I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: “The Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel” (1981).

This track was one of the first records to mix songs from other artists (yes, we call it sampling now).  It was a chance for Grandmaster Flash to show off his mad mixing skills.  He used three turntables, samples from the movie Flash Gordon (nice) and this songs:

Chic – “Good Times” ; Blondie – “Rapture” ; Queen – “Another One Bites the Dust” ; Sugarhill Gang – “8th Wonder” ; The Furious Five – “Birthday Party” ; Spoonie Gee – “Monster Jam” ; Michael Viner’s Incredible Bongo Band – “Apache” ; Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five – “Freedom” ; Sugarhill Gang – “Rapper’s Delight” ; The Hellers – “Life Story”

It’s really impressive and it sounds seamless.

[READ: November 23, 2014] Hip Hop Family Tree 1

This book came across my desk at work and I was really excited to read it.  I thought I didn’t know all that much about the origins of hip hop.  And while I was largely right, I was also pleased that I knew so many of the big names.

So this is a graphic novel done by Ed Piskor.  Piskor’s style is familiar (it looks like old school indie comics, even though he was born in 1982). Now, I already said I don’t know all that much about hip hop history, so I can’t vouch for the veracity of this family tree (and I certainly suspect that Piskor likes some people and dislikes others), but I assume that this is a pretty accurate story about how hip hop came to be.

It all starts in the 1970s with DJ Kool Herc in the South Bronx.  He spins discs at parties and is hugely successful.  He starts looping records to extend the drum breaks.  His popularity inspires Grandmaster Flash who tries new techniques and Afrika Bambaataa who plays the most obscure records he can find (Kraftwerk, for instance).  Bambaataa was once a gang leader but he channeled his music into a more peaceful gang–Zulu Nation.  This group leads to some other early hip hop groups: The Treacherous Three, The Cold Crush Brothers, Funky Four Plus One (the first of the groups to feature a woman) and The Fantastic Five,

All of this music caught the attention of Russel “Rush” Simmons (whom Piskor draws with his eyes terribly askew and with a heavy lisp).  Simmons is the older brother of Joseph “Run” Simmons who is friends with Darryl McDaniels–but he won’t let them create a record until they go to college.

At the time, most of the hip hop and break dancing was done on street corners and in parking lots–outdoor venues where the stars didn’t really make money, they just grew more renowned.  Some people did try to capitalize on it in clubs, but that took some time.  The original stars are all DJs, but soon, new names start emerging for being able to rock the mic–to keep the party going while the DJ was doing his thing: Melle Mel, Kidd Creole, Cowboy.

And soon people started putting their own beats on wax.  The originators felt like the recorded versions were lame, but soon the records started selling in huge quantities.  We see a young Chuck D appreciating the music but not the message.  (And we travel across the country to Compton where a young Dr Dre is checking out the vinyl).

At the same time, the art of tagging and graffiti was becoming more widespread.  Fred Fab Five saw the art in it and the connection to hip hop culture.   He tracked down one of the more famous taggers and began working with him.  Fred even starts to go “legit,” getting into an art gallery.  He also connects with Basquiat with him.  Freddy meets Debbie Harry and Chris Stein of Blondie, and the rest is history.

One person comes across as the villain in the whole thing and she is Sylvia Robinson, former child singer and then current record producer and the brains behind Sugar Hill Records.  Throughout the book Robinson is seen to latch on to anything new, copy it and repackage it as her own.  She gets a thought bubble that says “Could the Sugar Hill Gang do something as good on top of the same beat?”  Although she is responsible for recreating the image of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five in their (visual) transformation from Enjoy Records to Sugar Hill and undoubtedly making them more popular), she also treated her acts like peons–threatening to fire them at any time and barely paying them.

Next we see Kool Moe Dee in school showing off his chops.  We also meet Kurtis Blow (who gets a (successful) tour of Holland but falls flat on Soul Train).  We also meet a young Rick Rubin (who comes across as a brat (but knowledgeable).  I also didn’t know he had a band called The Pricks).

Soon enough (1980) Blondie gets in on the act with “Rapture” (the book doesn’t make it sound like a cash, but rather a genuine appreciation of rap culture).  Then came “The Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel” (1981) which sampled “Rapture” and emphasizes the DJ skills over the rapping skills.

The book ends with the advent of MTV and with Charlie Ahearn working on his movie about rap.

I really enjoyed this book a lot.  Piskor has a great style–he exaggerates the artists (some of their afros are insane) without making caricatures of them.  He also picks some great moments in the history of the medium–being comprehensive without being too detailed (of course, he has a great amount of material to work with).  I appreciated that he puts his opinions into his drawings and that he clearly has favorites in this history–it makes the story less dry and much more entertaining.

The only thing I didn’t like about the book was that it was printed on a tan page which made the details hard to see.  It also made it a but hard to read everything I thought, too.  It looked very cool, mind you, so maybe it was worth it.

And best of all, the end of the book includes a discography of essential tracks and a funky index.