Chuck D. Presents This Day in Rap and Hip Hop History

FOREWORD

Shepard Fairey

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. Today the influence of hip-hop permeates virtually every form of pop music and fashion. At age eleven or twelve I didn't exactly see the future clearly, but hip-hop pushed its way into my life. 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. 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. I loved Run-D.M.C. and the Sugarhill Gang, even though "Rapper's Delight" was the only song of theirs I knew. 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.

I started skateboarding in 1984 as an escape from team sports conformity. At that time, if you skateboarded it was compulsory to dive into punk and hardcore music. I quickly discovered bands like the Sex Pistols, Black Flag, the Clash, the Dead Kennedys, the Misfits, and Bad Brains. 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. 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. 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. Since Bad Brains played hardcore and reggae, I was open to Marley and loved his messages against oppression. 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. 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. 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. The Beastie Boys were gigging with people like LL Cool J, and Run-D.M.C. had written "Slow and Low" for them, so they seemed credible and legit. The impact of the Beastie Boys juggernaut and their collision of punk rock and hip-hop, made me want to dig deeper into the hip-hop of that year, 1986.

Sometimes the right words in the right place at the right time achieve a lot, and no, I'm not talking about the driving premise of the art of rhyme, I'm talking about the Thrasher magazine review of the first Public Enemy album Yo! Bum Rush the Show. Thrasher magazine, which was the closest thing to a Bible in my life at the time, described Public Enemy's music as "the new punk rock." By '87, '88 I felt punk and hardcore had become a bit formulaic, and I was ready for some new raw power. I picked up Public Enemy's Yo! Bum Rush the Show and I was floored by the heaviness and defiant swagger of the music. Songs like "Public Enemy No. 1" and "Right Starter" have booming delivery and immediate but razor-sharp lyrics from Chuck D, the man who was soon to become a hero of mine. Yo! Bum Rush the Show was a powerful debut statement for Public Enemy, but it was only the warm-up for the sonic and lyrical firestorm of their follow-ups It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and Fear of a Black Planet. With It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back Public Enemy rose to an artistic level not seen before in hip-hop and set a standard for musical, lyrical, and image genius that has rarely been achieved by any other artist. They dealt with politics and race in a supremely sophisticated yet visceral way, over a backdrop of densely collaged and diverse samples. The tension between melody and dissonance resides not only in the music, but Chuck's lyrics as well. His lyrics are the precise reason I took a deeper interest in black movements, the Black Panther Party, and leaders like Malcolm X. Chuck's ability to turn historical black figures into superheroes spoke to teenagers everywhere.

Fear of a Black Planet once again demonstrated the wizardry of Public Enemy's Bomb Squad production team, with intensely layered tracks like "Welcome to the Terrordome" and "Fight the Power," which was the anthem for Spike Lee's masterpiece Do the Right Thing, and has since become a protest anthem for the ages. Public Enemy proved it was possible to reach the bourgeoisie and rock the boulevard…to make you shake your rump and pump your fist. Those records showed Public Enemy to be one of the most outspoken forces in music, politics, and culture. The influence on their peers was evident as the golden age of hip-hop of the late '80s, mid '90s was filled with social commentary and gritty storytelling that some called "the CNN of the streets," and others "gangsta rap."

Public Enemy was not the only creative innovator in the golden age. The sampling laws had not yet been solidified in the late '80s, so there was a wealth of raw material for hip-hop acts and DJs to pull from. A few of the main corollaries I see between punk rock and hip-hop are their shared street roots, a defiance of the status quo, and an emphasis on attitude and creativity rather than musical virtuosity. Hip-hop was a new "do-it-yourself" movement that rewarded those who may not have had traditional music training but simply had a great ear and could remix, reinterpret, and transform samples from the vast musical universe, while also using drum machine beats and some live instruments. Musical and narrative progression in hip-hop seemed to be happening on a daily basis in the late '80s and landmark albums redefining possibilities within the genre were emerging from both New York and the West Coast. New York hip-hop was going off—Eric B. & Rakim dropping Paid in Full, Boogie Down Productions fronted by KRS-One put out Criminal Minded and By All Means Necessary, Slick Rick put out The Great Adventures of Slick Rick, LL Cool J crushed several styles with the release of Mama Said Knock You Out. From Long Island, De La Soul brought the sampling masterpiece 3 Feet High and Rising, which pushed the idea of what samples could be used to construct a hip-hop track into a more diverse territory. Fellow members of the Native Tongues collective A Tribe Called Quest released several lyrically witty and musically progressive classic albums during the golden age and later put out the amazing album We Got It from Here… Thank You 4 Your Service in late 2016, proving great artists only get better with time.

