March 30, 2023 • 27 mins
This episode dives into the four key elements that we identify as the pillars that Hip Hop stands on and investigate who really coined the term ‘Hip Hop’. But first, we look at the DJ’s role and influence in setting the tone for Hip Hop before the Emcee. Episode guests include Kurtis Blow. DJ Envy. Kid Capri. Grandmaster Caz. Grandmaster Theodore. Grand Mixer DXT. Russell Simmons.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
From a heart podcasts, I Am five five Freddie and
this is fifty years of hip hop podcast series hip
Hop as we Know It fifty years later revolves around
the MC. That's em cee and not the letter M,
the letter C. Graham Master Kaz is going to explain
this later for you guys. But during the early days
(00:24):
of hip hop, the DJ was the main attraction. By
the way, the term DJ comes from disc jockey, and
that was first coined and popularized by legendary journalists and
radio announcer Walter Winchell back in the nineteen thirties. The
focus of every party, the DJ would have overflowing crates
(00:45):
filled with hot records, each specifically chosen to form the
perfect sound that kept the crowd moving and grouping. Graham
mix of DXT one of the earliest to use turntables
as a musical instrument, and the first turn table lists.
It's a dancing story. The dancer wants to dance, He
(01:06):
wants to dance on to get that part of the record,
so he wants that part to be extended, So the
DJ's obliged that We first did it with cassette tapes,
so the DJ's obliged that hence cutting records. That's to
fulfill the desires the needs of the dancer. Right, they
(01:29):
speaking rhythmically over these beats. It's not new. We know
that Jock role, Rudy ray Ball, Pig meet Marker, and
now was finding out people old enough to be their
great grandparents. It's if this is a bee boys story,
some dancer story. Hip hop story is a dancers story.
(01:49):
The DJs were trying to do what they needed to
do so that the bee boants to do that thing.
It is based on our physical expression. That's what all
that this is about. Grand Master Flash a pioneer of
hip hop DJ cutting and mixing. So the rapper was last,
(02:10):
and the reason why the rapper was last as because
they didn't have a better music to speaker on. Yet
it was every DJ prior to that train wrecord. So
the beatis all over the place. How did you possibly
tell the story? Some possible? Some possible to dance to?
Grand Master Kaz rapper, extraordinary songwriter and DJ member of
(02:32):
the legendary hip hop group The Cold Crush Preperates. The
rap battles specifically came later as the MC started to
gain prominence in hip hop. He was showcased more. Prior
to that, the DJ was the main man in a crew.
Sometimes it was just a DJ, but if it was
a crew, it was the DJ and the crew, and
(02:54):
the crew just backed up to DJ. It was probably
was another DJ and the people who carried the crates
or whatever. The DJs that preceded the hip hop DJU,
the DJ club DJ's. DJ's like Hollywood and Eddie Cheeba
and Grandmaster Flowers and guys like that. They played disco music,
top forty grown and sexy music, people that you know,
(03:17):
party got dressed and went out and things like that.
The hip hop DJ played for the youth. Okay, no
dress code, no money, minimalist kind of equipment set up
or whatever. Some had better, some had worse. But that's
how hip hop grow, and that's the difference became. We
were influenced by the DJ's prior to us, but we
couldn't do it like they did it. So we did
(03:38):
it how we needed to do it and the way
we needed to do it turn into hip hop. But
the DJ was at the forefront at first, and then
when mcs came along, they got showcased separately and sometimes
I mean eventually without the DJ Grand Wizard did or
Pioneering hip Hop DJ, credited as the inventor of the
scratching technique. The DJ's role in hip hop, it's like
(04:04):
the DJ is the one that set the tone for
hip hop. The DJ is the one with the equipment,
the two turntables, the mix of the records, the speakers, everything.
Everybody had to wait until the DJ came out to
the park so the b boards can dance. The MC's
had to wait until the DJs came out to the
(04:25):
park so they could pick up the microphone and do
what they got to do. So the DJs set the
tone for everything. When we had to do a party,
we will call up the graffiti artists, and the graffiti
artists would make a flyer for us. And after you
make the flyer for us, we will end up passing
(04:45):
the flyers out. And a lot of the flyers had
flyer girls on them, had dudes with a you know,
trench code or the latest fashions or the cause we
used to ride in. Now people ride in ubers and lifts,
but we used to ride in OJ's and that's what
attracted people to want to come to our parties. So
(05:05):
the DJ set the tone for everything and hip hop period.
Theodore mentioned the graffiti artists doing flies for the early
hip hop parties. The most important was a guy by
the name of Phase two. He was a graffiti subway
legend who later moved into the hip hop scene doing
fliers for a lot of early parties along with Buddy Esquire,
(05:28):
another guy that did flies for these early parties. They
would illustrate their flies with the hot clothing styles the
guys and girls or the fly guys and fly girls
would wear, and of course they would often illustrate a
flyer with pictures of OJ car the cars that worked
for the OJ car service. These were Lincoln Continentals, Cadillacs,
(05:49):
and Oldsmobile ninety eight. And the coolest drivers for OJ
had hot cassette tapes from the coolest hip hop parties
that got played. DJ Envy, radio personality and host of
the Breakfast Club. I mean, the DJ is very important,
especially in hip hop, and you know, part of it
is from controlling the crowd, part of it is breaking records,
(06:13):
part of it is actually being the guy behind the MC.
