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Hip-Hop Observes its Golden Anniversary
HOW A “NICHE MOVEMENT” INFLUENCED THE LAW AND CHANGED THE WORLD
Part 1: Origins and Development
By ileta! A. Sumner
Hip-hop first began as a local New York phenomenon. While at its birth it was primarily a party-focused genre, it quickly evolved into a medium for the youth of the area to proclaim their feelings about their world, using four elements: “DJ-ing,” a method of manipulating music; “rapping,” using spoken word instead of singing, but still using lyricism to make one’s point; “breaking,” a unique manner of movement that seemed to defy the laws of physics by its extensive physicality; and “graffiti,” a distinct type of artwork that would be plastered on public buildings and that, at first, merely identified the artist but later transitioned into wonderful, colorful murals that would be displayed in galleries. A fifth element has ultimately been recognized as being an intrinsic part of hip-hop: “knowledge,” understanding that the words being said are imparting a significant statement of self so that the listener can understand the importance of the speaker’s point of view.
Not long after its initial development, however, the art became controversial, not just for what was being said, but also for how it was being created. Because the previous works of other artists were being used for the basis of the new projects, lawsuits arose. Although it could have been foreseen that those whose recordings had been used without permission would seek compensation, what could not have been predicted is just how adversely this new form would affect wellestablished copyright laws, basically obliterating the norms stemming from over a century ago. By the creation of a method of rating the content included within hip-hop songs, and the introduction of legislation to keep that content from condemning its creators and being used as evidence of crimes in judicial proceedings, hip-hop has left an indelible mark on United States law, just as it has made an imprint on the world as a whole.
The Origins of Hip-Hop
From where is the term “hip-hop” derived?
From the “DJ Kool Herc” who threw the first hip-hop event;
From African American dances like “The Lindy Hop”;
From Afrika Bambaataa, a godfather of the genre;
From a guy riffing about his friend going marching in the army.
Actually, the term “hip-hop” can be traced back to all of the above. On August 11, 1973—the date that is observed as the birth of hiphop—Cindy Campbell promoted and coordinated a back-to-school party that was to be hosted by her eighteen-year old brother Clive, a/k/a “DJ Kool Herc” at 1520 Sedgewick Ave. in the Bronx, New York City. Kool Herc had developed a manner of extending the part of the song where the vocals would drop and the band would jam, known as “the break,” using two turntables to extend that portion of the song over and over. Because this was the most exciting part of the song, it was easy to get the crowd hyped and get them dancing. In order to extend this section even longer, DJs manipulated the vinyl records, using a rhythmic effect to skid the disk back and forth and produce a “scratching” sound that would drive the crowd wild.
What Kool Herc was doing was “DJ-ing”; the people who would usually do the hyping would be the “Master of Ceremonies” or the “MC.” Hence, the MC would make up a poem (usually on the fly) that would be spoken over the breaks created by the DJs, using vocal tones, inflection, dialect, not unlike the practitioners of “spoken word” art; however, the true roots of “rap” grew from the West African tradition of “griot”: the oral historians who wrote and performed to music to document the past and present conditions of their people. Therefore, the MCs would keep the crowd engaged, using unique rhymes that the crowd could remember and repeat, all the while keeping with the flow provided by the DJs.
Once the DJs got into a groove, members of the crowd would take out their cardboard flats and begin dancing to the breaks; thus, the unusual spins on backs and heads as well as the acrobatic whirlwind twirls improvised by these dancers became “break dancing,” and the spinners, “b-boys” and “b-girls.” Their inspiration came from everywhere—from the recognizable arm-swinging and leg kicking moves of the Charleston and the ad-libbing dancing of the Lindy Hop (beginning in the 1920s) to the amazing, gravity-defying kicking flips of Bruce Lee. Then, when the DJ would abruptly STOP! the breakers would automatically freeze in a seemingly impossible pose, as if purposefully coordinated with the DJ, rousing cheers from the onlookers.
Yet music and dancing were not the only art forms contained within hip-hop. “Graffiti” became the visual art of the hip-hop scene. Teens would use brick walls and empty parked subway cars as their canvases, starting with spray painting their “tags” or symbols for their names, using two colors outlining their definitive bubble-like letters that would instill pride in the designers as they could be seen rolling through the city of New York announcing their presence to the world; thereafter, they progressed to painting scenes from underground comics and still life, not unlike Andy Warhol’s Campbell Soup renditions. Soon, the world caught on, as the tags expanded into oversized murals. Naturally, like any new style, the art world took notice, holding graffiti-inspired exhibitions as the mode spread worldwide. It did not take long for the manner of art to become a part of graphic designs as well as fashion – graffiti making the transition from New York streets to Wall Street to Fashion Week.
