I found the rise and rise of rap and hip-hop fascinating. Not since punk and the new wave had popular music been so thoroughly and radically re-imagined - and, reggae aside, here was the first authentically black street music to cross into the mainstream. The trouble is, I don't really enjoy many of its records.
But that's okay. Indeed, it's very much as it should be. I'm very English, somewhat middle-class and terribly Anglo Saxon. What's more, I was pretty immersed in indie/post punk bands when hip-hop arrived, couldn't break dance, do graffiti or MC and had the good sense not to try. While I was aware of a whole new youth culture emerging, I was absolutely content for it to belong to someone else.
But that's okay. Indeed, it's very much as it should be. I'm very English, somewhat middle-class and terribly Anglo Saxon. What's more, I was pretty immersed in indie/post punk bands when hip-hop arrived, couldn't break dance, do graffiti or MC and had the good sense not to try. While I was aware of a whole new youth culture emerging, I was absolutely content for it to belong to someone else.
However, it's hard for any music obsessive to completely ignore a tide of new work from inventive and determined artists with something important to say. I didn't much care for disco, but I love Sister Sledge's 'Lost In Music' to pieces. House music didn't really touch me, but Farley Jackmaster Funk's 'Love Can't Turn Around' still sounds remarkable. Boy bands? You can pretty much keep them, but A1's 'Stuck In The Middle' is on every listening device I own.
Clearly, in any genre, there tends to be a smattering of tracks which really do it for me, even if the generic mass from which they spring leaves me cold. And happily, of the thousands of rap recordings in the world, there are at least a handful I really admire. Here they are:
Wildchild - Renegade Master
Naturally, I'm attracted to any record which inspires emotion, but doubly so if that emotion is excitement. From 'Pretty Vacant' to 'Ace of Spades', it's hard to beat that rush of adrenalin when a track starts kicking your spotty arse all around the room. This is the perfect example. The rapping is so rapid it sounds as if the pitch has been altered. But it hasn't, it's just the incredible ability of Roger 'Wildchild' McKenzie. Pleasingly, the backing track's thumps and rattles keep pace to produce something akin to the feeling one gets when running down a slope too steep for one's feet.
Naturally, I'm attracted to any record which inspires emotion, but doubly so if that emotion is excitement. From 'Pretty Vacant' to 'Ace of Spades', it's hard to beat that rush of adrenalin when a track starts kicking your spotty arse all around the room. This is the perfect example. The rapping is so rapid it sounds as if the pitch has been altered. But it hasn't, it's just the incredible ability of Roger 'Wildchild' McKenzie. Pleasingly, the backing track's thumps and rattles keep pace to produce something akin to the feeling one gets when running down a slope too steep for one's feet.
Impossibly animated and even too fast for dancing, I can hear a feverish lust for young life in every second of 'Renegade Master' and for an old fellow, that's particularly enjoyable. It also makes it all the more sad that Roger McKenzie died at the age of 24 from an undiagnosed heart condition. At least he gave us this thrilling record before he departed.
Silver Bullet - 20 Seconds To Comply
Silver Bullet - 20 Seconds To Comply
I love Robocop. Not the cruddy, point-missing sequels or the rotten TV show, but the original Paul Verhoeven dystopian fantasy, laden with wit, irony, sarcasm and political allegory. So, perhaps I was bound to be well-disposed to a track which uses a key piece of dialogue as its sampled hook. Nevertheless, it's more than the movie reference making this metallic, brutal record so compelling. Like Wildchild's song, the rattling percussion and screaming scratching put butterflies of excitement in my tummy.
But while 'Renegade Master' suggests intense celebration, Silver Bullet's work is dark with menace and impending violence. Rousing and scary in equal measures, the rapper's voice blended with the matter-of-fact, robotic warning 'You have twenty seconds to comply' set alongside the thud of heavy armoury, delivers a rap record which leave me breathless with every play.