You know, you gotta have a dope MC. But if
your DJ is trash, your whole set is going to
be trashed. So if you look at some of the
great whether it was jam Master J and run DMC,
they were they were like in Unison or you look
at Gang Star, you know gur Ruined Premier, or you
look at Scratch at EPMD, or you look at anybody
(06:34):
like that was who it was, Viny Rocket and Naughty
by Nature. They're the ones that controlled that crowd. They
set the sound of the playlist to make sure they
knew what song was, what song was that they were
the backbone of every MC kid cauldpri Grammy Award winning
DJ and producer. In the early days, the mcs with MC,
(06:55):
but you really came to see the DJ. It was
always my DJ. It was ram Mask, the Flash and
the Furious Five, it was Breakout and the Funky Four.
It was Charlie Chase and the Cold Rush. It was
the DJ first and then the MC. So the DJ
was always the premium because the DJ, the MC is
the MC with the DJ's gonna give you a variety
(07:17):
of music, and if he's nice, he's gonna give you
a variety of music with skill, so it gives you
a little bit more. At that time where the MC
became more important than out in the front. When the
records became a part of hip hop, you didn't need
the DJ to scratch on every record no more. And
after a while that went out of staff. So now
(07:39):
what you need the DJ four Now the MC is
the front man. He's the one on the mic. He's
the one that's gonna be starred. DJ's gonna be pushing
the back. And that's why the stance I took was
you could be the one man band kicker Pree Man man,
what a legendary DJ. Kick er Pree was spinning Back
in the early nineties when I was associal producer of
(08:00):
putting a movie New Jack City together, Kick Kapre was
spinning at a club in the Bronx called The Castle,
and he was amazing on the wheels of still when
I first peeped them in action at that time. I
turned him on to some cattle in the downtown scene
in New York City that booked him and brought him down.
And then a few years later on your MTV raps,
(08:21):
I would feature Kick Capri and ron Ge who they
were both pioneers of the mixtape game. And this is
when mixtapes was still early Kick Kapre actually his mixtape
style to me replicated the vibe at early hip hop
parties that went on back in the seventies, and Kick
(08:41):
Kapre would go on to blow up. I mean I
featured him on my show Your MTV Raps along with
Ron J, giving a demonstration of their mixing and cutting
and scratching skills. At that time in the mixtape game,
you was really mixing, cutting and scratching the music, and
Kick Kapree was one of the best. I was doing
it at that time on those mixtapes. Cootis blow legendary
(09:05):
rapper and hip hop's first rap superstar. First was the
music and the way we danced to that music. Now,
the DJ played an important part. He didn't create the music,
he played it, and he played certain types of music
(09:26):
to create that atmosphere where we could be James Brown
or actually turned the party out as they say. So
I would say the music is first, and well, I
would say God is first. God is the creator. God
(09:47):
gave us the talent and the blessings and the opportunity
and the spirit, that whole spirit, that was an energy
that spread all all around New York City. So first
was a god, and then the music and then the DJ.
The DJ became the focal point to play the music
(10:11):
for the dancer. The DJ didn't play the right music
for that dancer, the dancer would not go back to
that club. So in order for the DJ to continually
have his club pack, he had to play the right
type of music so that the people would have a
(10:31):
good time. And so of course the people supporting the
DJ and in the crowd became the focal point of
the party. It was all about the people and the
unisnse of the people, especially at a DJ Hollywood party.
I remember seeing him and just take the crowd in
(10:54):
the palm of his hand. The MC wasn't incredible. I
want to shout out Kokela Rock and also Cowboy and
Meli mel and Casey the Prince of Soul, JJ the
Disco King. All of these mcs were the focal point
of the party. After the DJ started to extend the
(11:18):
beat for us to dance too, and so the MC
got in there and became the focal point and now
is the focal point of hip hop today. Now hip
hop is not just rapped. The genre is composed of
four key elements which include graffiti, breakdancing or b boing, DJing,
(11:40):
and what the MC does rap. Now. While there's some
debate over the number of these elements because a bunch
more have been added over the years, and that's all good.
The four pillars are what I just laid out for you.
And these pillars embodied and personified this cultural movement that
has been a powerful force for fifty years and counting.
(12:03):
And we're going to take you back to the humble beginnings,
Grandmaster Cabins. But the elements in hip hop make up
the culture of hip hop. There's a music element, the
art element, a dance element, and a spoken word element, okay,
and those elements have always existed, but the combination of
them together and our generation is hip hop. The music
(12:25):
element provided by the DJ the cornerstone of hip hop.
No DJ, no music, no music, no party, no dance,
and none of that, and then no hip hop. Okay.
The DJ provided the music for break dancing, which is
the dance element in the hip hop. Okay, we danced
to the breaks of the music that the DJ plays.
(12:46):
That's hence the name break dancing, all right. So the
DJ is, like I said, powerment. As far as the
culture's concerned. Graffiti has always been an element in light
our particular generation, the hip hop generation adopted that sensibility
and created a whole new brand of graffiti. Like I said,
graffiti for the sake of graffiti. Graffiti had always been around.
