June 1, 2023 • 38 mins
The emcee has always been noted for their ability on stage and musical substance. In the late 1970s the MC became an alternative title for rappers, and role within hip-hop music and culture. This episode firsts defines the term “emcee”, followed by dissecting the skill needed to have been ordained with the title and identifies some of Hip Hop’s most notable Masters of Ceremonies over the past 50 years! Episode guests include Ice T. Fat Joe. Daddy-O. Peter Gunz. Masta Ace. Kid Capri. Russell Simmons. Shaheem Reid. Kwame. Sir Mix-A-Lot. Dougie Fresh. LL Cool J.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
From iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I Am fab five Freddy and this this fifty years
of Hip Hop podcast series. You know, I'm really excited
about this show because a lot of people ask me
things like, you know, who's your favorite rapper? And you know,
and I realized a lot of the people that asked
me these questions they may not be old enough or
they weren't around long enough to really understand the foundational,
(00:28):
deep roots of hip hop music culture. And I like
to remind y'all as we are celebrating the fiftieth anniversary
of this culture, this is the most dominant and pervasive
music culture on the planet and that still amazes the
hell out of me. Now this episode here, we're gonna
(00:48):
get deep into one of the core elements, masters of ceremony,
the MC, the rapper, what is that all about?
Speaker 3 (00:57):
So we're gonna have some of the.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Best go deep, break it all the way down to
the molecular components of this, so to speak. And it's
really interesting and enlightening for me because there's a lot
of agreement across these various artists about who's who and
what's what. This is really a good one, y'all. Fasten
(01:19):
your seatbelt, get your notes out. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
This is hip hop one oh one.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
This is the advanced course all the way up to
the PhD level. So back in the beginning, there was
the DJ. As we've laid this out in the previous episodes,
this is the cat that owned the equipment, the speakers,
the amplifiers, the turntables, the crates of vinyl records are
most importantly with all the most important music and the
(01:45):
skills to mix up a dynamic blend, mixing, cut and
scratching to make.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
The people move, groove, throw their hands in the air
and wave them like you just don't care.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
The DJ sidekick bigging up that DJ's skills and his
greatness was the rapper. Now, in the beginning, the rapper
aka to MC master ceremonies, he'd mostly pick up his DJ,
you know, maybe make the crowd throw their hands in
the air a little bit, make an occasional announcement about
when and where the next party was happening, and also
(02:17):
telling folks out there somebody might have a car double
parked outside the party to go and move your car.
As this progressed, this is seventies, y'all. The DJ's MC
this is all going down in the Boogie Down Bronx,
one of New York City's five Burroughs, the DJ's MC.
He began to drop some little simple raps and nursery
(02:39):
rhymes early on to get the crowd going. And one
of these early rhymes just came to me and I
remember the first time I heard this, everybody thought this
was the coolest thing. This is an example of how
this rapping thing started. Here was this rhyme. I remember
when I die, bury me deep, plant two turntables at
my feet, put the mix near my head so when
(03:01):
you close the casket, I can rock the debt.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
That tore the crowd up.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
And early MC, early rappers had a string of these
little things that they would throw together and it was incredible.
You know, they would drop this during a little instrumental
break of the most popular records at that point in
time at a party. But this nursery rap thing, nursery
rhymes that kind of flavor. It got a lot more involved,
intricate and complex. Then it began to turn into braggadocious narratives,
(03:33):
superhero street type player, the biggest hustler. You know, you
could fantasize about all these things that you wanted to do,
wanted to be, wanted to see, and put that in
your wraps. And this was how it began to grow.
