- Hip Hop Radical History:-

In 1978 the city of New York was always public but an inescapable heat sends folks out of their apartments and amplifies the streets' activity. The buzz surrounding hip-hop has already escaped -via mixed tapes aired on boomboxes- to Manhattan's attention. But it is here in its birthplace, the South Bronx, where Afrika Bambaataa and his crew of diasporic black youth known as the Zulu Nation have gathered to celebrate the new sensation.
Bambaataa switches from Olatunji's drumming to the Monkees to James Brown in the course of a few songs, ending up on Kraftwerk's electronic epic "Trans-Europe Express". How exactly, did futurist music from Düsseldorf, Germany find its way alongside African drumming, American soul, and British rock into an open-air party held in the economically ravaged Bronx? Hip-hop's logic is complex, irreverent, all its own.

From its inception, hip-hop was plural, defined by an approach to sound and music-making rather than a single stylistic designation. Jazz, soul, funk, rock 'n roll, Nigerian drumming - everything was in the mix. Parties were a cross-cultural barrage of styles chosen and mixed by the disc jockey (DJ). Jamaican-born Bronx resident Kool Herc provided the innovations that elevated DJing to an art form. In 1973 Herc noticed dancers' enthusiasm for the funky drum "break" (percussive solo) portion of a song. He obtained two copies and started doubling these "breakbeats," playing the solo from one record immediately after the other one ended. The angular, acrobatic form known as "breakdancing" evolved in direct response to Herc's extended drum solos. B-boys and b-girls were devotees of the drum break, physical interpreters of the rhythmic challenge brought on by lengthened breakbeats.

Pioneering DJs such as Bambaataa, Flash, DXT, Herc, and others commenced a nonstop quest for fresh beats. Energy was high, and the form grew and mutated with startling quickness. Increasingly skillful ways of manipulating prerecorded sound with a live artistic interface arose. From scratching the needle on the record, to superimposing records in sync, to cutting swiftly between different pieces of vinyl, everything was used. Grassroots futurism was forged from creative disrespect for technology and musical tradition. The Bronx hip-hoppers transformed the turntable from a static playback machine it into a highly expressive instrument. Vinyl went from consumer product to raw material for an emergent art form.
Initially, MCs served to comment on the DJ's skills, but the spoken-word vocalists soon
developed their artistry from a long tradition of black "dozens" boasting, metaphoricinventiveness, blues singing, and "scat" vocals. A seminal 1982 single features Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five delivering deft commentary on the psychological impact of their surroundings and the societal mechanisms that gave rise to (and maintain) the urban ghetto. Appropriately, it's entitled "The Message".

Artists like Brooklyn's Mos Def and Talib Kwali are keeping hip-hop's community consciousness vital.

Hip-hop represented a politically motivated alternative to crime and violence; it was the voice of the voiceless; it was keeping kids on the right path.
Amidst the current glut of fiercely individualistic commercial rap, avatars of hip-hop's community emphasis persist. Brooklyn-based Mos Def and Talib Kweli's 1998 Black Star (Rawkus Records) album combines serious hip-hop's radical formal wordplay with consciousness-raising lyrics. It was heralded as one of the best independent releases in 1998, an important alternative to frivolous megastars such as Puff Daddy. The upcoming Isolationist album (Jazz Fudge Records) will pair the afro-futurizm of the Anti-Pop Consortium's MCs with Russian-born DJ Vadim's abstract beats. Their collaboration bespeaks hip-hop's international cohesion and ability to translate across cultures, now you know why Bataka loves Hip Hop.