A comprehensive guide to the origin/roots of HipHop's elements (all verified facts w/ OG interviews)

IllmaticDelta

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Not sure if this was covered but simply,

Did spoken word come from rap
Or did rap branch from spoken word

Or did they both simply have a common ancestor

@IllmaticDelta


Spoken word as a movement is before Rap(ping) as a movement but the Afram traditions that lead to modern rap (jive talking, dozens, toasts etc..) are older than the first established traditions of a Spoken word movement.


this tradition




is older than this tradition



but Afram beat poets/jazzoetry laid the foundation to modern spoken word that you see in slam poetry and obviously, is a stream/ancestor of Rap as a movement





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Cadillac

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Spoken word as a movement is before Rap(ping) as a movement but the Afram traditions that lead to modern rap (jive talking, dozens, toasts etc..) are older than the first established traditions of a Spoken word movement.


this tradition




is older than this tradition



but Afram beat poets/jazzoetry laid the foundation to modern spoken word that you see in slam poetry and obviously, is a stream/ancestor of Rap as a movement





joEzBeg.jpg



sfRIE5u.jpg



7gg5Enw.jpg



QtjjI1h.jpg



Kt9YlJ1.jpg



3UaxOYV.jpg

All facts, spoken words and its elements from cadence, delivery and emphasis of a syllable , line, metaphor all derive from such element

A spoken word contest is no diff than a rap performance one minus production/beat
 

IllmaticDelta

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All facts, spoken words and its elements from cadence, delivery and emphasis of a syllable , line, metaphor all derive from such element

A spoken word contest is no diff than a rap performance one minus production/beat

Spoken word contest is more like Rap-freestyle battle in its delivery/cadence

...

vs






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Spoken word still sounds like Spoken even if it's on a HipHop beat, but Rapping flows differently because of the syncopation. Compare the last Poets and Common over the same beat




or J-ivy vs Kanye and Jay on this track


 

IllmaticDelta

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Related to HipHop production. Repost:


Sampling existed before HipHop:


In European classical, folk, hymns etc...they would do a simple type of sampling by putting new lyrics to old melodies



vs








Contrafactum


In vocal music, contrafactum (or contrafact, pl. contrafacta) is "the substitution of one text for another without substantial change to the music".[1]


A lesser-known musical term, contrafactum, refers to a song in which the melody is similar or even identical to another song yet contains different lyrics. One of the most popular examples of contrafacta are “What Child is This” and “Greensleeves.” While the lyrics convey very different meanings, the melody remains the same for both.

There are several reasons for why a composer would choose to repeat one melody across two different pieces. Often times, the composer has chosen to reuse the melody from another piece because it brings together the beginning and end of a show. For example, “Come to Me,” also known as “Fantine’s Death,” is sung in the first act of ‘Les Miserables.’ “On My Own,” the contrafactum of “Come to Me,” is performed during the second act of the show.

Another popular Broadway show containing contrafacta is ‘The Music Man’. For this show, Meredith Willson used similar melody lines in “Goodnight, My Someone” and the show’s signature tune “76 Trombones.” Even though they are performed in succession, it is not obvious that “Goodnight, My Someone” is a contrafactum as it is played at a much slower tempo in ¾ time.

The current musicnotes.com FREE download of the month, “To Anacreon in Heaven” is a contrafactum. John Stafford Smith created the beautiful melody that Fancis Scott Key penned the infamous “Star-Spangled Banner” to years later.