The next guy, the next guy, and the next girl
heard it. Let me add something to it and take
it to the next level. This is a key important
(03:56):
component the foundation of hip hop culture and the development
on the music side. Kind of like a child starting
off a school learning how to read.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
You know those little books.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
You know, Tom Jane Dick, you know the real simple,
real simple sentences, simple story structure. But that was the
foundation that began to develop and turn and literally take
this thing to a Pulleter Prize winning level. Narratives on
a level of the greatest writers in history. That's right,
I'm gonna say it, the greatest writers in history. Within
(04:29):
this hip hop thing. There are those that have hit
those peaks and this is still going on to this day,
that's right. And by the way, Kendrick Lamar did win
a Pulletzer Prize. And this is all leading us to
today once again where hip hop is the world's most
listened to and dominant form of music. Now's something that
hip hop culture does on the slang side is take words.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
And kind of do a remix on them.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
The remixes all through the culture, from what we do
to records or what has been done in different records,
to what's done to different words. There's an evolution going
on different meanings and expansion of meanings, a denotative dissection breakdown,
if you will, of language, and hip hop has done
a hell of a lot to that, and once again
here we.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Go, pious man in town.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
The definition of the MC has been changed over the years,
the same way the definition of freestyle has been changed
over the years. So it's like a dictionary. When you
look at the dictionary, there's words and used to mean something,
and those words have become archaic, which means that they
don't exist anymore. We don't use those words. When you
(05:43):
read in the Old Testament it was written in Old English.
You don't talk like that no more. Nobody walks around
talking like that. If you look at slang words, we
would say chill, we would say, yo, that's the joint.
The Bunkie forour made a song called That's the Joint.
But now we don't say that's the joint no more.
Cats might say yo, that's crack. Or if somebody is
(06:06):
saying something is any no cat no cat. You know,
all slang is ever changing, that it's evolving. So when
you look at the definition of the MC, I come
from the first generation of hip hop. So the definition
of the MC is the master of ceremony, which means
he had to do more than just rhyme. He had
(06:29):
to be able to know how to command the crowd
at also rhyme at the same time. And Mellie mel
might be the god who was the was the inventor
of that phrase, the MC, because I never heard it
mules before him. So based on my learning and my
(06:50):
teaching of the first generation, the MC is the master
of ceremony, and he does more than just rot. If
you look at Mellie Mel, or you look at Cowboy
or the four or you study Grandmaster Flash and the
Furious Box Cowboy. At the end of his record, he said,
now clap your hands due prepare to go. I'm a
(07:11):
victim of circumstpt because Eric the br Bruh, the Bread
to the butter go when everybody rock wanted up like
he's Roman to clap to a soul clapp and then
he said say ho, and then he's calling response crowd participation,
which is a whole other subject. Call and response has
(07:32):
become archaic and only very few i'm the understanding the
true mastery of cloud participation. Yes, Jo, I've been fortunate
enough because I learned from some of the architects. But
that piece with being able to talk to an audience
(07:55):
and at the same time, why is the true meaning
of an.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
S Daddy O rapper, producer, deep thinker and founding member
of classic Brooklyn rap group Stets of Sonic.
Speaker 6 (08:10):
So I think in the very beginning, I think it's different, right,
I think a little. It's interesting because in the very beginning,
the MC was what the MC was at the Apollo,
or what the MC was at any of the bigger
clubs in New York City, what the MC was at
the Garden, right, which was the master ceremony, was basically
(08:33):
a hoast right, but it was a little more than
a host because that person had a little more flair
than just a regular host. They they might even be
a performer and they're hosting. What went on down the
line we became rhymers, and the very beginning, guys like
(08:54):
Hollywood was not really a rhymer. There was rhyme's and
what he did, but that he wasn't really a rhyme.
The real story is slashes DJ and a party. He
puts the mic down, Keith Cowboy picks up the mic
and the rest is history. And that's our legacy, our legacy.
(09:17):
Anybody from Daddio to Kendrick Lamar is from Calboy because
Cowboy is the one that really started doing those rhymes
see the Hollywood and was doing that.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
Food tag thing.
Speaker 6 (09:30):
I want to go let that's not.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
What he was doing.
Speaker 6 (09:33):
He was a former army guy, so he got on
the mic and did hib hap the hibbit the hawk,
you know, and he started rhyming.
Speaker 5 (09:42):
You know.
Speaker 6 (09:42):
So the MC kind of evolved from just a host
or a flamboyant host, an energetic hoast to a guy
that actually rhymed. And then I love I love rock
Kim's description because he said, MC to me means to
move the crowd.
Speaker 7 (10:00):
No mistakes allowed, custom me and see and Me's moved
the crowd, crowd, crowd.
Speaker 8 (10:04):
I like that.
Speaker 6 (10:05):
I'm like that a lot.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah, there's no question about the contribution that the Great
Rock Kim has made to the culture. Fascinating to hear
Daddy O's recollections, and it's important to understand what rock
Kim really brought to the table. A sense of cool,
conscious embodied street hustler, and most importantly, a passionate poetic
(10:28):
flavor that everybody picked up on right away. Elevated the game.
