ABOUT THE SAME AGE
If this is really the beginning, hip-hop has about the same age as me. So, a good occasion, this celebration, to reflect upon my relationship with hip-hop and rap music. I am after all a music lover, since young, and especially Black music. I also try to make songs myself.
Granted, I am much more a Reggae fan than a Hip-Hop fan, but I kept an open eye for other genres. I grew up in the Netherlands (not far from Amsterdam), and got into Reggae since I was about 11 years old, around the year 1985, in the vinyl age, listening to Peter Tosh, Bob Marley, the Wailing Souls, and more and more Reggae artists. I also kept track of newer Reggae (New Roots).
Inevitably I got into contact with “pop” or more commercial music as a child (through mass media, via other people), but Rap for some reason was less on my radar back then. Some guys around me liked hard rock (Kiss), my parents played Italian or Latin/Spanish music, but I also heard some songs by Stevie Wonder, or funky sounds by James Brown I liked then. Somehow I felt “Black” music attracted me a bit more, and less “heavy electric guitar” rock music. I liked folksy rock or the Beatles a bit more, but, importantly, I liked to dance to music (limiting my interest for e.g. some melodic Italian songs, though there were nice songs between them). Some songs of Spanish crooner Julio Iglesias I admittedly liked (guilty pleasure?) – he could sing -, though maybe in part because Julio had a few more rhythmical aspects in his songs. I liked some Flamenco (from South Spain) for that reason too.
RAPPERS DELIGHT
My biggest love became Reggae, however, by 1985, and it stayed like that. What in hindsight puzzles me a bit is that the well-known world Rap hit Rappers Delight (around 1981) by the Sugar Hill Gang largely escaped my attention. It probably has to do with my age or high school, as my older brother told me as that song was a hit among boys at his high school (in the Netherlands), and they even rapped along with the catchy flowing lyrics, knowing them by heart (“and do the hip hop, the hippie.. etc..”). This song must have opened many eyes of European youths toward Hip-Hop and rap from New York, and might have some made fans, who knows. When it was a hit in the Netherlands and Europe (an influential one, at that), I was just about 6 years old, so perhaps too young to get it then.
Grandmaster Flash’s The Message, soon after, became also quite a hit (more "alternative", though), but I only remember that one very vaguely too from the time itself, and mostly the “project/ghetto” scenery of the video.
My music interest was since around 1985 more focused on Jamaica than on the US, perhaps unusual in the Netherlands and Europe, though some US soul, blues, or funk I liked. When I got more attention to New York hip-hop, it was already in the later 1980s and early 1990s. The interesting fact is that I viewed this hip-hop and rap from a Reggae perspective. That route is interesting I think: from Reggae to Rap.. you have it the other way around too, as well, of course, especially nowadays, and with US dominance on Western commercial pop culture.
YO! MTV RAPS
This Western commercial pop culture was not my thing, and even less MTV , but when MTV aired (compensating after a - probably racist - anti-Black music policy at MTV), with Yo! MTV raps, it got some of my interest. That regular show Yo! MTV raps, luckily lacked the subtle censorship (since they were caught?) of MTV before, when it avoided Black artists besides Prince or Michael Jackson, as Yo! even gave attention to hip hop with Black awareness messages like Public Enemy, Poor Righteous Teachers, KRS One, Slick Rick, also more fun-based hip-hop too of course, big names like Run DMC, Kool Moe Dee, Biz Markie, and LL Cool J, and even gave some attention to upcoming acts. I enjoyed this often, especially the “free creativity” the young rappers showed, their “informal” ways even seeming refreshing to me. Furthermore, I liked that they were common Black people “from the streets”, to use a cliché.
That “casual” or “informal” aesthetic has of course remained a characteristic of hip-hop, haha. That is: being or acting “casual” only becomes “cool” when there is some talent involved (rendering groovy stuff), else it’s just seeming annoying. One of my brothers tended to comment when we saw mediocre rappers on tv, acting casual: “those guys seem annoying” (or in Dutch: “van die vervélende gasten, zijn dat..”). Only quality makes the casual cool (goods sentence for a Yogi Tea bag btw, haha).