(13:09):
I mean, he said, you as a kid, you see
writings on the walls, and don't let me give you
a graffiti lesson. Right here, Graffiti goes back to the
beginning of the time, all right, before man was able
to articulate himself to speech or language, he was able
to do it through art. We found evidence of that
in caves from thousands of years ago. And so Man's
(13:30):
first communication wasn't through words, text or script, it was
from images, pictures. And that's the first time the planet
had graffiti. So fast forward all the way up to
our generation. Every generation has had some semblance of graffiti, okay,
every generation, and different kinds of graffiti, political graffiti, people
(13:52):
just making statements about the conditions that they live under.
Then you got gang graffiti, which became very problem after
while it's like, all right, this is how we mark
our territory. And then you have graffiti, the hip hop
GRAPHI graffiti just for the sake of graffiti, getting up
showing your artwork. That's the first thing that I gravitated towards.
(14:14):
That's the first thing I saw and the first thing
I tried to practice. And then you got the rap element.
All right, the MC element MC stand up for master
of ceremony traditionally, but Mellie mel coined the phrase MC
and spelled it E M C E okay, just to
(14:35):
make it that. Now, that's a hip hop MC. That's
somebody who raps okay, a master MC M period C
period as an announcer, all right, he's the guy that's
a good evening. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the such as.
That's the MC. The EMC is like Gad Master Cat's
Captain Bell the four couldn't touch me if he had
(14:56):
a rhyme store. All right, it's different. You know, a
lot of what these guys have talked about in this
episode really moved me and it's taken me back. And
this is really what inspired me and led to the
ideas I came up with that would lead and become
(15:18):
hip hop's first film. Wild Style That Grandmaster Kaz Graham
Wizard Theatre and Graham Mixed to DXC are all featured
in along with myself. Back then, I was motivated by
wanting to change the narrative about how young Black and
Latin youth were depicted in the media in New York.
It was always negative, and I wanted them to see
(15:40):
the creative things that we were doing. So I hooked
up with Charlie Ahearn and we made Wild Style. We're
gonna get into that in a later episode, Curtis bluff
hip hop to me to divine it is a society
of young people who loving cheverish. The elements which are rapping,
(16:04):
MC and be boying or breakdown sing, graffiti or aerosol
art or the DJ and turntable is out now. If
you talk to ban Mata, there's seven eight elements now
from you know, knowledge to fashion to beat boxing to
(16:26):
popping and locked in love. You know you ask care
rests one, He'll say eleven elements. But the original four
were rapping, scratching, DJ and and graffiti. Grant was in
Theodore the elements that made up hip hop from the beginning.
(16:47):
Let me see the DJ, the MC, the b boy
and the graffiti artists. Those are the four elements of
hip hop that started out, and then more elements started
to get added on. Then it became five elements, which
they added the BeBox, and then they added knowledge. And
(17:09):
these elements were added by you know, teachers of the
Zoul Nation and stuff like that, Africa, Bombardi and Zoul Nation.
They were adding more elements to hip hop because hip
hop has so many things going on. I mean, we
were teaching hip hop to people, so knowledge of self,
(17:30):
knowledge of where the music came from. So all that
was added to the elements of hip hop. Mc man
is very important. You know, they get to get on
the microphone and talk to the people, tell them a story.
Then you had the DJ that played the music for everybody,
that brought the speakers out. Then you got the b
(17:50):
boys that they needed to dance, they needed to get
all that energy out of them. Then you got to
get FEEDI artists. When it's time for us to make
a flyer, we called bi graffiti artists. So all those
elements I've just mentioned Man play a major major pot
and hip hop grandmaster cats. Hip Hop wasn't respected in
(18:12):
the early days like some kitty, you know what I mean,
even to girls. We couldn't ask a girl a dance
and then start spinning on the floor. The god all right,
So we had to stick to our guns as far
as you know what I mean this hip hop thing,
because like I said, everybody didn't love it, and everybody
didn't think it would grow to the proportions that it
eventually dead. Originally, hip hop was just called rap. Creation
(18:36):
of the term hip hop is credited to Keith Cowboy
rest in Peace from Grandmaster Flash in The Furious Five.
Cowboys started saying it whenever he performed, and soon after
DJ and rapper love Bug Star Ski he jumped on
saying hip hop too. Soon after, everybody rapping would be
(18:57):
saying the term hip hop. I'm form or another Russell
Simmons record executive and entrepreneur. I mean the first time
I ever heard it, I heard it from Eddi Chief.
I can't tell you who coined it. When they achiever,
I walked in that room. You're played it to make
sure you play an achiever right If you don't know me,
I think y'all him Eddie Chiever said, you know hip
(19:19):
hop to hip I've watched him. I was like, oh this, sorry,
I'm gonna stop telling drug. I'm a promote party like,
that's my notion. I'm gonna take this little drug money
and I'm gonna promote parties. And that's when I stay
Edi chiever And that was a transformational moment for me.
So Hollywood and Chieva love those of Starsky at Busy
Beat STARSK. You know, all of my swater mall stay
(19:39):
hip hop. Ironically, Flashing have never said hip hop too
much because they had their own thing. They would. Hip
hop seemed like it when you're talking about saying hip
hop in a performance. It seemed like something that came
out of the mouths of those quote unquote just go rappers,
the guys who played in the clubs and commanded the
money because they would you know. It kind of fit
(20:00):
the Evelyn King and all of it wasn't really coming
to play a bus firma beat, you know, Mongo route.
You don't stay hip hop Hi on top of Mongo rout.
