Hip-hop-an urban culture that encompasses graffiti art, break-dancing, fashion and rap music-has been around for decades. And the traditions from which it feeds have existed for centuries. Rap, which emerged in the South Bronx in the mid-1970s, is the first urban, avant-garde folk music: a vehicle for telling stories that uses turntables as an instrument.
Hip-hop deejays manipulate, distort and reconfigure the history of recorded music, using such techniques as “scratching,” to create fresh beats and backdrops for rappers, who tell jokes, boast outrageously, talk about what happened to them on the way to the store that afternoon, or opine about the latest neighborhood news. It is a tradition as old as the African griots (storytellers), as fresh as the ghetto game of verbal one-upsmanship known as “the dozens.”
It is a party music that has expanded into the “black CNN,” to use rapper Chuck Ds oft-quoted phrase, an inner-city soundtrack that has found a vast audience not only in the suburbs but in nations such as England, India and Japan. Today, rap has replaced rock as the international language of urban youth, and the aesthetics of hip-hop underpin hit records by pop artists from Mariah Carey to Beck, Portishead to Janet Jackson.
To appreciate hip-hop requires an understanding of several styles of urban expression from the last 50 years, primarily soul, reggae and funk. This Sunday’s Essentials traces the emergence of this art form, and with last week’s Essentials on rock, pro-vides a foundation for a basic music library.
SOUL
Ray Charles founded soul in the mid ’50s, by fusing passionate, gospel-influenced vocals with rhythm and blues. By the mid- 1970s, soul had run its course.
Various artists: “Atlantic R&B 1947-1974” (box set); Ray Charles: “Genius & Soul: The 50th Anniversary Collection” (box set); “The Very Best of the Drifters”; Sam Cooke: “The Man and His Music”; Jackie Wilson: “Mr. Excitement!” (box set); Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions: “The Anthology 1961-1977”; James Brown: “Live at the Apollo” (1963); “The Philly Sound: Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff & the Story of Brotherly Love (1966-1976)” (box set); Aretha Franklin: “I Never Loved a Man The Way I Love You” (1967); Al Green: “Call Me” (1973).
MOTOWN and STAX
The Detroit-based Motown and Memphis-based Stax labels dominated the pop charts in the ’60s by combining peerless house bands, distinctive vocalists and brilliant songwriters.
Stax
Various artists: “The Complete Stax/Volt Singles 1959-1968” (box set); Otis Redding: “The Dictionary of Soul” (1966); Sam and Dave:”The Very Best of Sam and Dave”; Isaac Hayes: “Hot Buttered Soul” (1969).
Motown
Various artists: “Hitsville U.S.A.: The Motown Singles Collection 1959-1971” (box set); Marvin Gaye: “What’s Going On” (1971); Stevie Wonder: “Innervisions” (1973) and “Songs in the Key of Life” (1976).
FUNK TOP 10
With his classic 1967 single “Cold Sweat,” James Brown stripped soul music of chord changes and put the focus squarely “on the one”-the funk rhythm.
1. James Brown: “Star Time” (1991); even over four CDs, this box set barely skims the surface of Brown’s innovations in soul and funk and as a precursor of rap.
2. Sly and the Family Stone: “Stand!” (1969); a multi-culti band that mixed rock and soul over finger-popping bass.
3. Parliament: “Mothership Connection” (1976); George Clinton takes the funk to outer space.
4. Prince: “1999” (1983) take the above three records, add Jimi Hendrix, and you’ve got Prince’s outrageous sound.
5. Funkadelic: “Maggot Brain” (1971); the nastier, less-conceptual alter ego of Clinton’s Parliament.
6. Ohio Players: “Gold” (1976); “Owww, garl!” A celebration of sex.
7. Earth Wind & Fire: “Gratitude” (1975); an Ellingtonian fusion of styles on this live masterpiece.
8. Zapp: “Zapp II” (1981); electronic beats, down-home passion.
9. War: “Anthology (1970-94)”; jazz- and Latin-influenced low-rider grooves.
10. Rufus featuring Chaka Khan: “Rufusized” (1975); voice as earthy as the beats.
REGGAE
Jamaican soul that borrowed heavily from American R&B, and later influenced hip-hop with its sparse rhythms and “toasting” (rap-style vocals).
Various artists: “The Harder They Come” (1972 movie soundtrack); Toots and the Maytals: “Funky Kingston” (1973); Bob Marley: “Natty Dread” (1975); Burning Spear: “Marcus Garvey”/”Garvey’s Ghost” (1975-76); Peter Tosh: “Legalize It” (1976); Lee “Scratch” Perry: “Super Ape” (1976); Cos: “Heart of the Cos” (1977); Culture: “Two Sevens Clash” (1977); Gregory Isaacs: “Night Nurse” (1982); Various artists: “Tougher Than Tough: The Story of Jamaican Music” (1993 box set).
DISCO/HOUSE
Some disco was repetitive and silly. Some was great R&B dressed up for the ’70s. House, created in the ’80s, was Chicago’s grittier, electronic offshoot of disco.
Various artists: “Saturday Night Fever” (1977); Chic: “Risque” (1979); Donna Summer: “Bad Girls” (1979); Various artists: “The Disco Years Vol. 1: Turn the Beat Around (1974-1978)”; Various artists: “Chicago Trax, Vols. 1-3” (1997 box set).
RAP TOP 10
1. Public Enemy: “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back” (1988); a vertigo-inducing hurricane of sound swirls around Chuck D’s voice of rage.
2. Run-D.M.C.: “Raising Hell” (1986); the hip-hop Sam and Dave at their fiery best, including a groundbreaking rap-rock collaboration with Aerosmith on “Walk This Way.”
3. Eric B. and Rakim: “Paid in Full” (1987); full of understated menace, Rakim defines what it means to rock the mike.
4. De La Soul: “3 Feet High and Rising” (1989); psychedelic, whimsical, witty.
5. Beastie Boys: “Paul’s Boutique” (1989); a clinic in the art of sampling, courtesy of the Dust Brothers.
6. Various artists: “The Sugar Hill Records Story” (1997); a five-CD set that chronicles hip-hop’s early days and its rise from wiggy party music (Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight”) to social force (Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message”).
7. N.W.A.: “Straight Outta Compton” (1988); street stories that portray Los Angeles ghettos as the new Vietnam.
8. P.M. Dawn: “Of the Heart, Of the Soul, and Of the Cross: The Utopian Experience” (1991); who says rap isn’t melodic?
9. Arrested Development: “3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life of …” (1992); socially enlightened, melodically rapturous.
10. Tricky: “Maxinquaye” (1995); spooky atmospherics, angular beats make this the definitive “trip-hop” album.
PUBLICATIONS
David Toop’s “Rap Attack 2: African Rap to Global Hip-Hop” (Serpent’s Tail) is the most scholarly history of the genre, followed closely by the more consumer-oriented “Bring the Noise: A Guide to Rap Music and Hip-Hop Culture” (Harmony), by Michael A. Gonzalez and Havelock Nelson. Rickey Vincent’s “Funk: The Music, the People, and the Rhythm of the One” (St. Martin’s Griffin) is the best overview of the sounds that presaged hip-hop. For a monthly guide to new hip-hop recordings, there is The Source.
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MORE ON THE INTERNET
For a multimedia presentation of this installment and a look at the previous Essentials, go to: chicago.tribune.com