Quality.. in other words: substance and originality. According to the Wikipedia article on hip-hop, I fell - I was around 15 or 16 years old - into the Golden Era (Late 1980s, Early 1990s) of Hip-Hop, and indeed it seemed a good period musical-wise and “conscious”-wise to me, as far as I could tell, with artists like Public Enemy and De La Soul coming up, and Eric B & Rakim, Run DMC, LL Cool J, Queen Latifa, and others in their prime..
TOASTING
I was well into Reggae by then, and knew the “rhythmic vocalizing” – called: “toasting” – within Reggae well. “Old school” Jamaican Toasting (U Roy, I Roy, Dennis Alcapone, Trinity, Prince Jazzbo, U Brown) from the 1970s tended to be rhythmical, but meandering around the beat (like a percussionist, so to speak), but by the 1980s a straighter “on the beat” rhythmic flow had developed in Jamaica as well, starting with Early Dancehall singers (also called DJ’s in Jamaica) like Lone Ranger, Admiral Tibet, Charlie Chaplin, and Brigadier Jerry, continuing with later artists like Capleton, Burro Banton, or Buju Banton and Sizzla even later.
Well now, that later “on the beat” Toasting of 1980s Reggae, of people like Lone Ranger can be seen as a vocal precursor to the likewise “straight” style of Rapping of US rappers: on the beat. While earlier “free” toasters like U-Roy certainly also influenced hip-hop culture, originating the whole aesthetic of rhythmically vocalizing on existing music (instrumental versions of vocal songs). I even am willing to argue that Wear You To The Ball, an early, 1970 U Roy single on existing music (on song by Jamaican group the Paragons), was the first Rap-like studio recording ever.
The specific style of Toasting that developed in Jamaica by the 1980s (heard on 1980 and 1981 songs already, such as Lone Ranger’s Love Bump above), was also a precursor to Rapping, though. Perhaps coincidence, as everyone can hear the beat and choose to rap on it or not, but the direct influence of Jamaican music and Reggae on New York Hip-Hop has been more than proven. Key pioneering figures, including the mentioned pioneer DJ Kool Herc, were of Jamaican descent, knowing Jamaica’s sound system and Toasting culture. DJ Kool Herc also liked James Brown, he said, explaining that direction of hip-hop.
The musical shift from Jamaican (Rocksteady, Reggae) riddims to US Black music in New York, but with the same principle, further gave hip-hop its own identity.
OLDER SCHOOL
When I got more into hip-hop, around my 15th year of age, the older school-hip-hop (not the oldest) of the day was based on samples or instrumental parts of songs by often James Brown, George Clinton, or other Funk greats.. funky licks and riffs that were good to rap on, with extensive lyrics telling stories, rather than repeating phrases as in pop songs with, also making it interesting.
I was intrigued by the mere creativity of this sampled hip-hop, also with regard to the videos accompanying songs, showing other urban worlds (New York then mainly). Another aspect that I appreciated were the poignant, direct lyrics in hip-hop – social commentary from the streets -, even without the repetition of phrases as in other genres, the message came across, often through forceful delivery, very creative word play and rhyming, or a good flow. Especially (but others as well), in my opinion, Chuck D – of Public Enemy - was a master in that, with “cool” sentences and lyrics I still remember, forming often “poems within poems”, while expressing social commentary about racial injustice: “Something ain’t right. Treated like dynamite. Gonna blow you up, and it just might..”, is one of those poems within a poem. “Bruised, battered, and scarred, but hard”, another cool sentence I remember by Chuck D (from song Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos).
For a period I even knew some Public Enemy lyrics by heart, of some songs at least: it went that far.
Did this influence me so much as to become a hip-hop fan, instead of Reggae? Nope: I stayed primarily a Reggae fan, interchanged a bit more with some hip-hop I liked, hip-hop having after all Jamaican connections. I bought Public Enemy albums, and a few other hip-hop albums (De La Soul, Eric B & Rakim, LL Cool J.).
As I stayed more within the Reggae realm, I did not follow developments closely “on the foot” within hip-hop, but mostly from aside, so to speak. It was not really my subculture, usually, and did not know all insiders' “codes” such subcultures imply. Some songs I kind of liked, but with the “newer” school of hip-hop, I lost the touch more and more, safe some artists.
