by Kwaku Person-Lynn, Ph.D.
Jun. 29, 2001
Authors Note: The following is an excerpt of a chapter written in the early 1980s, the first scholarly writing on rap, but still relevant today.
Rap music has stampeded through America like no other form of music since the creation of rock music in the 1960s. Like other popular styles, it has a history that is closely aligned with the rebellious attitude of its young creators; youth who rejected the contemporary music prevalent during the late 1970s (disco). Rap music is not a novelty, as many music professionals thought, but has a beginning as equal to blues, jazz, r&b, rock & roll, or any form of popular music.
There is a slight dispute regarding the actual place of origin. According to Afrika Bambaataa: "A lot of people always think it (rap) started in the South Bronx, but officially it came from the West Bronx, ‘cause Kool Herc (credited with being the first rapper), was from that area. Then it came over to the South Bronx with myself and [Grandmaster] Flash."
The story of rap music has a clear and concise beginning. We will explore that beginning with one of the main personalities in rap, Russell Simmons, who is considered the godfather of rap. Mr. Simmons explains: "I think it was a lot of kids rebelling against dance music, disco music. I think in the 70s it was an industry music, producers’ music, and made for the people by producers who decided what people should have. Rap music was a rebellion by the people to assert what they were really looking for and they weren’t getting it from the producers. The producers and their companies were too far away from the streets. The people just created something for themselves.
"Many years there wasn’t any rap records, but there were a lot of rap shows. You go to a show and you had some rock beat or some jazz beat or some old funk beat and this guy rapping all night. Two or three thousand kids would be at these parties and listen all night. You wouldn’t have one commercial record. You wouldn’t hear, for instance, Patrick Juvette(?), "I Love America." You wouldn’t hear "YMCA," and whatever records were out at the time throughout the whole night. Those are the records you had to hear on Black radio. So kids made their own music."
Daryl McDaniels, a member of the rap group, RUN DMC, offers his view:
"It began in 1976 or ‘77 when disco was real popular. The first disc jockeys (DJs) would grab the mike while people were ‘partying’ and say something like, ‘clap your hands,’ or ‘you all ready to party?’ The crowd would respond to that. Then it evolved. The DJ wouldn’t have to do that because the DJ would bring a guy with him to do that - to motivate the crowd while the DJ deejayed. That got into a lot of the disco clubs and a lot of people weren’t going for it. The MC blabbing and running his mouth all night; the DJ scratching and cutting. Most of the people going into the disco wanted to dance and have a party. They didn’t really want to raise no hell.
"The DJs and MCs took that away from the discos, and that’s when the hip hop culture came. They took it to the parks, the street, house parties and to little neighborhood centers and like that. So it really evolved out of disco when people didn’t want to hear the MC and DJ doing their thing. So the DJ and MC took it somewhere else."
Harold Childs, former President of Quincy Jones' now defunct Qwest Records, and former Senior Vice President, Warner Brothers Records, has another interesting and unique view on the beginning of rap music.
"I have always felt that the music thing was all based on economics, the economics of the country. At this point with (President) Reagan...the country supposedly doing very well, we are actually talking about two Black Americas. Middle class Black America, and there is the poor Black America. You can see that from the Michael Jackson tour. When 90% of the people who attended were white, because Black people could not afford to go and pay the money for the ticket. So I think right now you are developing a situation where there are two Black areas to this country. The poor, which is the majority, are kind of hurting right now for some real Black music that says something to them. I think it’s due. You see it now in Washington D.C., with the Go Go music sound. There is a thing in Chicago now, House music. You see Memphis with new bands starting to come out of the South.
"So you are starting to see now real grass roots music coming back again on a local level. You look at Billboard charts and look at how many records on the Black charts are released. Ten record companies on Billboard’s chart this week were small record companies that had one record. So you see now the manufacturers on top with their big act, but you see these small companies starting all over again out of New York. The be bop stuff. You see it now and the pattern has started to move all over the country. I give it four years and you will have another brand new Black thing which will represent the masses of Black people and will affect the overall scene again.
"Right now it’s [rap music] in a situation that is the form of those kids that are out there in the streets, who are not making it in a Reagan upsurge. That shows what true Black kids are talking about. It’s in an infant stage right now, and more and more it’s becoming more musical. So the rap will meet the music, and the music will meet the rap. But it’s there and that’s those people, it’s not the Volvo crowd. It’s not the middle class. Those are street Black kids talking through this rap music. That will be, in the next three years, once they start uniting with the musical side of it; that will turn out to be the renaissance for Black music again in this country."
At the inception of rap, music professionals did not take it seriously and music scholars dismissed it completely. Little did they know that what the youth were creating represented a revolution in music, and like it or not, without rap music today, the music industry would be in a financial depression and hundreds of industry employees would be laid off, as they were in the late 1970s.
Kwaku Person-Lynn is the author of FIRST WORD Black
Scholars Thinkers Warriors.