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whereas those musicians didn't do anything to alter what they sampled "musically", Jazz heads added complexity to this







In jazz, a contrafact is a musical composition consisting of a new melody overlaid on a familiar harmonic structure.[1]




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and what they sampled from previous songs was only a jump-off point to entirely new pieces of music

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the similarities with the Jazz (Bebop) practice and later hiphop sampling has been noted




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the differences between those forms of sampling and modern sampling as we know it was pioneered from HipHop production and its use of digital samplers and the way they used them





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HipHop pioneered the purely cut and paste style of previous recordings to make a collage of samples for a new musical piece





HipHop production via sampling is the audio version of



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every musical style genre since the early to mid-1980s now uses HipHops sample-based production style


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IllmaticDelta

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@K.O.N.Y

this is why they made this video about Herc's hood in the West Bronx




his location made it easier for youth to witness him outside


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description of the South/East Bronx back then


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vs a description of the West Bronx


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OG from Herc's hood/grew up with many of those pioneering hiphop og's, said about Herc's location:

"Herc was in a neutral location, that's how he got big because you couldn't just walk into other sections (of the bronx) because of the gang problem"


 

IllmaticDelta

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Basically, numerous people over the years have asked me to make this thread (and put it in this sub) so all the info that's been shared in countless threads can easily be found/referenced in one single thread w/o having to be posted over and over again in various other threads whenever the topic comes up. In the treads that will be linked below, you will be able to find the origins of:

1. Musical foundations of hiphop
2. Origins of rapping (syncopated rhyming to a beat)
3. Where did hiphop style graffiti originate
4. The origins of breakdancing and who were the first bboys
5. How did Disco djing with 2 turntables and a mixer give way to HipHop djing/Quick mix theory
6. How did black american radio djs of the 1940s/1950s influence USA HipHop and Jamaican Dancehall (the genre and the place)
7. When did puerto ricans get into HipHop
8. Who were the pioneers of North Bronx, West Bronx, South Bronx and South East Bronx' hiphop scenes and who came 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc....
9. What did the other NYC boroughs pioneer in HipHop's early days

...plus, plenty of other related topics







I'm Sorry But Fat Joe is not a Culture Vulture, AT ALL!


I'm Sorry But Fat Joe is not a Culture Vulture, AT ALL!


to add to that

Spike Lee Co signs Fat Joe "Black People and Puerto Ricans created one of the great art forms ever! Together! In the bronx! Undisputed!"




Repost:


@Uptown WaYo87 you're not gonna like this truth from REAL Rican Hiphop/bboy pioneers. I can't wait to see how you'll wiggle out of this ether:lolbron:


Batch and Trace 2 (they are cousins and Abby is the brother of Batch) are the first Rican bboys and are the ones that formed the first Rican bboy crew/organization, which later gave way to Crazy Legs and the Rock Steady Crew. This is what they said about the origns of bboying and when they got involved in the HipHop culture:

I posted this tidbit before where Batch acknowledged being introduced to bboying by a black kid named "Tee Tee Rock"


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here is a video on it and these are his exact words on the origin:

"The first time I saw bboying, which yall now call Breakdancing, was in 1975 from Tee Tee Rock. He went to the ground (floor moves) after doing a 360 mid-air from an uprock position"





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Trace 2 said:


My cousin Batch used to stay over to my house for the summer. Once he came dressed in Bboy style, with the hat, the radio and everything. He started showing me his dance moves and I’m like, what the hell is this guy doing? Next thing I know I find myself dancing. It must have been the summer of 1974-75. I started hanging out with him on Mapes and 180th in the Bronx, that’s where everything was happening. We would go to clubs, the abandoned buildings which where our clubs, and do our things. It was Batch who got me into it.
Batch had a style of his own believe me. He was a muscular kid and he came in wearing a short sleeves tshirt with tink top tshirt on top, AJs, white sneakers and a big black godfather hat. It was like a pimp hat but it was black. He came in with the boombox.
The day my cousin came to my house and I saw him dancing, Batch was new at it, he was a rookie too. Then we both started going around in his neighborhood. He was staying at Mohegan Av where there were more guys dancing. At the time there weren’t too many Bboys out there but you had your few so we started picking from them. I watched them the way they were doing it and I tried and became a bboy. From there the word started spreading and more people started dancing.
The first jam I ever went to there was a DJ named Lay Lay, from the PM Fun City Crew. They were The Peacemakers a street gang turned into a hip hop crew. I remember it like it was yesterday
. Our soundtrack was basically all James Brown tracks, Sex Machine, Good Foot, and a lot of underground stuff like the record Blow Your Head, Apache which was like the Bboy’s anthem. Every Bboy could relate to that song. Bongo Rock by The Incredible Big Bongo Band, the flip side of Apache.
In the summer time we had t shirt and in wintertime sweatshirts either black with white letters or white with black letters. Our colors were black and white. Back them graffiti on jeans were popular so we would put our tags on them too.