I encountered some Netherlands-based, Dutch hip-hop as well over time, also of differing quality, with Black artists generally (and predictably) better in it, though some White Dutchmen (like Extince) could actually rap, on funky beats, to groovy effect, even making it work in the Dutch language.
Some was definitely corny or fake (Holiday Rap was whack), but not all, haha. Britain’s Derek B seemed somewhat “forced” to me, but here and there some “okay” non-US hip-hop was made, such as in Italy (e.g. by Jovanotti). Also the laid-back style of French rapper MC Solaar I liked, for instance.
I noticed of course that, while I remained a Reggae man, that hip-hop reached the mainstream relatively more than Reggae, and influenced pop. European early 1980s “copying” efforts, sometimes to “fun” effect, such as Pino D’Angio Ma Quale Idea (1981), the “rapping” Flamenco-like Spanish 1982 song about the tv series Dallas’s JR character, A JR,(though singer Pepe Da Rosa, claimed he followed rhythmic Flamenco traditions, and did not follow Rap). Ironically, he rapped better than the early Dutch “rap” hit” MC Miker G and DJ Sven’s Holiday Rap, according to me, at least.
With local, national hip-hop/rap scenes in several European countries this “copying” went further, and deeper, without the ironic distance, but with devotion. Of what I heard, some was okay.
PARALLELS
Apart from hip-hop’s influence on me (also slipping through in some cases on my music making and composing), that parallel development of Reggae and hip-hop, reveals quite some interesting aspects of musical developments of two Black music genres in the Americas, in time influencing each other.
One aspect, though not really positive, was the commercialization of less-conscious hip-hop, of course in the interest of the “powers that be” that Public Enemy protested against, powers that be that are remarkably crafty in “defusing unwanted explosions/bombs”, by destroying or weakening resistance from within (but after their input from outside). A similar strategy seemed to have – by the way - worked effectively with the world wide Left or Liberal in Europe and the US, mostly de facto adhering now to (right-wing) neoliberal capitalism as well, and even blindly following propaganda, or totalitarian tendencies.
Gangster Rap – and its increased popularity during the 1990s - started this corrupting “negativity” in my opinion, and I was kind of shocked by the cynical lyrics on some NWA albums, and also videos of that new Gangster Rap, had a vibe I liked less, making me return to Reggae more strongly, keeping more distance of hip-hop, also because I never really became a Dr Dré/West Coast hip-hop fan.
SLACK
There is a parallel here with Jamaican music. The “slack” (explicit, violent/sexual) lyrics of modern Dancehall music in Jamaica, lacked the conscious, rebellious lyrics of earlier Roots Reggae. Conscious Reggae was still made, and I chose to listen to that, but “powers that be” in Jamaica, also tried to make superficial, sometimes violent/sexual lyrics – though overall a bit less cynical in content than US gangster rap – more popular than lyrics criticizing “the system”, status quo, inequalities, or injustices. Among many youths, this strategy partly worked – Dancehall is nowadays relatively more popular among Jamaican youth, than Reggae -, but not fully.
As hip-hop with better messages co-exists alongside the gangster nonsense, also conscious Reggae kept being made, and also conscious lyrics on Dancehall music arose. The New Roots school in Jamaican Reggae, represented by artists like Sizzla, Luciano, Richie Spice, Lutan Fyah, Junior Kelly, or Anthony B. had a fan base in Jamaica too, not just among Reggae fans outside of Jamaica, keeping thus the “conscious” and message flame alive. Some youths in Jamaica like that too, even though “spectacular” Dancehall of people like Vybz Kartel or Mr. Vegas seems more popular or fashionable.
Like in hip-hop, though, many less-conscious people, or even those living or aspiring to a life of crime, eschewed too deep and conscious lyrics, preferring fun, or worse: more spectacular sex- or violence aimed lyrics. In relative numbers that is. Hip-hop is moreover “in the belly of the capitalist beast”, in the US, with larger corporations and more money to shape tastes, making Eminem – with in my opinion largely nonsense lyrics, and mediocre beats/songs – one of the most successfully selling artist, to name one thing.
