My history of hip-hop

I’ll give you my -50-cent - worth on the subject. The poetry of hip-hop comes derives from a distinct mood.

“Moods are translated by the poet into words, by me into tones that sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes.”
-Ludwig van Beethoven

The mood of hip hop poetry is the mood of “Fight the Power” from the group Public Enemy:

It’s about the invisible man expressing himself out loud. Don’t need no expensive instruments or equipment, just a street corner and some balls.

But I think we should revisit your man Albert Murray’s main theory about the blues. Murray taught us that the blues lyrics may be negative (just as hip hop lyrics are), but the secret of the music lies in the affirmative nature of the beat and rhythm.

It was that sanguine brotherly rhythm that kept those people sane in the cotton fields and it’s the ass/fist shaking rhythm that kept the hopeless inner-city youth from complete nihilism. To dance is to live.

I think there are a lot of connections to be made here with Barack Obama. I think I’ve heard you say, Chris, that the music most important to us is what we hear as a young teenager (13 or 14). Well Obama was born in 61, and hip-hop took off in the mid seventies, so there you go. And I can see it in him. Miles said in his bio: “For me, music and life are all about style.” Obama has a hip-hop style: fist pumps, those handshake/half hugs, and the strut.

The last thing you said to me on the phone is “what’s the connection.” My humble feeling is it is not a coincidence that Barack has materialized as the tipping point in the hip-hop arch. Hip-hop was a reaction to malaise in the post 60’s civil rights movement. Half of the delay was the backlash to all that progressiveness and half was just letting some of those policies come to bear. Barack Obama is both the end and the fruition of Hip Hop, as we knew it. Its remnants will now be powerful but disparate – like modern jazz.

But most of all, Chris, as you know, Barack Obama has rhythm in his speech, in his cadence.

Just so you know, my favorite little know fact about Hip Hop is that it has it’s roots in Jamaica. There was a whole genre down there of djs like Lee “Scratch” Perry and King Tubby improvising rhymes over dub versions of records – remixing. One of those guys, Kool Herc, brought that shit up to the Bronx and the rest is history.

(Incidentally, Lee “Scratch” Perry stayed in Jamaica and discovered a guy by the name of Bob Marley).

So yea, current guys are Kanye West and NAS (whose recent track was “Hip Hop is Dead” and who is a rival of Jay Z).
But my guys are Biggie Smalls and Dr. Dre:

But the man who has the biggest street cred of them all is Jay Z. He the most popular among black people. He made his money as his own businessman i.e. w/o the white man. I’ve met many black guys who can recite his rhymes till the cows come home.

And one more thing. There is a huge connection between Hip-Hop and Jazz that I want to point out. In rapping it’s called “freestyle” It’s where they improvise the rhymes on the spot. Only the best can do it, and that is how they get their cred.