We stayed on top of to be real, you know
by Evelyn k or you stayed on top of you know,
good time. You know. So I heard it from the
older rapper two years three years older. I heard it
(20:23):
from them Grand Wizzy Theater when the MC is or
the microphone and he's rapping, and when he's about to change,
when he's talking about or he runs out of words
or trying to just take a breathe or something like that,
he would either say clap your hands and stomp your feet,
or he will say to the hip hop, hibbit a
(20:45):
hibbit hi. You know what I'm saying, they will go
on to the world hip hop. You know, you know
I heard Keith Cowboy UM say when um a friend
of his was geting ready to go to the army,
and then Cowboy was the mic you know, rapper, and
I guess he pointed to the guy and was like, oh,
he has fright, you go up to the army here
going to the hippo. But if bit if you know.
(21:09):
So that's how another way that I started to hear,
you know, the word hip hop, because you know, Cowboy
was saying this to the two people that I heard
say it, But I don't know who said it first.
Grandmaster Cadis Africa Banbado was the was the main person
responsible for this culture being called keep hoop okay um.
(21:33):
The term hip hop came from the Cadence and marching
marching here here here, huh. And Uh. It was like
a running joke from Keith Cowboy may recipes from Grandmaster
flashing the periods five. One of his friends was going
into the army. Uh. The next day he was at
the party clowning up like, hey, you have to ship
(21:54):
the last party tomorrow. You asked to be getting up
at six in the morning. Here Oh And like I said,
it became a running joke, but it became the most
repeated phrase through throughout MC's conversation. It became like something
lean on between when you're talking and you run out
of the same thing, you go all right to the
(22:15):
hip the hall. This eventually, hip hop became a main
state and an MC's performance or conversation. Africa Bambido was
the one who coined the phraise as far as this
is what our culture is called hip hop, because it
was the most repeated phraise throughout the narrative. Kid could create.
(22:35):
Cowboy created love Buck Stars, He coined it. So it
was them two that really pushed it, that made it,
you know what I'm saying, that made it. I know
Cowboy created the name to the hip hop hipop hivot.
If hip hop and africame and I don't know the
full story on love Buck when I know he had
(22:55):
a lot to do with coining it. At first it
was just called music Curtis Block. I heard this story
from love Buck Starsky, he told me. I asked him
myself personally, and I have it on camera as a
matter of fact, because I filmed a documentary called the
(23:19):
History of Rat and I asked him that question. Who
coined that for? Because I heard the stories Cowboy started
from the Furious Five. Grand asked the Flashing the Furious Five.
Then I heard love Buck Starsky, So I got the
story from Starsky where he says that it was him
(23:40):
and Cowboy. They were at the Black Door Club. There
was a club up in the Bronx called the Black Door.
The Black Door was a legendary early hip hop spot
in the Bronx with Flashing the Furious Five made their name.
It was run by a guy by the name of
Ray Chandler. And so they had two sides, two stages,
(24:03):
one on each side of the room. So uh Flash
was on one side and love Blug was on the
other side. So Cowboy was on the mic, he was
getting ready to go into the army I hit and
he was doing this channel if if if here here,
and Starsky joined in on the other side of the
(24:26):
room and he was doing hall. So they were going
here all all like that, and then Starsky said that
he just added to it and came up with the
head hal. They hed be the hawk the hall, he
be bop, but then he beat the hall. I could
(24:48):
do that all day, you know. And so uh, that's
where it came from, as far as I have learned
from the great One, Rest in peace, love Bug, Starsky,
Rest in peace, Cowboy two, because I heard stories that
he did it by himself as well. You hear and
(25:12):
talk to Mellie mel or any of the Furious Five
or even Ben Grand Masters and flash himself and they
will say cowboy and they stick to that. So it's
a little controversial and we'll never know. He asked me,
I'll say, God did it? God did it? D XT
When the term became popular and corporately popular, was I
(25:41):
think it was ninety two and I did sway in
the morning and people were hitting me up, going bad,
that's wrong. It was you no go do your research research.
Then the term was not used in the industry until
ninety two. Now we were saying it on the street,
and I had a few people who are researchers and
(26:02):
they said, I'm gonna prove you roll and they all
callby back and said, Yo, dude, that's crazy, because you're right.
It was not used. We were saying it in the
streets and maybe you'll quiet, but the industry did not
use the term hip hop till ninety They used rap.
My man DXC may not have been aware that ten
years before. In nineteen eighty two, The East Village I,
(26:26):
a popular downtown arts culture publication, did a feature story
on our film Wildstyle, which was about to come out
four different articles. Futura did a graffiti piece for the
center fold. This is the first time the word hip
hop was used in print to describe this exciting culture
(26:47):
going on in the Bronx. Yeah, it might have took
taken a while for Rolling Stone and other players that
were more mainstream to jump on it. But also when
I hosted Your MTV Raps, I made sure that people
knew that this thing was called hip hop and Your
MTV Raps hits in nineteen eighty eight, It's all good.
We in the Hood. On the next episode of the
(27:09):
Fifty Years of Hip Hop podcast series, hip hop is
now officially arrived, with songs like The Message from Grandmaster
Flashing and Furious Five. Artists like Curtis Blow had big
hits like The Breaks and Basketball, and of course, the
Sugar Hill Gang. This next episode explores how hip hop
made its way to be heard outside of the Bronx
(27:30):
in New York City, across the country, and around the world.