I don’t remember really having any kind of problems during the jams. It was all very cool. Sometimes people would go a little bit out of hand but it was never something crazy. Just the heat because of the moment but after that we would pound each other. Sometimes when we would beat a crew, they would end up joining TBB, dropping their crew and joining ours, like it happened with the Brooklyn Floormasters. That’s how we became so big. Rock Steady Crew came out of TBB. The original guys, JoJo and all of them guys, were all TBBs before becoming Rock Steady.
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Abby says:


SIR NORIN RAD:"Willie Will (legendary Puerto Rican B-Boy from Rockwell Association) told me about how we was introduced to that original Black B-Boy Style of dancing which you referred to as The Go Off in 1976 by a B-Boy called Chopper that was down with the Zulu Nation. What was the relationship between TBB and the Zulu Nation? Was there any kind of contact at all?"

ABY:"Again, I was younger. I was too young to even understand the difference between Black and Puerto Rican. But to my brothers...to the older guys there was a barrier....there was a line between Blacks and Latinos. I mean look at the gangs back then...the Black Spades were all black and then you had the Ghetto Brothers which were all Latinos....so there was a division at first. I remember the Zulu Kings only from late 1976/77 that's when we really got involved. That's also when Batch had his meeting with the Zulu Nation..1977. TBB and members of the Zulu Nation they used to have rumbles.....they would fight against each other. Whatever jam they went to they would rumble. If there was a jam and TBB was chilling there and all of a sudden some one threw hands Batch would summon TBB Joe's division who was known as the warlord division meaning thay handled all the rumbles or one on one fight make sure no one jumped in !! . One of the first black DJs that I ever met was Lay Lay. He was from Fun PM City Crew and they was all black but they was kool cause they were from the block.We never had problems in 129 Mapes Pool. Lay Lay would get cutting and we would start dancing !! Back then we danced more with the girls than against each other .. But when we heard "It's Just Begun" or Babe Ruth "Mexican" or "Bongo Rock"... forget about it! Floor rockers hit the flooooorrrrrrr,!!! Cypher set and battles was for respect not money .. You had to be there to truly understand and smell the air and feel the excitement when the cat you was battling burned you the last time and you been practicing all week long for the moment you let it all out on the concrete ... Damn miss em days ."

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The DJ they're talking about was a black guy from the Peacemakers gang (black spades connected) from post 1975 era

More context:


B-Boy Puppet Master (The Shaka Zulus):

SIR NORIN RAD:"From what I have heard huge parts of the Bronx were divided into different gang territories in the early 1970s and you told me you joined a gang called the Peacemakers. How did that come about?"

PUPPET MASTER:"That's true. 1971 I joined the Peacemakers. I was eleven so I was a Baby Peacemaker. You had the Baby Peacemakers, The Young Peacemakers...and the Peacemakers. From 1968 to 1973 it was all gang culture, you know?"

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was it that one had to do in order to join the Peacemakers?"

PUPPET MASTER:"Sometimes you had to go through the Apache Line. Sometimes you might have to fight a 1 on 1, a 2 on 1 or a 3 on 1. It depends on who the person was. If the person looked kinda shakey then they would tell him, "Do the Apache Line!" If the brother looked like he could hold his own it wasn't no Apache Line it was just, "Come on in!" With me it wasn't no Apache Line, I fought the vice president and the warlord and they let me in."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did it mean to be a Peacemaker? Did you have to wear specific colors?"