Sugarhill Gang - Rapper's Delight
Sugarhill Gang - Rapper's Delight
Is this a bit obvious? Possibly, but I make no apology. Recognised by most as the track which launched the hip hop/rap movement on the wider world, it's hardly recognisable as being from the same stable as 'Renegade Master' or '20 Seconds To Comply'. Borrowing a liberal dose of Chic's 'Good Times' and sliver of Love DeLuxe's 'Here Comes That Sound Again', on release the song attracted some legal attention, Bernard Edwards not being familiar with the creative art of sampling (he has since relented). But this just indicates how novel and perplexing this new music was to all but a few dozen artists in New York's projects.
What particularly stands out is how much fun the record sounds. As well as being of huge cultural significance, this is a party track. Fab Five Freddy and his crew are clearly enjoying themselves immensely - in marked contrast with the miserable environment in which the performers lived and the ugly, nihilistic gangsta rap form still to come. Revolutionary, joyous and unforgettable.
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five - The Message
What particularly stands out is how much fun the record sounds. As well as being of huge cultural significance, this is a party track. Fab Five Freddy and his crew are clearly enjoying themselves immensely - in marked contrast with the miserable environment in which the performers lived and the ugly, nihilistic gangsta rap form still to come. Revolutionary, joyous and unforgettable.
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five - The Message
In 1982, something profound happened to change hip-hop forever. It was this record. Not the first rap to mention the perils of ghetto life, it was certainly the first to focus its lyric entirely on social and racial iniquity. But the real twist wasn't to move rapping out of the party and into politics, it was to slow the beat right down to allow every syllable of protest to be heard. To call 'The Message' poetry isn't to be pretentious or pseudo-intellectual. Because this is writing to stand alongside Walt Whitman and Ezra Pound as the authentic voice of downtrodden America.
I have never lived in a New York ghetto - and I'm willing to bet few readers have either. But thanks to the pictures painted by the words and delivery of Melle Mel ('The Message' is almost entirely the work of this individual member of The Furious Five), we can at least glimpse the challenges and injustices faced by those communities in Reagan's USA.
There is a direct line from 'The Message' to the aggressive and threatening work of Ice Cube, Schoolly D and Biggie Smalls. But whereas those artists glorified hard drugs, gang life and weaponry, Mel simply documents a time and place with his vivid imagery and social commentary. The rolling, funky backtrack only serves to make this one of the most powerfully hypnotic and thought provoking records released.
And that's almost it for me and hip-hop. There's a smattering of other tracks I enjoy a great deal (which you can hear below), some Public Enemy albums I acknowledge as being incredibly empowering and incendiary, and of course, I recognise the importance of Run DMC in the chronology of pop. But this is as far as I go. Other than to say I'm glad hip-hop happened. For better or worse, its influence on youth culture has been immeasurable and I genuinely wonder whether there will ever be another grass-roots musical revolution with a similar level of impact and significance. Even though it was never really my gin and juice.
A Spotify hip-hop playlist
I have never lived in a New York ghetto - and I'm willing to bet few readers have either. But thanks to the pictures painted by the words and delivery of Melle Mel ('The Message' is almost entirely the work of this individual member of The Furious Five), we can at least glimpse the challenges and injustices faced by those communities in Reagan's USA.
There is a direct line from 'The Message' to the aggressive and threatening work of Ice Cube, Schoolly D and Biggie Smalls. But whereas those artists glorified hard drugs, gang life and weaponry, Mel simply documents a time and place with his vivid imagery and social commentary. The rolling, funky backtrack only serves to make this one of the most powerfully hypnotic and thought provoking records released.
And that's almost it for me and hip-hop. There's a smattering of other tracks I enjoy a great deal (which you can hear below), some Public Enemy albums I acknowledge as being incredibly empowering and incendiary, and of course, I recognise the importance of Run DMC in the chronology of pop. But this is as far as I go. Other than to say I'm glad hip-hop happened. For better or worse, its influence on youth culture has been immeasurable and I genuinely wonder whether there will ever be another grass-roots musical revolution with a similar level of impact and significance. Even though it was never really my gin and juice.
A Spotify hip-hop playlist
