had written "Slow and Low" for them, so they seemed credible and legit. The Beastie Boys were gigging with people like LL Cool J, and Run-D.M.C. I loved Licensed to Ill, and I knew a lot of the Led Zeppelin and other classic rock samples, which inspired me to take an interest in how hip-hop songs are creatively constructed.
When the Beasties released Licensed to Ill I was intrigued, and it turned out to be the album that brought me back to hip-hop and helped me overcome my fear of being a cultural interloper. A friend of mine had a New York City hardcore compilation tape called New York Thrash that had songs by Bad Brains and some fast low-fi songs by a band called the Beastie Boys. Since Bad Brains played hardcore and reggae, I was open to Marley and loved his messages against oppression. I usually describe 1984–1986 as my "punk rock orthodoxy phase" where I refused to listen to anything else, though I did discover and love Bob Marley.
The Clash and the Dead Kennedys especially demonstrated to me that musical virtuosity was less important than passion, style, and a message that connects with the disenfranchised underdog.
Books about hip hop history plus#
As a frustrated teen, I loved the punk bands because they all had energy and attitude, plus a lot of them had social and political things to say. I quickly discovered bands like the Sex Pistols, Black Flag, the Clash, the Dead Kennedys, the Misfits, and Bad Brains. At that time, if you skateboarded it was compulsory to dive into punk and hardcore music. I started skateboarding in 1984 as an escape from team sports conformity. Eventually I noticed hip-hop's influence on groups like Blondie with their song "Rapture" and the Tom Tom Club with "Genius of Love." Ironically, it would be punk rock, the music culture that initially made me think I had to abandon all else, that later brought me back to hip-hop. and the Sugarhill Gang, even though "Rapper's Delight" was the only song of theirs I knew.
Books about hip hop history cracker#
Images of the South Bronx on fire and the media coverage of breakdancing and rapping made me feel hip-hop culture was off-limits to me as a cracker from the South with zero street cred. It may seem strange now, but in the early '80s I didn't think hip-hop wanted me, a white middle-class kid from the South. At age eleven or twelve I didn't exactly see the future clearly, but hip-hop pushed its way into my life. Today the influence of hip-hop permeates virtually every form of pop music and fashion. Hip-hop is without a doubt the most influential and, at its greatest moments, the most creative musical and cultural movement of the last thirty-five years.
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