Some of the founders of hip-hop decided that the form should be used for more than just show. They felt the need to not only speak of pride of self and the intrinsic worth within the Black community, but also to share the despair within the community and make the world take notice. “Knowledge,” the fifth element of hip-hop, places great importance on claiming a stake in one’s own education. Afrika Bambaataa, the so-called “Godfather of Hip-Hop,” a former Black Spades gang warlord, graduated into a “prophet of reconciliation,” a heroic protagonist determined to preach the value of self-worth to a young audience. In the process, he has been deemed as one of the first to coin the term “hip-hop,” encouraging peace and unity through expressions of the hip-hop culture, introducing them to DJ-ing, rapping, break dancing, and graffiti art through his organization, the Zulu Nation. Bambaataa and Kool Herc, along with Grandmaster Flash, are considered the “Holy Trinity” of hip-hop.
In 1982, Grandmaster Flash, along with his group Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, is said to have created the first “conscious rap” record, “The Message.” With his distinct elocution describing the poverty, crime, and drugs engulfing ghetto life—and containing the memorable refrain, “Don’t push me ’cause I’m close to the edge. I’m trying not to lose my head, ha-ha-ha-ha! It’s like a jungle sometimes; it makes me wonder how I keep from going under”—he put a serious, “Afro centric” spin on what theretofore had been considered just a party genre. Though it’s been said that Keith “Cowboy” Wiggins, an MC with this group, jokingly referred to his friend who was going into the army as having to “hip, hip, hip, hop, hip” referring to the sounds of marching soldiers, Grandmaster Flash was earnest in his role as an MC. Stylistically, he was the first to expand the use of scratching, back spinning of albums, using his toes, elbows and fingers while he DJ’d; philosophically, he epitomized the young Black man who was stuck in deteriorating neighborhoods, filled with squalor and blight as “white flight” to the suburbs left behind Black and brown people to struggle for a living. As businesses closed, economic opportunities dried up, and youths turned to the streets. Consequently, the emerging hip-hop movement revolutionized despair and racial tensions into creativity.
The Art of Sampling
Even though the 1970 self-titled spoken word debut album of “The Last Poets” is considered the first “rap” album, it was not until the Sugar Hill Gang debuted “Rapper’s Delight” in 1979 that hip-hop cracked the Top 40. During the previous year, the nation danced to “Good Times” by Chic. Because that was a hit with which the public was familiar, when Sylvia Robinson, a former R&B singer and the owner of a practically bankrupt record label, attended a party where a DJ was rapping over the record, she took it as “a sign from God.” She searched for three inexperienced MC’s, who were not too ashamed to use lyrics they had heard others shout, and “I said a hip, hop, the hippie, the hippie; The hip hip hop and you don’t stop the rockin’” set the world on fire.
What Ms. Robinson did was introduce hip-hop to the masses. What she did NOT do was clear the portion of “Good Times”—the “sample” of the song with its very distinctive funky bassline—by either asking permission or seeking a license for its use. Due to this misstep, Niles Rodgers, guitarist and cofounder of Chic, and Bernard Edwards, the group’s bassist, threatened a lawsuit; instead, they settled for an undisclosed sum and credit on all records sold thereafter.
A good definition of “sampling” is repurposing a snippet of another artist’s music. Not unlike the Sugar Hill Gang’s surreptitious use of Chic’s “Good Times,” some samples, such as the 1990 releases of Robert Van Winkle’s (a/k/a Vanilla Ice) lifting of the bassline of “Under Pressure,” by Queen and David Bowie, as well as Stanley Kirk Burrell’s (a/k/a MC Hammer) blatant rip-off of Rick James’ “Super Freak” (including the warbling of Motown group The Temptations and the saxophone solo of Danny LeMelle) were so obvious to the casual listener that there was no way for the hip-hop artists to justify their theft. Still, some uses of samples have been so sophisticated that it would be nearly impossible to discern their derivation.
An examination of Public Enemy’s twin masterpieces, “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back,” (1988) and “Fear of a Black Planet” (1990) shows how the complexity of sampling can make the application of current copyright law to the genre of hiphop seem antiquated and impractical. Public Enemy has become known for its powerful, staccato rapping delivery, forceful declarations proclaimed with the passion of a preacher, imparting knowledge on a naïve audience. What adds to the dynamics of the words are the samples used to underscore their meaning. At one point, the group collected myriad sounds put together so furiously that they constitute a mélange inside the first ten seconds of one track, being described by one reviewer as “assembl[ing] deeply intricate grooves out of infinitesimal building blocks.” This “noise,” a combination of innumerable samples, only adds to the authority of the words being professed.