The West Coast also brought the fire in the late '80s and early '90s with artists like Ice-T and N.W.A pioneering gangsta rap. Ice-T's Rhyme Pays, Power, and O.G. Original Gangster all brought tales of street crime and hustling but with some cautionary warnings about the consequences of that lifestyle. N.W.A's Straight Outta Compton took confrontation and irreverence to new levels, but according to main lyricist Ice Cube, they were only reflecting the world of South Central they lived in. N.W.A may have been controversial with songs like "Fuck tha Police," but along with the antagonism, the members had talent and charisma to back up their attitudes. Cypress Hill brought a Latin flavor, weed culture, and bilingual rhymes into the mix. While East Coast hip-hop acts were sampling a lot of James Brown and a bit of Parliament-Funkadelic, West Coast acts were leaning heavily on P-Funk and a little on James Brown. The N.W.A-related artists like Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Eazy-E, and Snoop Dogg all sampled Parliament-Funkadelic, with Dr. Dre credited as pioneering the laid-back but sinister G-funk sound. I think it is safe to say that the samples used in great hip-hop songs led to a massive surge in interest in the funk and soul artists who were featured prominently. I know that hip-hop inspired me to pick up records by James Brown, the Meters, the Isley Brothers, Parliament-Funkadelic, Isaac Hayes, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, and many others. In 1989 the Beastie Boys moved to LA to record the album Paul's Boutique with production team the Dust Brothers and Matt Dike. For me, Paul's Boutique is the pinnacle of the art of sampling with more than one hundred samples from across the musical spectrum on the album. Funk, soul, disco, glam rock, punk, reggae, and film scores are all sampled to make an eclectic but electrifying album.

In the early '90s, not long after masterpieces of sample collage such as Fear of a Black Planet, 3 Feet High and Rising, and Paul's Boutique came out, copyright infringement lawsuits over samples began to make artists and labels more hesitant to take risks associated with sampling without clearance. Sampling continued but using a large number of samples per song became financially prohibitive. Nevertheless, innovators rise above limitations, and a lot of great hip-hop emerged in the '90s. Nas released Illmatic, the Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac put out several classic albums, Mos Def and Talib Kweli helped fuel the rise of Rawkus Records, and the Wu-Tang Clan brought the noise and their members seemed to put out new solo projects every few weeks. Missy Elliott and Jay Z became dominant hip-hop forces in the late '90s and well into the 2000s. During the same time frame a white Detroit MC named Eminem burst onto the scene with a unique verbal dexterity and the production help of Dr. Dre.

By the 2000s hip-hop proved itself to be a mainstream commercial success and an influence woven into every corner of the cultural fabric. On the one hand, I was happy the critics who said hip-hop "wasn't real music" or "was just a novelty fad" had been proven wrong, but I missed the outsider grit hip-hop had when it was still finding its footing. Early hip-hop had an aspirational charm to its bragging about money, cars, and girls, which seemed more like a defiant statement against a class system that said "people of color don't get the same access to luxuries." However, when hip-hop became more commercial, and luxury became a reality rather than an aspiration, the focus on status symbols began to dampen my enthusiasm for the genre.

One thing I've learned is that evolution can't be stopped. Hip-hop has evolved and mutated in so many different ways that it now has many subgenres. I still see ingenuity and possibility in hip-hop that reminds me why I felt it was the most vibrant and creative art form of music back when I first fell in love in the late '80s. There are amazing newer acts like Run the Jewels and Kendrick Lamar who carry on the tradition of social commentary in their music. Whether it is detractors who still see hip-hop as "not real music by no-talent hoodlums," or champions who see hip-hop as "a bottom-up revolution of empowerment that stretches from the streets to the elites," both opinions are entitled. A few groups have stood the test of time—Public Enemy, De La Soul, and Tribe Called Quest—and continue to put out great work while touring the world. In the end it is only the participants and innovators who can define what hip-hop means now and in the future. I'll be keeping my eyes, ears, and mind open for the next episode.