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Old School Hip Hop
Old-school hip hop (also spelled old skool) is the earliest commercially recorded hip hop music and original style of the genre. It typically refers to the music created around 1979 to 1983, as well as any hip hop that does not adhere to contemporary styles. The image, styles and sounds of old-school hip hop were exemplified by figures like Grandmaster Flowers, Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa, DJ Kool Herc, Treacherous Three, Funky Four Plus One, Kurtis Blow, The Sugarhill Gang, Melle Mel, Super-Wolf, West Street Mob, Spoonie Gee, Kool Moe Dee, Busy Bee Starski, Lovebug Starski, DJ Hollywood, The Cold Crush Brothers, Warp 9, T-Ski Valley, Grandmaster Caz, Doug E. Fresh, The Sequence, Jazzy Jay, Rock Steady Crew, and Fab Five Freddy. It is characterized by the simpler rapping techniques of the time and the general focus on party-related subject matter. The lyrics were usually not a very important part of old-school rap songs. There were, however, exceptions such as ...
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Poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, a prosaic ostensible meaning. A poem is a literary composition, written by a poet, using this principle. Poetry has a long and varied history, evolving differentially across the globe. It dates back at least to prehistoric times with hunting poetry in Africa and to panegyric and elegiac court poetry of the empires of the Nile, Niger, and Volta River valleys. Some of the earliest written poetry in Africa occurs among the Pyramid Texts written during the 25th century BCE. The earliest surviving Western Asian epic poetry, the '' Epic of Gilgamesh'', was written in Sumerian. Early poems in the Eurasian continent evolved from folk songs such as the Chinese ''Shijing'', as well as religious hymns (the S ...
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DJ Kool Herc
Clive Campbell (born April 16, 1955), better known by his stage name DJ Kool Herc, is a Jamaican-American DJ who is credited with contributing to the development of hip hop music in the Bronx, New York City, in the 1970s through his "Back to School Jam", hosted on August 11, 1973, at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue. After his younger sister, Cindy Campbell, became inspired to earn extra cash for back-to-school clothes, she decided to have her older brother, then 18 years old, play music for the neighborhood in their apartment building. Campbell began playing hard funk records of the sort typified by James Brown. Campbell began to isolate the instrumental portion of the record which emphasized the drum beat—the "break"—and switch from one break to another. Using the same two-turntable set-up of disco DJs, he used two copies of the same record to elongate the break. This breakbeat DJing, using funky drum solos, formed the basis of hip hop music. Campbell's announcements and exhortatio ...
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Warp 9
Warp 9, an American sci-fi themed electro-funk, hip hop group is best known for its ground breaking, influential singles including " Nunk," "Light Years Away," and " Beat Wave," which ranked among the most iconic groups of the electro hip hop era. Described as the "perfect instance of hip hop's contemporary ramifications," Warp 9 was the brainchild of writer-producers Lotti Golden and Richard Scher. The duo wrote and recorded under the moniker Warp 9, a production project at the forefront of the electro movement. Background Lotti Golden and Richard Scher were among the early electro production teams in New York City, utilizing the Roland TR-808 drum machine and the casio keyboard, which built its brand of electro by layering multiple keyboard textures over drum-machine tracks, which became Warp 9's signature sound. Although the sound of the Roland TR-808 was the basis for Warp 9's rhythm tracks, Golden and Scher began to introduce live percussion in Warp 9 recordings. For exam ...
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The Cold Crush Brothers
The Cold Crush Brothers are an American hip hop group that formed in 1978 in the Bronx, New York City., ''Vibe Magazine'', December 1994 - January 1995, Vol. 2, No. 10, p.68 They were especially known for their memorable routines which included harmonies, melodies and stage-stomping performances. The Cold Crush Brothers still perform across the United States. History Formation and early years (1978–1981) The Cold Crush brothers formed as a group in 1978. DJ Tony Tone was originally a member of The Brothers Disco featuring DJ Breakout, DJ Baron and the original Funky Four emcees featuring the first female emcee Sha-Rock, KK Rockwell, Keith Keith and Rahiem (who later joined Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five). DJ Charlie Chase was first the DJ for the Furious Five for a very short time in 1979 after the Furious Five and Grandmaster Flash had disputes and Flash disbanded from the Furious Five. Then in 1978 DJ Tony Tone joined forces with DJ Charlie Chase and Easy AD left his p ...
