early days, they hit it dead on!! |
Morgan (leeway)
4-Laureate
Username: leeway
Post Number: 103
Registered: 4-2004
Posted From: 68.41.236.206
| | Posted on Friday, October 08, 2004 - 7:21 am: �� | ��� |
I love this!!
I am a true fan of the old school rap and this is just a wonderful series!! |
GEETEE(HPK) (geeteehpk)
3-Pundit
Username: geeteehpk
Post Number: 47
Registered: 9-2004
Posted From: 24.12.70.162
| | Posted on Friday, October 08, 2004 - 4:28 pm: �� | ��� |
I thought it was very well documented. I really enjoyed the beginning of the rap era,when the music was safe. I too was one of those that thought it was a fad and that it wouldn't last.
(little did I know) Just to think,it's 30 years old? (damn...)
I'm not fond of the diection it's in today,but I'm glad someone gave some props and decide to do a 5 part series on rap music.
Now if there can only do one on Soul music and this time DO IT RIGHT! (not the one that aired a few years ago on VH-1) |
Juicefree20 (juicefree20)
6-Zenith
Username: juicefree20
Post Number: 2782
Registered: 4-2004
Posted From: 24.46.184.162
| | Posted on Friday, October 08, 2004 - 9:00 pm: �� | ��� |
What's up everyone!
Gee, I was a DJ back then & I have to tell you that I too thought that it was a fad that would pass. To be honest, I hoped that it would & I'll tell you why.
The first Rap record that I heard was actually King Tim The III by Fatback in the Summer of '79. It wasn't a "straight" Rap record, as Fatback sang on the song as well. However, here in New York, we loved it & it got major play on the streets for a month. AND THEN!!!! Around September or October, along came Rappers Delight & blew up! Of course it got over, by sampling the biggest R&B hit of that year, Good Times. Some of Rap songs that year(like the Winley releases), were examples of bandwagon jumping & not very good. However songs like Looking Good by Eddie Cheeba, Kurtis Blow's Christmas Rappin', Spoonin' Rap by Spoonie Gee & Funk You Up by The Sequence were excellent.
My problem with Rap was the type of crowd that it attracted. Brothers used to jam in the park, or hook up to a light pole & play on their block. Invariably, some knuckleheads would start a fight & out came the guns. At that time, gunplay was rare in my neck of the woods. Brothers had been playing music in the parks for years without incident. But, the Rap crowd was truly a different breed. Where once upon a time, a jam in the park meant fun, dancing & chilling, these brothers turned it into something entirely different. There was more tension & definitely the constant threat of violence. For reasons that I still don't understand, there was something about that Rap element that brought problems with it.
Even when Flash or any of the South Bronx pioneers jammed, they knew that violence could be one step away. In fact, at one of their early jams, Cowboy, or Kid Creole had been shot. Stickups were frequent & so was violence. We didn't experience that at the Discos, nowhere near that scale of violence occurred. And that was way before Gangster Rap, when Hip Hop went haywire.
I DJed at a skating rink in Queens & fellas from the 40 Projects used to hang out there. Most of them didn't skate, they just hung around. Then, the trouble started. They'd grab girls crotches, if they skated close to the rail, throw skates & basically start shit. It all came to a head one night, when our manager decided to rent the spot out for a Battle Of The Boroughs Rap show. Back then, Manhattan didn't like Brooklyn, Brooklyn didn't like Queens. Everybody thought that Queens were punks & nobody liked The Bronx. Everyone was pitted against one another & the tension was real.
Now, I knew what the potential was & I told them that they could let someone else work that night. I woke up the next morning to a phone call telling me that there had been a shootout. I was worried that there would be robbings & beef between the boroughs. The shootout was between one side of the projects against the other side.
Now, me being from Brooklyn, I wasn't worried about anyone from Queens, as I lived & hung there as well. However, a few years later I learned through the newspapers that I was in the midst of some of the most notorious gangsters in New York. At that time (1982), crack wasn't in vogue & the drug wars hadn't started yet. That shootout was the beginnings of that mid 80s to early '90s wave of drug violence. Naive as I was, I never even realized what was surrounding me.
Like I said, in those days when you lived in Brooklyn, you just didn't view brothers from Queens as a threat. Well, I had no idea that I should have been worried. Those brothers weren't like the old Queens brothers. In just a few years, everyone would discover that.
That was my biggest problem with Rap. It wasn't the music, the music was about having fun, partying & innocent stuff. Once Flash & The Furious Five's classic, The Message hit, musically, the game changed forever & brought out a lot of tension & negativity. However, it was the element that embraced Rap that was the problem & in my opinion ruined it forever. |
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