Rhythm And Poetry
- Mouadh
- 10 févr. 2017
- 4 min de lecture
RAP. A very peculiar kind of music, usually associated with violence, gangstas, riffraff, drugs, and with some very poetic words such as “motherfucker” or “negga”. But what if I told you, that is only an aspect of its evolution? What if I told you, that RAP was not about violence at all at the beginning? Let us take a look at the history of RAP, shall we mate?
Contrarily to the common belief, RAP was born in the 70’s. In fact, as you may suspect it already, it was born in South-Bronx, one of the most precarious region in the United States. And it is in fact the main reason why RAP emerged. The young generation was completely desperate for attention, recognition, so much that they lost hope, and figured out it was better only to try and have fun, sing, dance, to forget everything else. And of course, someone had to throw parties, right? He was called Kool Herc. I know you’re probably saying “Duuh! You said they didn’t have money, how could one of them throw parties?”. Well that’s the thing; they didn’t need any club or dance floor. Kool Herc used to organize those Block Parties, within the streets, and put music on thanks to huge audio speakers in cars. Very odd, isn’t it? And the real goal of it was to bring peace, and fun to those who need it, not having anything to do with violence so far.
“Duh! What does any of this has a relation with RAP?” – Patience my friend! I’m coming to it. With time, these Kool Herc’s Block Parties became very popular, and he decided to allow people of different origins to go on the stage, and to do something. It could be dancing, singing, or just talking. The point was to reach every one, through different styles and tastes. We called these people Masters of Ceremony, or more commonly, MCs. Does it ring any bell? It should, because nowadays’ rappers attack MCs, but we’ll come to it soon enough. This is how the Rhythm And Poetry, aka RAP, movement was born, with the sole difference that MCs didn’t “rap”, they “toasted”.
With the emergence of this new movement came the evolution of the sound base of music. Someone named Grand Master Flash – yeah that’s how they called him … no comments – perfected the concept of Kool Herc’s parties, by improving the mixing panel, by replacing the old-fashioned turntable with two turntables. From then on, we were able to continuously listen to music, without disruption, changing tape or anything. Someone had to invent it, right? It doesn’t seem so, but it is one of the most revolutionary progress in RAP’s history. And here is a funny story; you probably already know what is a scratch, you know that creepy noise, DJs make sometimes? Well, one day, a teenager was listening to music, on a vinyl, and it was too loud. When his mother came in his room to tell him to lower the sound, he mistakenly touched the vinyl, and it made this weird noise. He liked it, very much, and figured he could use it to sample music. This is how Grand Wizard Theodore – and here I thought the Grand Master Flash was weird – invented the scratch.
From then on, things moved very fast. In 1979, the famous music of the Sugar Hill Gang, Rapper’s Delight, came out. You must have heard it already, which means that this music became a legend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUqvPJ3cbUQ
After that, The Message, by Grand Master Flash, marked a turning point. Actually, it was the first of what we call conscious rap. Rappers were socially and politically conscious. This is how the rap movement entered its golden age. Rappers began to commit against violence, drugs, and to advocate respect. So much about revolution, and yet, they sound so unrevolutionary, doesn’t it?
Hold on a second. If you know a little bit about rap, you know that it is not exactly like that. So, something changed. In fact, many problems came out of sampling, because of the copyright law. Rappers used to get inspiration from other rapper’s work, and it caused many trials, and ended many careers. After that, in the 1990’s, a new generation of rappers emerged; The New School. I haven’t mentioned it before, but most of rappers were black, and in fact, white people were not accepted as rappers. Well in this new school, the first white rappers were legitimate. They claimed they origins, and condemned ancient rappers, and MCs; this is why nowadays rappers attack them, in order to build that rap renewal. It was the end of the golden age, and the beginning of … THE EXPLOSION!
During the 90’s emerged a large bunch of rappers, thanks to labels, created thanks to the money made because of drugs. Therefore, even the music was oriented in this drug trades; a rapper named Eazy-E, created the New Label, and what we call the gangsta rap. Rappers used to tell about their lives in violence and drug trades. Among the gangsta rappers, there were Snoop Doggy Dog and Ice T. And, one thing you should know, is that Tupac was among them, but slightly different from them all. He was a gangster, but also known as a lover, which made him very popular. Yes, gangstas do have a heart … you doubted it? You know the end of the story; Tupac was assassinated and it made him a legend, blablabla …
The New Label is nowadays still active, and produced many very famous rappers, such as 50cent, and, the one who is recognized as the best rappers of its time, Eminem. Which is ironic, since he’s a white guy. In other labels emerged Lil Wayne, Drake, The Game, Jay-Z, Rihanna, Kanye West, … Well, probably no one you haven’t already heard about.
To sum it up, rap has indeed been very much oriented towards violence, but only since the 1990’s. It was mostly about peace and respect before that, and we can see nowadays a return of these values. But what we can’t deny, is that rap has inherited from poetry, and is today very anchored in our cultures. And if you take a closer look actually, one of the first successful music of rap, by the Sugar Hill Gang, was very much inspired by The Preacher And The Bear, of The Jubalaires, 1937. So technically, rap originated in before world war two, which makes it a survivor. Deal with that …
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