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DJ Hollywood
DJ Hollywood (born Anthony Holloway; December 10, 1954) is an American MC and disc jockey. Background According to Kurtis Blow and Pete DJ Jones, Hollywood was the first rapper in the hip-hop style, making him the "Father" of the Hip Hop style. Before Hollywood introduced "Hip Hop style" rapping, he had already impacted DJing by creating a set that included singing, rhyming, and call and response, where he interacted with the crowd. An example would be Hollywood saying, "If you're feeling good with Hollywood somebody say, Oh yeah!" And the crowd would shout back: "Oh yeah!" Other rappers have been using some of his creations for the last 30 years, such as "throw ya hands in the air and wave 'em like you just don't care." Holloway said, "Don't get me wrong, they had people horapped before me syncopated and unsyncopated. I cannot take nothing away from people like Oscar Brown Jr., Pigmeat Markham, the Last Poets, Gil Scott Heron, the Watts Prophets, Rudy Ray Moore, I used to ...
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Lovebug Starski
Kevin Smith (May 16, 1960 – February 8, 2018), best known by his stage name Lovebug Starski, was an American MC, musician, and record producer. He began his career as a record boy in 1971 as hip-hop first appeared in the Bronx, and he eventually became a DJ at the Disco Fever club in 1978. He is one of two people who may have come up with the term "hip-hop". Starski claimed that he coined the phrase, while trading the two words back and forth, while improvising lines with Keef Cowboy of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, at a farewell party for a friend who was headed into the Army. Career Starski recorded his first single, "Positive Life," on the Tayster record label in 1981. (The British Group MARRS would sample this in 1987 with the No. 1 single " Pump Up the Volume".) Later, he recorded a song for the soundtrack of the 1986 film ''Rappin, which was released on Atlantic Records, before recording his first album, ''House Rocker'', on Epic/CBS Records. This featur ...
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Busy Bee Starski
David James Parker (born October 26, 1962), known by the stage name Busy Bee, is an American old-school hip hop musician from New York, NY. First coming on the New York City music scene in 1977, Busy Bee worked with many of hip-hop's founding fathers, including Melle Mel, Afrika Bambaataa, and Kool DJ AJ. Career Known for his comedic rhymes, Busy Bee originally gained a large following through MC rap battles in Staten Island, Brooklyn, and New Jersey. He was famously roasted by Kool Moe Dee at Harlem World in Manhattan, NY, December 1981, in one of the earliest documented rap battles. In 1985, he won the New Music Seminar's MC World Supremacy Belt. In the early 1980s Afrika Bambaataa asked Busy to join his Zulu Nation where the young MC would DJ for Bambaataa's Zulu Nation parties. Busy Bee continues to rhyme today, most recently appearing on KRS-One and Marley Marl's collaborative 2007 album '' Hip-Hop Lives''. Busy Bee was featured in the 1983 film ''Wild Style'', billed as ...
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Kool Moe Dee
Mohandas Dewese (born August 8, 1962), better known by his stage name Kool Moe Dee, is an American rapper, writer and actor. Considered one of the forerunners of the new jack swing sound in hip hop, he gained fame in the 1980s as a member of one of the pioneering groups in hip hop music, the Treacherous Three, and for his later solo career. During his career he released a total of seven studio albums (five of them solo), with 1994's '' Interlude'' being the last to date. His fast and aggressive rap style influenced following rap figures such as Big Daddy Kane, Beastie Boys, KRS-One, Rakim, Will Smith, N.W.A, Tupac Shakur, Nas, Jay-Z, among others. Among his most famous songs are " Go See the Doctor", "Wild Wild West" and " How Ya Like Me Now". Kool Moe Dee was ranked  33 on About.com's list of the 50 Greatest MCs of Our Time (1987–2007). Early life and education Born Mohandas Dewese in Harlem, Kool Moe Dee attended the State University of New York at Old Westbury, wher ...
