This is where it all began. Here in New York city. It’s almost 30
years since a young Jamaican called Clive Campbell (nicknamed
‘Hercules’ on account of his size and then ‘Kool Herc’) began to DJ
in the Bronx. The more he played, the more he realized that the
dancers thrived on the portions of a track when the song faded out
and the rhythm section kicked in (unsurprising when you consider he
was brought up on the Jamaican sound systems and their use of dub
plates). So he began to play two of the same record back to back,
keeping the rhythm running and the dancefloor busy. And so the
breakbeat was born and, with it, hip hop.
Like following the subway map with my finger, I can trace a line
from Herc through the stations of the other founding fathers (DJs
all – Marley Marl, Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaata) to the first
commercial rap hit (the Chic-driven disco of ‘Rappers Delight’).
From there, I sidestep to KRS One and Run DMC and the founding of
Def Jam. Then there’s the black radicalism of Public Enemy giving
white America the bum rush and terrifying it in the process – a
nation of millions couldn’t hold them back – and then a leap across
country to the laid-back menace of Ice T and the burgeoning
production genius of Dr Dre.
I’ve got double vision as I recall hip hop’s parallel development:
NWA and gangsta rap in LA and New York’s brief golden age in the
hands of Quest, Black Sheep, De La, EPMD … When are we talking?
Early ’90s.
Now I tilt my head back to look at the Manhattan skyline and I find
myself picturing the two great empires that rose out of Babylon. On
my left is Death Row Records, steepling over the West Coast in the
clumsy hands of former hired muscle Marion ‘Suge’ Knight and
personified by Tupac Shakur, the New York-born son of a black
activist. On my right is Bad Boy Entertainment, the brainchild of
middle-class college kid Sean Combs whose ‘Puffy’ nickname suits him
a whole lot more than P. Diddy. I think about Bad Boy’s frontman,
Christopher Wallace a.k.a the Notorious B.I.G (or Biggie Smalls), a
larger than life ex-crack dealer from Brooklyn. I think about how
these two empires traded units and traded insults until Tupac was
shot dead in Las Vegas in September 1996 and Biggie met the same
fate six months later in LA.
In the fall-out after Biggie and Pac, the horrified American media
made much of hip hop’s East-West rivalry. But as I stand stock still
amid the downtown bustle, I find the chorus of ‘Warning’, a seminal
Biggie track (from the prophetic ‘Ready To Die’ album), running
around my head: ‘Damn! Niggaz wanna stick me for my paper.’ Because
it was probably as simple and as complicated as that.
After the collapse of these twin Babels (literal for Death Row,
metaphorical for Bad Boy that continues to rake it in while unable
to escape Big’s considerable shadow), hip hop blew up nationwide as
emcees and producers stepped out of the wings from every US town and
city: Ludacris from Atlanta, Common from Chicago, Masta P from New
Orleans, Missy from Portsmouth, Virginia, Nelly from St Louis, Bubba
Sparxxx from rural Georgia and, of course, Eminem from Detroit. Hip
hop had become as all-American as baseball. Or perhaps jazz.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from Where You’re At
by Patrick Neate
Copyright © 2004 by Patrick Neate.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Riverhead Books
Copyright © 2004
Patrick Neate
All right reserved.
ISBN: 1-59448-021-5
