FAQ: rec.music.hip-hop (1st draft... fucked up at 2 AM)
Flash, founder and editor of HardC.O.R.E.
This is a test... of the rec.music.hip-hop broadcast system. The news
admins in your area, in coordination with Ron Dippold, David Lawrence, and
other authorities, have developed this system to keep you informed in the
event of a new newsgroup :>
OK so I'm buggin... but what the hell, I'm happy the newsgroup is up here
Now I'm lookin forward to seeing some ACTION!
The real intent of this post though is below... check it out
The first draft of the incomplete rec.music.hip-hop FAQ
Please feel free to e-mail me with contributions. Peace!
FAQ: rec.music.hip-hop
Contents:
Section A -- "The Science"
1. Why was this newsgroup created?
2. What is hip-hop music and culture?
3. What, historically, have been movements in hip-hop music?
4. What is hip-hop music today?
5. How do aspects of the culture relate to the music, and vice versa?
6. What other sources of information are available on these subjects?
Section B -- "The Debate"
1. Why is rap music? (Counter-arguement to the "rap is not music" thread)
2. What is the difference between East and West coast hip-hop?
3. Why is East coast/West coast feudalism so commonplace?
4. What can be done to combat divisiveness in the hip-hop nation?
5. What is the place of non african-americans in hip-hop?
(also known as "The Beastie Question")
6. How does the universality of hip-hop overshadow cultural differences?
Section C -- "The Fun Stuff"
1. What internet sites have hip-hop sound files?
2. What internet sites have hip-hop lyrics?
3. What internet sites have hip-hop periodicals?
4. What internet sites have cultural information on hip-hop?
5. What are the organizations dedicated to hip-hop music and culture?
6. How can I reach these organizations?
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Section A:
1. Why was this newsgroup created?
Originally, there were two main and _fairly_ well received newsgroups where
people interested in hip-hop music and culture could go for discourse on
the topic, alt.rap and rec.music.funky. While effective in their time,
there were a few problems with the discussion of hip-hop on these groups.
A. Not all news sites carry the alt hierarchy.
B. Rec.music.funky included hip-hop in it's charter to guarantee broad
acceptance in a CFV and get the newsgroup to pass the vote, but the
atmosphere of posts on the newsgroup was generally not conducive to hip-hop
discussion. Some voiced the opinion they wanted strictly discussions of
'funk' music, with hip-hop not being in that definition. Others stressed
that there was an alt.rap newsgroup available for the topic... which in the
case of news sites that didn't carry alt hierarchy proved to be false.
C. While many of forms of music from which hip-hop was born had newsgroups,
hip-hop itself did not. Two examples are rec.music.bluenote and
rec.music.reggae. To some this seemed a lack of respect towards hip-hop,
as though it were not truly 'music' and didn't have a place in rec.music.
Weighing these factors together, and judging that there was a general
consensus that a move to rec hierarchy should be made, I posted several RFD
(Request For Discussion) over the course of 1994. It should be noted I was
not the first to take this action, however I was the first to make it
_official_ via the news.announce.newgroups (it should also be noted I was
flamed for my first RFD, when I didn't take it through the proper channels).
David Lawrence of news.announce.newgroups helped me with this detail, by
first posting it to that group and then secondarily posting it to the
newsgroups who had a stake in this new group's creation.
Originally I believed that the new group should be named rec.music.rap, to
carry on the historical legacy started by the alt.rap group. The RFD
however brought out the sentiment that the emphasis in a rec group should
indeed be on hip-hop, which is the term for the music and culture, rather
than the commercialized aspect known as rap. I conducted a small straw
poll and discovered that 50% of those who responded preferred the name
rec.music.hip-hop (43% preferred rec.music.rap, 7% preferred other). So I
posted a new RFD bearing the new name, and after seeing that it was
well-accepted, quickly moved forward towards a CFV. Ron Dippold conducted,
as he does in so many cases, the CFV as a neutral third party who would
receive, tabulate, and post the results.
Voting on the newsgroup opened Janurary 7th, and closed Janurary 26th.
Five days later, the results were posted to news.announce.newgroups...
rec.music.hip-hop had passed 239:44. To pass, a newsgroup must receive 100
more yes votes than no, and 2/3rds of the entire vote total. That may seem
tough, but that's why there is an alt hierarchy... there anything goes, and
doesn't need approval. Now, at last, we had an _official_ newsgroup for
hip-hop music and culture.
2. What is hip-hop music and culture?
The term hip-hop tends to embody a wide range of activities of inner-city
culture which although having developed in many ghetto enclaves find at
least their spiritual birthplace to be New York City, New York.
Specifically, hip-hop often refers to
1. Bombing, also known as graffiti -- a form of highly creative and
individualized artistic expression using spray paint which is considered by
the _law_ to be illegal, due to the fact such expression is more likely
to take place on the side of a subway car or building than on a canvas.
2. B-boying, also known as breakdancing -- a style of musical dancing that
involves more sudden motions based on beats and rhythms than do other more
classical dance forms. There also tends to be no discernable limits to
what a breakdancer can do, so long as it's _funky_... that can be anything
from "The Transformer" to a headspin.