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Spoonie Gee
Gabriel Jackson (born May 27, 1963), better known by his stage name Spoonie Gee, is one of the earliest rap artists, and one of the few to have released rap records in the 1970s. He has been credited with originating the term hip hop and some of the themes in his music were precursors of gangsta rap. Career Jackson was born in Harlem, New York City, receiving his 'Spoonie' nickname as a child because the spoon was the only utensil that he used to eat with.Larkin, Colin (1999) ''The Virgin Encyclopedia of Dance Music'', Virgin Books, pp. 322–23. Shapiro, Peter (2005) ''The Rough Guide to Hip-Hop'', Rough Guides, pp. 344–45. His mother died when he was twelve years old, and he went to live with his uncle, the record producer Bobby Robinson, in whose apartment he began to practice rapping.Toop, David (1984) ''The Rap Attack: African Jive to New York Hip Hop'', Pluto. His first recording came about after Peter Brown visited Robinson's record store and mentioned that he w ...
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West Street Mob
West Street Mob were an American boogie and electro music trio, active between 1981 and 1984, best known for their 1983 song "Break Dance — Electric Boogie." The band comprised Joey Robinson, Jr., Warren Moore and singer Sabrina Gillison. History In 1981, West Street Mob recorded their eponymous album, which peaked at No. 57 on the ''Billboard'' Black Albums chart. The single "Let's Dance" peaked at No. 18 on the Black Singles chart and No. 22 on the Dance chart. In 1983. the group released its second album, ''Break Dance – Electric Boogie''. The title track contains a sample of Incredible Bongo Band's 1973 recording of "Apache," written by Jerry Lordan. West Street Mob also recorded two singles that were not included on either of their two albums, "Ooh Baby" and "Sing a Simple Song." The group is well known for "Break Dance – Electric Boogie" being featured in the first of Judson Laipply's ''Evolution of Dance'' videos. Joseph "Joey" Robinson Jr., son of Sugar Hi ...
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Melle Mel
Melvin Glover (born May 15, 1961 in The Bronx), better known by his stage name Grandmaster Melle Mel (or simply Melle Mel) () is an American hip hop recording artist who was the lead vocalist and songwriter of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. Career Glover began performing in the late 1970s. He may have been the first rapper to call himself ''MC'' ( master of ceremonies). Other Furious Five members included his brother The Kidd Creole (Nathaniel Glover), Scorpio (Eddie Morris), Rahiem (Guy Todd Williams) and Cowboy (Keith Wiggins). While a member of the group, Cowboy created the term '' hip-hop'' while teasing a friend who had just joined the US Army, by scat singing the words "hip/hop/hip/hop" in a way that mimicked the rhythmic cadence of marching soldiers. Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five began recording for Enjoy Records and released "Superrappin'" in 1979. They later moved on to Sugar Hill Records and were popular on the R&B charts with party songs like "Fr ...
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The Sugarhill Gang
The Sugarhill Gang is an American hip hop trio. Their 1979 hit "Rapper's Delight" was the first rap single to become a top 40 hit on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100; reaching a peak position of number 36 on January 12, 1980. This was the trio's only U.S. hit, though they did have further success in Europe until the mid-1980s. The trio reformed in 1994 and did a world tour in 2016. Formation and early years The members, all from Englewood, New Jersey, consisted of Michael "Wonder Mike" Wright, Henry "Big Bank Hank" Jackson, and Guy "Master Gee" O'Brien. The three were assembled into a group by producer Sylvia Robinson, who founded Sugar Hill Records with her husband, record producer Joe Robinson. The group and the record company were named after the Sugar Hill, Harlem, neighborhood. Their 1979 hit "Rapper's Delight" was the first rap single to become a top 40 hit on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. The group never had another U.S. hit, though it had multiple European hits, such a ...
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