In its essence, hiphop is party music. Born in New York, during the seventies, it sprang to life from the efforts of Jamaican mobile deejays, like Kool Herc, who threw jams in the neighborhood parks of the South Bronx. These deejays would plug their massive, home-built stereo systems into power illegally tapped from the streetlights, spinning records for throngs of youth, competing amongst themselves to see who could throw the best party, who had the baddest sound system. While everyone else was decrying the sorry state of popular music (‘disco sucks, dude!’), these pioneers took what was needful, the best parts of records. I guess you could call it deconstruction. And hasn’t black music always been about the beat? Proto-hiphop was sound, broken down to its very last compound.

An eight-minute record of pure garbage, to the discerning ears of early deejays, might yield two or three seconds of a drum break – they would catch these breaks, maybe right before a bunch of overblown, overproduced strings and stuff came in to ruin the vibe – and go back and forth between two turntables with copies of the same record, using a ‘mixer’ to switch the output so that it came from the turntable of their choice. The result was something new. Call it musical chitlins an’ collards, as they fed the masses of party people with audible castoffs and scraps.

As the early deejays entertained crowds at parties, there was always an underlying sense of competition, a need to outperform all others (not to mention, a need to not get booed, stabbed or shot at). They’d talk to the crowd, over the microphone, encouraging people to dance and shout to show their appreciation. This early rapping would usually take the form of call and response, drawing on the ancient African mode of communal communication.

"Make some noise!" "if you wanna party, let me hear you Scream!", "to let me know that you like the show, somebody say Ho!", and similar exhortations were answered with enthusiasm when the deejaywas "rockin' the house."

Eventually, the call-and-response routines would grow more complex, involving boastful storytelling, creating the need for the separation of the rapping and deejaying duties. Soon, deejays had "crews" of several rappers, or MC's (emcees – Masters of Ceremony) as they became known, who initially shared the spotlight and later assumed roles of increasing importance in the New York party scene. These emcees would go on to develop unique lyrical and narrative styles, under the heat of intense competition with rival deejay groups. Grand Wizard Theodore, a deejay, and apprentice of sorts to Grandmaster Flash, noticed that moving the record back and forth while the needle was in place created interesting effects. His experimentation lead to the development of "scratching" -- the purely percussive elements of record manipulation. Flash took scratching and “cutting” (the insertion of small bits of music or sound from one record over another) to the levels of high art, making the turntable an instrument, something that poor kids could use in lieu of saxophones and trumpets to express their musical sensibilities, using prerecorded sounds as colors to be splashed on a pallete of beats. Again, all of these techniques were honed via competition during fierce ‘battles’, in which ‘hood fame and props went to the victor and shame and chagrin went to the loser. Call it free market hiphop.

I wasn’t at the park jams, separated by age and geography, but the sense of hiphop as party music and collaborative performance art, was transmitted palpably through the wax, as deejays across the northeast, at least, took notice that this was the music that the kids wanted to hear. Hiphop rocked the gyms and rec centers and kept us off the streets.

We’d have parties anywhere we could -- fresh kids, b-boys and b-girls staying hot in cold Jersey winters -- we was sweating, dancing to breakbeats in bomber jackets that we couldn’t put down if wanted to see ‘em again. In South Main St. school, an ocean of blue and black ski-hats bobbed up and down in unison, united in rhythm, as we did “The Smurf” to Tyrone Brunson’s classic instrumental. By the time ‘Buffalo Gals’ came on, Malcolm McLaren’s brit-synth grooves, providing a sonic platform for the rhyming and scratching of the World Famous Supreme Team, you had to push your way onto the floor and fight to stay there. I did most of my work near the strobe light, until I got a lil’ older and more confident in my dancing abilities (anything look fly in the strobe light).

The zenith of gymnasium jams was in the auditorium at St. Pete’s, the local Catholic school, which stood out in the middle of town like a run down castle clad in tan stucco. By this time, folks were past just spinning, as the techniques for rocking parties like they did in NYC began to disseminate through word of mouth, family reunions, and kids whose moms’ sent them away from the Big Apple to stay out of trouble. The deejay was playing doubles of ‘Nipple To The Bottle” by Grace Jones, going back and forth extending the intro. In retrospect, it wasn’t that hard a feat --she left a solid eight bars (measures) of beats empty, no vocals, no other instruments, just nasty beats. A bunch of brothas were up on the stage, jockeying for the mic, there was a crash and whoever was rappin’ at the time finished his rhyme with ‘… GodDAMN Moe C. jus’ broke the light!’ right on beat.

I think back and reflect on the irony that escaped me at the time, of hundreds of kids bumrushing 7-11 and WaWa after being let out of a P.A.L. (Police Athletic League) party. Call it wildin out, or maybe payback for enduring “One Student At A Time” signs during the daytime, but they got stung for every last tastykake and fruit punch.






peace & blessings,

x.

"I'm on the Zoloft to keep from killing y'all." - Iron Mike