Speaker 8 (10:32):
To the next level.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Fat Joe recording artists, Bronx hip hop legend and author.
Speaker 9 (10:39):
This is crazy, right, because when I was coming up,
there was a disparity between an EMBc.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
And a rapper.
Speaker 9 (10:47):
Now it pretty much turned into the same thing. But
then MC has always been a master of ceremony. It's
always been a person that can rock the crowd, whether
it's through lyrics and rhymes or it's do let me
he say, oh you know you have physy beat. He
(11:10):
wasn't known as the greatest lyricist rapper. He was known
as an m secause he was the master ceremony.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
I want everybody from Avenue d to me, fam I mean.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
I'm saying died, he died, He died, y'all.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
You you ever been to a party?
Speaker 9 (11:33):
You know that's how calent started, and that's how my man,
pretty you guy, you know you ever noticed this People
who come to parties and you could be playing the same,
but it ain't the same.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
And when this person grabs the mic, he just uplifts.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
It's the gospel, fascinating, the hair, Fat Joe reference, his
good friend DJ Khaled, and amazing to think about what
this brother has achieved, what this Palestinian brother has made happen.
You know a hip hop DJ mixtape maker who's turned
herself into one of the greatest hypemen slash producers of
(12:13):
all time. Okay, he closed out the Grammy performance this year,
which of course was a salute to the fifty years
of hip hop, but a pretty telling occurrence, putting the
DJ back in the forefront, but in a new form
and fashion. Iced Tea at the rapper West Coast hip
(12:34):
hop pioneer.
Speaker 10 (12:36):
A rapper can rap like a lot of rappers can rap,
me make on the studio. They could bust bars. They
could stand in the cipher and bust bars. And MC
controls the crowd so and MC knows how the host
and MC can talk between the records. MC can stop
the music and keep the audience engaged with this conversation
(12:57):
and then go back into a rap, so he has
total control of the stage. A lot of rappers. If
you watch a rap they'll actually turn they back to
the audience. They can't really, they're not comfortable in front
of the artists. And some people are more mcs than rappers,
Like Busy b is more of an MC than a rapper.
(13:18):
KRS one is both. He can control the crowd. So
when you're a master MC like Kine is somebody like that,
you can do both.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
That's the difference a.
Speaker 10 (13:30):
Lot of cat It's kind of like to me, it's
like a graffiti artist, like a cat that can draw
in the black book dope but can never put it
on a train shahem.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
We music journalists and.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
The hip hop says, a MC has always been not
just somebody who can rhyme, because to me, that's just
a rapper. But an MC is somebody who's able to
control the whole stage construct. So you're rhyme in you're
also able to bring the crowd to attention. You're also
(14:05):
able to control the crowd, you know, do calling responses.
You're also able to vibe with your DJ or if
you have a band, vibe with your band and able
it's like you're almost like a conductor. You know, you're
giving out singles your whole presence controls everything that's happening
on that stage. And I think that is a clear
(14:27):
difference between a rapper who just gets out there and
rhymes or nothing never gets out there, he just at
a in his house rhyming on his computer, as opposed
to an MC who could get on stage and just
deal with it. If you're an MC and you get
on stage and say, for example, your DJ's equipment goes
out and there's no sound, and MC knows how to
(14:51):
keep that vibe going even without the music and keep
the crowd engaged and keep you know, whether it's calling responses,
whether it's it could be anything. You could be cracking jokes,
you can spit freestyles, whatever it is. Your job is
to keep that motion, that that stage motion going at
(15:13):
all times.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Kid could pree Grammy Award winning DJ and producer, a.
Speaker 6 (15:18):
Master of the ceremony, somebody that could paint a picture
for you and don't need a record to do it,
make you understand because you probably went through it, or
better yet, can paint a picture for you that you
of something that you probably never even thought of and
make you reconsider something. A real MC, somebody that like
(15:41):
Biggie was a real MC. Why because he could paint
the picture. When he ronmed, you could see what he's saying. Krs,
you could see what he said. Rob Kim, you could
see what he's saying. You know what I'm saying. Like
there's certain them scenes that they don't need to make
no more hit records. Their records that they came out
with is going to be here forever because they painted
the picture for you.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Master as rapper record producer.