This episode has been executive produced by Dolly S. Bishop,
hosted and produced by Your Boy, Fabbed by Freddie, Produced
by Aaron A. King Howard Edit, mixed sound by Dwayne Crawford,
music scoring by Trey Jones, Talent booking by Nicole Spence,
From a heart podcasts, I Am five five Freddie and
this is fifty years of hip hop podcast series hip
Hop as we Know It fifty years later revolves around
the MC. That's em cee and not the letter M,
the letter C. Graham Master Kaz is going to explain
this later for you guys. But during the early days
(00:24):
of hip hop, the DJ was the main attraction. By
the way, the term DJ comes from disc jockey, and
that was first coined and popularized by legendary journalists and
radio announcer Walter Winchell back in the nineteen thirties. The
focus of every party, the DJ would have overflowing crates
(00:45):
filled with hot records, each specifically chosen to form the
perfect sound that kept the crowd moving and grouping. Graham
mix of DXT one of the earliest to use turntables
as a musical instrument, and the first turn table lists.
It's a dancing story. The dancer wants to dance, He
(01:06):
wants to dance on to get that part of the record,
so he wants that part to be extended, So the
DJ's obliged that We first did it with cassette tapes,
so the DJ's obliged that hence cutting records. That's to
fulfill the desires the needs of the dancer. Right, they
(01:29):
speaking rhythmically over these beats. It's not new. We know
that Jock role, Rudy ray Ball, Pig meet Marker, and
now was finding out people old enough to be their
great grandparents. It's if this is a bee boys story,
some dancer story. Hip hop story is a dancers story.
(01:49):
The DJs were trying to do what they needed to
do so that the bee boants to do that thing.
It is based on our physical expression. That's what all
that this is about. Grand Master Flash a pioneer of
hip hop DJ cutting and mixing. So the rapper was last,
(02:10):
and the reason why the rapper was last as because
they didn't have a better music to speaker on. Yet
it was every DJ prior to that train wrecord. So
the beatis all over the place. How did you possibly
tell the story? Some possible? Some possible to dance to?
Grand Master Kaz rapper, extraordinary songwriter and DJ member of
(02:32):
the legendary hip hop group The Cold Crush Preperates. The
rap battles specifically came later as the MC started to
gain prominence in hip hop. He was showcased more. Prior
to that, the DJ was the main man in a crew.
Sometimes it was just a DJ, but if it was
a crew, it was the DJ and the crew, and
(02:54):
the crew just backed up to DJ. It was probably
was another DJ and the people who carried the crates
or whatever. The DJs that preceded the hip hop DJU,
the DJ club DJ's. DJ's like Hollywood and Eddie Cheeba
and Grandmaster Flowers and guys like that. They played disco music,
top forty grown and sexy music, people that you know,
(03:17):
party got dressed and went out and things like that.
The hip hop DJ played for the youth. Okay, no
dress code, no money, minimalist kind of equipment set up
or whatever. Some had better, some had worse. But that's
how hip hop grow, and that's the difference became. We
were influenced by the DJ's prior to us, but we
couldn't do it like they did it. So we did
(03:38):
it how we needed to do it and the way
we needed to do it turn into hip hop. But
the DJ was at the forefront at first, and then
when mcs came along, they got showcased separately and sometimes
I mean eventually without the DJ Grand Wizard did or
Pioneering hip Hop DJ, credited as the inventor of the
scratching technique. The DJ's role in hip hop, it's like
(04:04):
the DJ is the one that set the tone for
hip hop. The DJ is the one with the equipment,
the two turntables, the mix of the records, the speakers, everything.
Everybody had to wait until the DJ came out to
the park so the b boards can dance. The MC's
had to wait until the DJs came out to the
(04:25):
park so they could pick up the microphone and do
what they got to do. So the DJs set the
tone for everything. When we had to do a party,
we will call up the graffiti artists, and the graffiti
artists would make a flyer for us. And after you
make the flyer for us, we will end up passing
(04:45):
the flyers out. And a lot of the flyers had
flyer girls on them, had dudes with a you know,
trench code or the latest fashions or the cause we
used to ride in. Now people ride in ubers and lifts,
but we used to ride in OJ's and that's what
attracted people to want to come to our parties. So
(05:05):
the DJ set the tone for everything and hip hop period.
Theodore mentioned the graffiti artists doing flies for the early
hip hop parties. The most important was a guy by
the name of Phase two. He was a graffiti subway
legend who later moved into the hip hop scene doing
fliers for a lot of early parties along with Buddy Esquire,
(05:28):
another guy that did flies for these early parties. They
would illustrate their flies with the hot clothing styles the
guys and girls or the fly guys and fly girls
would wear, and of course they would often illustrate a
flyer with pictures of OJ car the cars that worked
for the OJ car service. These were Lincoln Continentals, Cadillacs,
(05:49):
and Oldsmobile ninety eight. And the coolest drivers for OJ
had hot cassette tapes from the coolest hip hop parties
that got played. DJ Envy, radio personality and host of
the Breakfast Club. I mean, the DJ is very important,
especially in hip hop, and you know, part of it
is from controlling the crowd, part of it is breaking records,
(06:13):
part of it is actually being the guy behind the MC.