PUPPET MASTER:"Yeah, we all wore colors. Ours was the peace sign on the back. When the Peacemakers first started in 1971 it was a peace sign and it may have the crossed swords or crossed 44s (guns) 'cause actually a peacemaker is a 44 pistol. A peacemaker, you know? So yeah, we had colors, a top to bottom rocker and our symbol was the peace sign."

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SIR NORIN RAD:"How many divisions did the Peacemakers have back then?"

PUPPET MASTER:"We had altogether 36 divisions. We had Peacemakers in the Bronx. Marmion Ave & Tremont...that's where our club house was at......Lambert, Uptown....Gun Hill Road, Edenwald Projects. We als had Peacemakers in Harlem....Douglas Projects, 145th, 144th, 143rd, 142nd Street & Broadway all that was Peacemakers' turf (territory) back then."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Talking to Kusa from the Zulu Masters I heard that what actually got him into Breaking was watching the Black Spades doing their specific dance at Bronx River. Did the Peacemakers also have dancers among them? Would they dance at their club house or at parties? What did their dance look like?"

PUPPET MASTER:"Yes, there was dancing going on. We would have Peacemaker parties or sometimes even when the Black Spades gave a party we would come to their party. Or the Black Spades would come to a Peacemaker party. They were our allies. Yeah, they would be dancing and there would be the gestures, you understand, the waving of the hands. They might do a little spin, kick a leg out...it wasn't going on the floor at that time."

SIR NORIN RAD:
"Did the Peacemakers also have an anthem? I was told that the anthem of the Black Spades was James Brown's "Soul Power". Whenever they would gather before a rumble they would listen to that song and chant, "Spade Power!" instead of "Soul Power!""

PUPPET MASTER:" Right, right. Ours was Funkadelics "Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On" and then we also had "Potential" (by Jimmy Castor). We would say,"Makers, maker, maker, maker, make" to the rhythm of the bass in the beginning of that song."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Do you recall a DJ by the name of Lay Lay who was down with the Fun City Crew? Many Puerto Rican B-Boys from such crews as The Bronx Boys or Rockwell Association told me that they went to his jams and that he was a Peacemaker once, too."

PUPPET MASTER:"Oh you're talking about Peacemaker Lay Lay. Peacemaker Lay Lay was the warlord of the Peacemakers. Peacemaker Lay Lay was an original
. First of all I'd like to say,"May Allah be pleased with him!" because this brother passed away about three or four years ago. He was the warlord of the Peacemakers, the supreme warlord of the Peacemakers. Later on he formed Fun City. Fun City is an extension, like a subdivision of the Peacemakers. They were still Peacemakers, they just called it Fun City Crew. You understand? Like the Casanovas...most of the Casanovas were Black Spades. I know DJ Lay Lay very well, he used to play in the park over there..... 129 school yard by the pool."

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Batch talking about Dj Lay Lay, the Peacemakers gangg and the Fun City Crew (black hiphop dj/bboy crew/organization)





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In summary:

1. It further establishes that Ricans were nowhere to be found in HipHop's foundational years of 1970-1974

2. All the Ricans pioneers according to their OWN timelines, saw their first glimpses of HipHop in 1975 and then a few would join in around that time


3. The first bboys were black and they would end up teaching/influencing the first Rican bboys


4. Black bboys were going down to the floor when Rican bboys first saw them in 1975, so Crazy Legs is out here lying

5. Rican youth actively sought out Black Djs in parks around 1975 and later (after the gang truce), so they could hear the Black American "Funk" music that was alien to their Salsa based music they heard at home, so they could "bboy" to it


Trace 2 - "I love Salsa but you can't dance to it (bboy). We needed that Funk"

 
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