Speaker 7 (16:02):
To me, and master's ceremony is the person who gets
that mic in his hand at an event, a party,
whether it's a party or an outdoor VET or indoor VET.
And they basically control the audience from the standpoint that
they can get the audience to say certain things, They
can get the audience to do certain things, put your
(16:24):
hands up, put your hands down. They can make announcements,
somebody's cars getting told, you know, last call for alcohol.
And also to highlight the DJ, the guy that's playing
the music, because typically DJ's in those days anyway didn't
really get on the mic per se. So they needed
(16:45):
somebody to tell the crowd about them. And so that's
how this all started. They needed somebody that had a
good relationship with the crowd that wasn't afraid to be
in front of the you know, audience with the mic
and tell the crowd, this is DJ such and such
tearing it down and tell you about him. And so
(17:09):
the way it started was in the midst of telling
you about the DJ, some masters of ceremony decided to
say some cool little things that ron to kind of
entertain the crowd even more, some little you know, poems
or whatever with the rhythm, and so it got to
the point where it wasn't as much about the DJ
(17:30):
as it was about these guys that were getting on
the mic, talking to the crowd and getting the crowd
to say al and say ho, and do this and
do that. Those guys became the entertainment instead of the DJ.
And that's where things shifted in terms of today's culture.
(17:54):
The master ceremony is the guy with the mic in
his hand in front of the audience that's going to
be entertain that audience with everything that he's doing on
that mic and around that mic. And if you don't
get control of the crowd, then you can call yourself
a mc LL.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Cool jet actor, rapper entrepreneur considered one of the best
to ever do it.
Speaker 6 (18:18):
I just think it's an ultimate form of self expression.
It's a way to uh explore your inner power. It's
a way to you know, to die deep within yourself
and touch other people. Because when you truly, truly explore
your inner power and tap into what society you, you
connect with other people because specificity is universal. So it's
(18:38):
like to me, the MC is confidence, his bravado, his
his storytelling, his his technique, his uh way with words,
his his approach. It gives other people the license to
be free. So so so my job, you know, I
make your troubles disappear.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
I set you free.
Speaker 6 (19:00):
When I step on a stage and you lock in
for me or me for sixty or ninety minutes or
whatever it is, you get an opportunity to be free.
And that to me is like performing a service, like
that's my job. That's what I was born to do.
Speaker 8 (19:16):
Daddy O.
Speaker 6 (19:17):
What it takes to be a skill for MC, I
will say, first, it's studied, but I also have to
expand that because I do believe this is just daddy O.
Speaker 8 (19:29):
I do believe that.
Speaker 6 (19:30):
Some people are just solidly born with that town I
work with Biggie. I believe he was solidly born with
that town. There's certain people you work with, you believe
they're solidly born, and then the rest of us, like
my pastor used to say, the rest of us bumblebees.
Speaker 10 (19:44):
We have to learn.
Speaker 6 (19:45):
So that's what I say. For the most part, what
it takes to be a talent to MC is to study.
Because if you think about guys like Black Thought, you
think about guys like Eminem, you think about guys like
Kendrick or j Cole, that's all study. Yes, those guys
are probably naturally talented, but they had to kind of
get their chops. They had to figure that out. They had
(20:07):
to figure out where they was gonna flow, They had
to figure out what their voice was going. Even guys
like Andre three thousand didn't sound the same at the
end that he sounded in the beginning. So I think
that studying is a really, really big part of being
a talented MC lyricist. I mean, you know, I know
(20:27):
they have all types of subcategories, but I think for
the most part, I would use the word study.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Fat Joe. To be a true FC, you gotta write
your own lyrics.
Speaker 9 (20:38):
Now have I come to accept like you know Kanye
West one of my favorite rappers. He don't write all
the lyrics, but it's cadences flow.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
I've come to ben new rules as we got older.
Speaker 9 (20:51):
Growing up, it was like, you write graffiti, you better
go steal the spray paint, because if your moms give
you money to buy a spray paint, it don't mean
the same thing of MC.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
And you don't write your own, it ain't valid. You know.
Speaker 9 (21:04):
That's how I grew up in the hip hop, that diversity.