You know, you gotta have a dope MC. But if
your DJ is trash, your whole set is going to
be trashed. So if you look at some of the
great whether it was jam Master J and run DMC,
they were they were like in Unison or you look
at Gang Star, you know gur Ruined Premier, or you
look at Scratch at EPMD, or you look at anybody
(06:34):
like that was who it was, Viny Rocket and Naughty
by Nature. They're the ones that controlled that crowd. They
set the sound of the playlist to make sure they
knew what song was, what song was that they were
the backbone of every MC kid cauldpri Grammy Award winning
DJ and producer. In the early days, the mcs with MC,
(06:55):
but you really came to see the DJ. It was
always my DJ. It was ram Mask, the Flash and
the Furious Five, it was Breakout and the Funky Four.
It was Charlie Chase and the Cold Rush. It was
the DJ first and then the MC. So the DJ
was always the premium because the DJ, the MC is
the MC with the DJ's gonna give you a variety
(07:17):
of music, and if he's nice, he's gonna give you
a variety of music with skill, so it gives you
a little bit more. At that time where the MC
became more important than out in the front. When the
records became a part of hip hop, you didn't need
the DJ to scratch on every record no more. And
after a while that went out of staff. So now
(07:39):
what you need the DJ four Now the MC is
the front man. He's the one on the mic. He's
the one that's gonna be starred. DJ's gonna be pushing
the back. And that's why the stance I took was
you could be the one man band kicker Pree Man man,
what a legendary DJ. Kick er Pree was spinning Back
in the early nineties when I was associal producer of
(08:00):
putting a movie New Jack City together, Kick Kapre was
spinning at a club in the Bronx called The Castle,
and he was amazing on the wheels of still when
I first peeped them in action at that time. I
turned him on to some cattle in the downtown scene
in New York City that booked him and brought him down.
And then a few years later on your MTV raps,
(08:21):
I would feature Kick Capri and ron Ge who they
were both pioneers of the mixtape game. And this is
when mixtapes was still early Kick Kapre actually his mixtape
style to me replicated the vibe at early hip hop
parties that went on back in the seventies, and Kick
(08:41):
Kapre would go on to blow up. I mean I
featured him on my show Your MTV Raps along with
Ron J, giving a demonstration of their mixing and cutting
and scratching skills. At that time in the mixtape game,
you was really mixing, cutting and scratching the music, and
Kick Kapree was one of the best. I was doing
it at that time on those mixtapes. Cootis blow legendary
(09:05):
rapper and hip hop's first rap superstar. First was the
music and the way we danced to that music. Now,
the DJ played an important part. He didn't create the music,
he played it, and he played certain types of music
(09:26):
to create that atmosphere where we could be James Brown
or actually turned the party out as they say. So
I would say the music is first, and well, I
would say God is first. God is the creator. God
(09:47):
gave us the talent and the blessings and the opportunity
and the spirit, that whole spirit, that was an energy
that spread all all around New York City. So first
was a god, and then the music and then the DJ.
The DJ became the focal point to play the music
(10:11):
for the dancer. The DJ didn't play the right music
for that dancer, the dancer would not go back to
that club. So in order for the DJ to continually
have his club pack, he had to play the right
type of music so that the people would have a
(10:31):
good time. And so of course the people supporting the
DJ and in the crowd became the focal point of
the party. It was all about the people and the
unisnse of the people, especially at a DJ Hollywood party.
I remember seeing him and just take the crowd in
(10:54):
the palm of his hand. The MC wasn't incredible. I
want to shout out Kokela Rock and also Cowboy and
Meli mel and Casey the Prince of Soul, JJ the
Disco King. All of these mcs were the focal point
of the party. After the DJ started to extend the
(11:18):
beat for us to dance too, and so the MC
got in there and became the focal point and now
is the focal point of hip hop today. Now hip
hop is not just rapped. The genre is composed of
four key elements which include graffiti, breakdancing or b boing, DJing,
(11:40):
and what the MC does rap. Now. While there's some
debate over the number of these elements because a bunch
more have been added over the years, and that's all good.
The four pillars are what I just laid out for you.
And these pillars embodied and personified this cultural movement that
has been a powerful force for fifty years and counting.
(12:03):
And we're going to take you back to the humble beginnings,
Grandmaster Cabins. But the elements in hip hop make up
the culture of hip hop. There's a music element, the
art element, a dance element, and a spoken word element, okay,
and those elements have always existed, but the combination of
them together and our generation is hip hop. The music
(12:25):
element provided by the DJ the cornerstone of hip hop.
No DJ, no music, no music, no party, no dance,
and none of that, and then no hip hop. Okay.
The DJ provided the music for break dancing, which is
the dance element in the hip hop. Okay, we danced
to the breaks of the music that the DJ plays.
(12:46):
That's hence the name break dancing, all right. So the
DJ is, like I said, powerment. As far as the
culture's concerned. Graffiti has always been an element in light
our particular generation, the hip hop generation adopted that sensibility
and created a whole new brand of graffiti. Like I said,
graffiti for the sake of graffiti. Graffiti had always been around.
(13:09):
I mean, he said, you as a kid, you see
writings on the walls, and don't let me give you
a graffiti lesson. Right here, Graffiti goes back to the
beginning of the time, all right, before man was able
to articulate himself to speech or language, he was able
to do it through art. We found evidence of that
in caves from thousands of years ago. And so Man's
(13:30):
first communication wasn't through words, text or script, it was
from images, pictures. And that's the first time the planet
had graffiti. So fast forward all the way up to
our generation. Every generation has had some semblance of graffiti, okay,
every generation, and different kinds of graffiti, political graffiti, people
(13:52):
just making statements about the conditions that they live under.