POPULARITY
A main difference is also one I discussed before on my blog: a song’s popularity is decided in Jamaica from the bottom-up, really the grassroots: in the dancehalls – at local dances -, among common (poor) people, a song’s appeal is tested, so to speak, then becomes popular and demanded, and artists popular. In the US, commercial corporations try to direct popular tastes to a stronger degree (though not always succeeding), more “from above” and “top down”. This difference remained, up to today.
The New Roots Reggae in Jamaica, meanwhile, has Rap-like toasting or – as it is called today in Jamaica “chatting” - too as its vocals, often continuing on the “on the beat” straighter style since the 1980s, but not quite. The “sing-jay style” is a Jamaican invention – and a common vocal approach among a part of New Roots artists, combining toasted/rhythmical “chatted” parts – mostly the verses – and more or less “sung” choruses.
CHATTING
Those toasted/chatted parts have in their groovy flow some similarities with better hip-hop, but have own Jamaican characteristics, even beyond language/accent, e.g. in accentuation. A hip-hop influence reached some Jamaican New Reggae artists like Protoje and Kabaka Pyramid too, though even those artists could at the same time draw on own, older Jamaican toasting traditions since the early 1970s, that in turn go back – of course – to the African roots (vocal rhythm on rhythms). Protoje even achieved widening his fan base with some hip-hop fans, making his concerts relatively much visited, or earlier sold out. I like Protoje’s chatting/vocalizing style, even if at times Rap/hip-hop like, because it tends to have musically a good, groovy flow on the riddims/music.
The same applies to Capleton or Sizzla, in turn influencing hip-hop artists in the US, such as Busta Rhymes (of Jamaican descent), who said his style was influenced by Jamaican artists like Capleton, which is quite audible, even on some of Busta’s big hits like Fire It Up.
The Jamaican vocal “rap”/chat style has a (somewhat more musical) “dramatic development” – working toward a peak, speeding up vocally - in Jamaican New Roots chatting, is besides more musical, also an interesting African heritage (some relate this to spirit possession traditions of old), a bit less present (though not absent) in US hip-hop, tending to continue the same flow, though with some additions.
DIGITAL DANCEHALL
Modern Jamaican Dancehall I got into more recently, so even after hip-hop, while Reggae remained my main interest, as said, before Hip-hop, and during and above it. The digital straight Dancehall riddims/music attracted me less, preferring myself a live music feel.
Some Dancehall riddims, though, I found groovy and well-made, even if digital. They show a rhythmic complexity (the Flip Riddim, where Dancehall group's Ward 21's song Style is on, for instance), with several layers, while digital hip-hop rhythms – especially when newly made, not just samples from James Brown songs like before - tend to be less complex or layered when compared to Dancehall, though some hip-hop added nice effects. This can relate to a stronger maintained African polyrhythmic heritage in Jamaica, as rapping (rhythm on rhythm) is an African retention, but can be more “advanced” or varied, or simpler. Hip-hop rhythms are simpler (less polyrhythm) than Dancehall rhythms, even the latter’s digital ones. Vocals of course adapt/relate to that.
This “easier rhythm” may explain the “easier” spread among White or European people of hip-hop, but of course along with US dominance on culture in a country like the Netherlands, and perhaps language (US English/Jamaican) issues.
Not to say that there is no other creativity in hip-hop, also evident in golden era-hip hop, with new subgenres, and more musical layers in songs, notwithstanding the relative simple rhythm. This often simple rhythm could be the result of creative sampling, or have that around the main beat (slight syncope or polyrhythm), along with some instrumentation (bass, piano), sampled or not. The repeated bass riff in the beat of Public Enemy’s Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos is magnificent, to give an example. Still inventive with some groovy or funky effects, hip-hop showed to be, but simple and relatively straightforward in a purely rhythmical sense..
It is kind of ironic that a wealthier, powerful country like the US (though with many disadvantaged Blacks, of course), have less-sophisticated or developed rhythms, than a “developing economy” and poorer country in the Caribbean.
Or perhaps it is not ironic.. The poorer the country, the richer the culture? And rhythm is the heartbeat of culture..