3. MCing -- the term MC originally meant Master of Ceremonies, and often
early MC's were just that. They developed a flair for saying anything
while on the microphone that could get a crowd at a dance hyped up... as a
result many early MC's were also DJ's. Gradually this evolved, borrowing
precedent from artists who recorded spoen-word poetry to a beat, from the
beatniks on up to Umar-Bin Hasaan and the Last Poets. MCing came to mean a
person who rhymed or spoke poetry on a microphone, and as this activity
became popular crews of MC's formed groups and challenged each other to
battle -- who could write the best rhyme, or diss the other guy better.
4. Scratching/DJing -- Credit for this element of hip-hop culture is mostly
given to DJ Grandmaster Flash. Many MC's rhymed over 'breakbeats', the
part of a song where the music was stripped and the beat more emphasized.
Flash recognized the need for a system in which a DJ could have one
breakbeat ready to go on a turntable as the previous one faded, sometimes
the same beat or tempo. As he developed the systems that made this
possible he also developed the scratching technique, of moving a record in
forward and reverse under the needle in time with the beat. This raw sound
so suited hip-hop it was quickly adopted and spread like wildfire... soon
MC's were bragging not just about themselves, but who had the better DJ or
whose DJ could do better tricks 'on the mix'.
5. Beatboxing -- Although it has somewhat fallen out of favor due to the
electronics which now make beats possible, historically beatboxing has been
a part of hip-hop. It is the art of providing a beat, or any creative
sound, for an MC to rap over solely by using your vocal chords and your
mouth. Before the '3rd era' of hip-hop, many beatbox artists were an
intergral part of any hip-hop crew or function.
For the most part, these forms are still constantly evolving and have
changed a great deal in the short history of hip-hop music, and new
elements of hip-hop culture are shaping and taking precedence on a regular
basis. These five are without a doubt though the most widely recognized
elements considered a part of hip-hop culture, with the latter three
compromising most of what is considered hip-hop music, as part of the culture.
3. What, historically, have been movements in hip-hop music?
Early in hip-hop music, as was stated earlier, the goal was to hype a crowd
with party rhymes that either told a playful story, boasted about yourself,
or put down another MC. The style of early MC's was often fairly
simplistic, which does not mean it was not poetic... it just tended to fall
into lines of the same cadence, with words that rhymed at the end of each
sentence and paired into couplets. And, despite occasional 'battles' such
as the legendary bouts between Kool Moe Dee and Busy Bee, hip-hop had a not
too serious tone about itself or towards itself.
Although many hip-hop music historians have debated when exactly the shift
in style did occur, most seem to concur that Run-D.M.C. in 1983 marked the
break between what is now considered to be 'old school' and the 'new
school', with a fair amount of overlap in either direction. The change was
almost accidental... they recorded a 12 inch of a song (also done by
contemporary Kurtis Blow) called 'Hard Times', and as a bonus they were
going to include a breakbeat on the b-side. After being convinced by their
producer to just 'talk about Larry, Orange Crush (another group he
produced), and where you go to school', they recorded a rap over the
breakbeat which is now known as 'Sucker MC's', a hip-hop classic. Whereas
much of hip-hop previously had incorporated disco music and live bands,
this song had a previously unheard rawness. Stripped to just a beat, Run
and D.M.C. dropped fierce rhymes... not just the usual party anthems, but
an actual call to war... all "Sucker MC's" either step off or get dissed.
The second era, within the 'new school', is also generally conceeded to
have occured in 1986. Hip-hop had spread from it's birthplace in New York
to other inner-cities elsewhere in the country. Now hip-hop began to
develop more topic-specific forms of expression. While Grandmaster Flash
and the Furious Five had the first succesful political record in "The
Message", the form did not explode until after the appearance of Public
Enemy and Boogie Down Productions in 1986. Their early success lead to
even more afrocentric records, the two seminal recordings being BDP's "By
All Means Necessary" in 1987 and PE's "It Takes a Nation of Millions to
Hold Us Back" in 1988. As this spawned a whole movement of political
records and higher conciousness, other MC's such as Rakim and Big Daddy
Kane mixed elements of political style into their new, more fierce styles
of MCing, in which metaphors and similies became precedent and battling was
elevated to a high plateau. Their success spawned an era which, in
combination with the popularity of afrocentric rhyming, has been hailed as
the 'golden age' of hip-hop. At the same time their success reached new
highs, some MC's also experimented with what is now known as 'gangsta rap'.
Artists such as Philadelphia's Schoolly D and Houston's Geto Boys lay claim
to the first gangsta records, but they preceeded the third era.
The third era of new school gradually came from the South, and even moreso
from the West coast....
* Steve 'Flash' Juon ** Funkmaster Flex and the Ghetto Celebs --- Ol Dirty *
* Box 2419, BVC ** "...I love rap, and rap loves me..." Bastard *
* 610 W 4th St ** *
* Storm Lake, IA 50588 ** http://library.uncc.edu/people/chris/hiphop.html *