Then you got gang graffiti, which became very problem after
while it's like, all right, this is how we mark
our territory. And then you have graffiti, the hip hop
GRAPHI graffiti just for the sake of graffiti, getting up
showing your artwork. That's the first thing that I gravitated towards.
(14:14):
That's the first thing I saw and the first thing
I tried to practice. And then you got the rap element.
All right, the MC element MC stand up for master
of ceremony traditionally, but Mellie mel coined the phrase MC
and spelled it E M C E okay, just to
(14:35):
make it that. Now, that's a hip hop MC. That's
somebody who raps okay, a master MC M period C
period as an announcer, all right, he's the guy that's
a good evening. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the such as.
That's the MC. The EMC is like Gad Master Cat's
Captain Bell the four couldn't touch me if he had
(14:56):
a rhyme store. All right, it's different. You know, a
lot of what these guys have talked about in this
episode really moved me and it's taken me back. And
this is really what inspired me and led to the
ideas I came up with that would lead and become
(15:18):
hip hop's first film. Wild Style That Grandmaster Kaz Graham
Wizard Theatre and Graham Mixed to DXC are all featured
in along with myself. Back then, I was motivated by
wanting to change the narrative about how young Black and
Latin youth were depicted in the media in New York.
It was always negative, and I wanted them to see
(15:40):
the creative things that we were doing. So I hooked
up with Charlie Ahearn and we made Wild Style. We're
gonna get into that in a later episode, Curtis bluff
hip hop to me to divine it is a society
of young people who loving cheverish. The elements which are rapping,
(16:04):
MC and be boying or breakdown sing, graffiti or aerosol
art or the DJ and turntable is out now. If
you talk to ban Mata, there's seven eight elements now
from you know, knowledge to fashion to beat boxing to
(16:26):
popping and locked in love. You know you ask care
rests one, He'll say eleven elements. But the original four
were rapping, scratching, DJ and and graffiti. Grant was in
Theodore the elements that made up hip hop from the beginning.
(16:47):
Let me see the DJ, the MC, the b boy
and the graffiti artists. Those are the four elements of
hip hop that started out, and then more elements started
to get added on. Then it became five elements, which
they added the BeBox, and then they added knowledge. And
(17:09):
these elements were added by you know, teachers of the
Zoul Nation and stuff like that, Africa, Bombardi and Zoul Nation.
They were adding more elements to hip hop because hip
hop has so many things going on. I mean, we
were teaching hip hop to people, so knowledge of self,
(17:30):
knowledge of where the music came from. So all that
was added to the elements of hip hop. Mc man
is very important. You know, they get to get on
the microphone and talk to the people, tell them a story.
Then you had the DJ that played the music for everybody,
that brought the speakers out. Then you got the b
(17:50):
boys that they needed to dance, they needed to get
all that energy out of them. Then you got to
get FEEDI artists. When it's time for us to make
a flyer, we called bi graffiti artists. So all those
elements I've just mentioned Man play a major major pot
and hip hop grandmaster cats. Hip Hop wasn't respected in
(18:12):
the early days like some kitty, you know what I mean,
even to girls. We couldn't ask a girl a dance
and then start spinning on the floor. The god all right,
So we had to stick to our guns as far
as you know what I mean this hip hop thing,
because like I said, everybody didn't love it, and everybody
didn't think it would grow to the proportions that it
eventually dead. Originally, hip hop was just called rap. Creation
(18:36):
of the term hip hop is credited to Keith Cowboy
rest in Peace from Grandmaster Flash in The Furious Five.
Cowboys started saying it whenever he performed, and soon after
DJ and rapper love Bug Star Ski he jumped on
saying hip hop too. Soon after, everybody rapping would be
(18:57):
saying the term hip hop. I'm form or another Russell
Simmons record executive and entrepreneur. I mean the first time
I ever heard it, I heard it from Eddi Chief.
I can't tell you who coined it. When they achiever,
I walked in that room. You're played it to make
sure you play an achiever right If you don't know me,
I think y'all him Eddie Chiever said, you know hip
(19:19):
hop to hip I've watched him. I was like, oh this, sorry,
I'm gonna stop telling drug. I'm a promote party like,
that's my notion. I'm gonna take this little drug money
and I'm gonna promote parties. And that's when I stay
Edi chiever And that was a transformational moment for me.
So Hollywood and Chieva love those of Starsky at Busy
Beat STARSK. You know, all of my swater mall stay
(19:39):
hip hop. Ironically, Flashing have never said hip hop too
much because they had their own thing. They would. Hip
hop seemed like it when you're talking about saying hip
hop in a performance. It seemed like something that came
out of the mouths of those quote unquote just go rappers,
the guys who played in the clubs and commanded the
money because they would you know. It kind of fit
(20:00):
the Evelyn King and all of it wasn't really coming
to play a bus firma beat, you know, Mongo route.
You don't stay hip hop Hi on top of Mongo rout.
