nikka,
I SAID SOMETHING ABOUT JAMES BROWN - THE WOMAN IN THE VIDEO MENTIONED JAMES BROWN...that's an important element to the equation
nobody was dee-jaying using old funk/R&B records back then, this is what gave it a fresh sound
every other song produced in the early 80's used james brown or a funk/R&B record
for that reason
you dudes call yourselves HIP HOP FANS!?!?
I see you don't know music history when it comes to the disco scene, which gave birth to hip hop, so I'm not gonna try to play you, but you are wrong again!
Most of the records dj'ed WERE old funk/R&b because that was poppin at the time. You do know this was the early 70's right? That is when funk was taking over black people all over America! AND JAMES BROWN IS THE FATHER OF FUNK!
Herc needed breaks, and it was so much competiton he just went back to the old music, but remember old doesn't mean how we see old, it was just a few years back. Remember music took time to come out, so it wasn't really that old, and because the early disco sound was taking over NYC, what Herc did was actually a smart business move, but don't turn it into some creative genius shyt. give him props for noticing something, coming up with an idea, and it helped grow into something new, but he didn't plan any of this, and it wasn't some magical thing. People need to stop thinking like children, and seeing life as a movie! There were people who were using the same elements he was using, he just put his twist on it. He got lucky he came up when gangs in NYC started dying down, and the younger people found a way to have fun, but even then he had to get down with gang members "nine lives crew" or he would have had his shyt took the first day he came to the park! Bam was under the spades, so that is why he was safe.
And NO, the early 80's did not use James Brown, that came about in the late 80's with Marley Marl. He did it because sampling was a new thing, the 80's had an electronic sound, and he wanted that funk. Plus, hip hop is about the drums being hard, and James Brown breaks allowed you to sample the drums, make them louder, and put an 808 over it, that made Marley Marl the man with music being loud, clean, but still that older sound because he sampled James Brown. I was there, I remember everything!