We stayed on top of to be real, you know
by Evelyn k or you stayed on top of you know,
good time. You know. So I heard it from the
older rapper two years three years older. I heard it
(20:23):
from them Grand Wizzy Theater when the MC is or
the microphone and he's rapping, and when he's about to change,
when he's talking about or he runs out of words
or trying to just take a breathe or something like that,
he would either say clap your hands and stomp your feet,
or he will say to the hip hop, hibbit a
(20:45):
hibbit hi. You know what I'm saying, they will go
on to the world hip hop. You know, you know
I heard Keith Cowboy UM say when um a friend
of his was geting ready to go to the army,
and then Cowboy was the mic you know, rapper, and
I guess he pointed to the guy and was like, oh,
he has fright, you go up to the army here
going to the hippo. But if bit if you know.
(21:09):
So that's how another way that I started to hear,
you know, the word hip hop, because you know, Cowboy
was saying this to the two people that I heard
say it, But I don't know who said it first.
Grandmaster Cadis Africa Banbado was the was the main person
responsible for this culture being called keep hoop okay um.
(21:33):
The term hip hop came from the Cadence and marching
marching here here here, huh. And Uh. It was like
a running joke from Keith Cowboy may recipes from Grandmaster
flashing the periods five. One of his friends was going
into the army. Uh. The next day he was at
the party clowning up like, hey, you have to ship
(21:54):
the last party tomorrow. You asked to be getting up
at six in the morning. Here Oh And like I said,
it became a running joke, but it became the most
repeated phrase through throughout MC's conversation. It became like something
lean on between when you're talking and you run out
of the same thing, you go all right to the
(22:15):
hip the hall. This eventually, hip hop became a main
state and an MC's performance or conversation. Africa Bambido was
the one who coined the phraise as far as this
is what our culture is called hip hop, because it
was the most repeated phraise throughout the narrative. Kid could create.
(22:35):
Cowboy created love Buck Stars, He coined it. So it
was them two that really pushed it, that made it,
you know what I'm saying, that made it. I know
Cowboy created the name to the hip hop hipop hivot.
If hip hop and africame and I don't know the
full story on love Buck when I know he had
(22:55):
a lot to do with coining it. At first it
was just called music Curtis Block. I heard this story
from love Buck Starsky, he told me. I asked him
myself personally, and I have it on camera as a
matter of fact, because I filmed a documentary called the
(23:19):
History of Rat and I asked him that question. Who
coined that for? Because I heard the stories Cowboy started
from the Furious Five. Grand asked the Flashing the Furious Five.
Then I heard love Buck Starsky, So I got the
story from Starsky where he says that it was him
(23:40):
and Cowboy. They were at the Black Door Club. There
was a club up in the Bronx called the Black Door.
The Black Door was a legendary early hip hop spot
in the Bronx with Flashing the Furious Five made their name.
It was run by a guy by the name of
Ray Chandler. And so they had two sides, two stages,
(24:03):
one on each side of the room. So uh Flash
was on one side and love Blug was on the
other side. So Cowboy was on the mic, he was
getting ready to go into the army I hit and
he was doing this channel if if if here here,
and Starsky joined in on the other side of the
(24:26):
room and he was doing hall. So they were going
here all all like that, and then Starsky said that
he just added to it and came up with the
head hal. They hed be the hawk the hall, he
be bop, but then he beat the hall. I could
(24:48):
do that all day, you know. And so uh, that's
where it came from, as far as I have learned
from the great One, Rest in peace, love Bug, Starsky,
Rest in peace, Cowboy two, because I heard stories that
he did it by himself as well. You hear and
(25:12):
talk to Mellie mel or any of the Furious Five
or even Ben Grand Masters and flash himself and they
will say cowboy and they stick to that. So it's
a little controversial and we'll never know. He asked me,
I'll say, God did it? God did it? D XT
When the term became popular and corporately popular, was I
(25:41):
think it was ninety two and I did sway in
the morning and people were hitting me up, going bad,
that's wrong. It was you no go do your research research.
Then the term was not used in the industry until
ninety two. Now we were saying it on the street,
and I had a few people who are researchers and
(26:02):
they said, I'm gonna prove you roll and they all
callby back and said, Yo, dude, that's crazy, because you're right.
It was not used. We were saying it in the
streets and maybe you'll quiet, but the industry did not
use the term hip hop till ninety They used rap.
My man DXC may not have been aware that ten
years before. In nineteen eighty two, The East Village I,
(26:26):
a popular downtown arts culture publication, did a feature story
on our film Wildstyle, which was about to come out
four different articles. Futura did a graffiti piece for the
center fold. This is the first time the word hip
hop was used in print to describe this exciting culture
(26:47):
going on in the Bronx. Yeah, it might have took
taken a while for Rolling Stone and other players that
were more mainstream to jump on it. But also when
I hosted Your MTV Raps, I made sure that people
knew that this thing was called hip hop and Your
MTV Raps hits in nineteen eighty eight, It's all good.
We in the Hood. On the next episode of the
(27:09):
Fifty Years of Hip Hop podcast series, hip hop is
now officially arrived, with songs like The Message from Grandmaster
Flashing and Furious Five. Artists like Curtis Blow had big
hits like The Breaks and Basketball, and of course, the
Sugar Hill Gang. This next episode explores how hip hop
made its way to be heard outside of the Bronx
(27:30):
in New York City, across the country, and around the world.
This episode has been executive produced by Dolly S. Bishop,
hosted and produced by Your Boy, Fabbed by Freddie, Produced
by Aaron A. King Howard Edit, mixed sound by Dwayne Crawford,
music scoring by Trey Jones, Talent booking by Nicole Spence,
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