You know, I love you know. My favorite hip hop
record of all time is Vapors by biz Markie Rest
and Peace because I grew up so far, I grew
up so picked up. They treated me like they used
to kick me while I was down on the floor.
You know what I'm saying that. Then when I started
getting a couple of dollars hustling, and I got in
(21:25):
that bench and I got in that beama, I would
ride through the same block, past the same moth, slow.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Motion pumping the vapors. They caught the Vapors.
Speaker 9 (21:36):
But now what we say biz Marquis is as lyrical
as rock him.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
But Rock Kim was coming.
Speaker 9 (21:42):
Up with consciousness and never even cursed right then you
got slick Wick was telling these stories.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
They were like insane.
Speaker 9 (21:51):
Once upon a time, not long ago, when people around
and lived like slow and don't think the nasties and
people with every.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Like hell to uh.
Speaker 9 (22:00):
There was a little roy who was thinking about he
got the shot, dang the old things you don't don't
know that mean enough walk to fad, you know what
I'm saying. So he was telling them stories, you know,
Laurence Hill consciousness, Black Power, Chuck d Fight the Power,
(22:21):
exclaim poor righteous teacher.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
And then you had kidding Blake dancing the nice guys
next door.
Speaker 11 (22:29):
Then you had Latifa talking about who you calling the bitch.
Then you had em c Light Light is a rock,
Heavy deep made me to this day when I just flied.
I'm still trying to battle heavy deep heavy deeds the flies,
fat guy.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Ever.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
You know, it's important to point out that everybody here
speaking giving you this insight info has the idea of
the MC near DNA. A lot of these guys who
have been around long enough to have seen it, seen
the best doing it, and really giving you that deep
understanding of what the MC is. You know what I'm saying,
(23:12):
this is a really important factor here, because you know
there's people that go out and sell tens of millions
of records, but nobody's talking about how many who sold.
What it's all about the skill factor and the command
and control of the crowd by that MC that master
of ceremonies and by the way, that spelled e M
(23:34):
m CEE thanks to mail E mail Shahim reed music journalists.
Speaker 6 (23:41):
Well, I mean ra Kim said it the best, and
you see needs to move the crowd. And when I
think of the masters the ceremonies and seeds, I don't matter.
Only think of like the live show first.
Speaker 7 (23:55):
I think that the greats who could just get on
stage and don't really have to do what's perceived as
a lot, because these dudes do do a lot, but
they don't do what's perceived as a lot to really
just shake a hold of arena. Like I gotta give
it to Douggie fresh Man. Like you know, Doug is
(24:17):
one of the ones that he may not have like
twenty massive hits to do a versus or something like that,
but you put Douggie on that stage and I've seen
him rock a crowd of all type of audience. I've
seen him do like an Essence best crowd, an older
brown and sexy crowd. I seen him rock for hids.
(24:40):
I've seen him do on YouTube.
Speaker 6 (24:42):
You can look at it. He's at a Scientology convention
where it's all white people and a lot of little
white kids, and Dougie is marauding that stage, like killing it.
I seen him do a crowd with just like young Cats.
I've seen him do all type of flavors. So doug
(25:03):
is one of the ultimate master ceremonies. I gotta give
it to my brother Buster just the Connegie Hall. He's
gonna kill any stage she gets on him. Star, DJ
scratch It Tall, the late great d NX, k arrest One, Kanye,
you know, before his unfortunate remarks and behavior, Kanye absolutely
(25:26):
a master when he get on that stage. So when
I think of MC, the first thing I do I
think about just the live aspect, and that even goes
back to the origin of hip hop because you know,
most scenes, I would say, all them sees before they
(25:46):
made records, they was doing it live. You know, they was,
they was insighther us. They was you know, even if
they wasn't insphers, they was rappers for their friends at
the crib or on the block. So it's always that
live ass first and then when I think about it,
sees this is my thing. But when I think at MC,
(26:07):
I don't think about just live. I also think about
mastery of the craft, and I think I call the
MC somebody who's mastered the craft.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Peter Guns hip hop artists and Bronx representative.
Speaker 12 (26:21):
I like a well rounded MC, somebody that got skills.
I'll come from the era of skills, patterns, a storyteller,
a performer, so bars, storytelling, and there's a little bit
of a swag toward the it factor that you had.
Slick Rick, for me, was one of the guys that
had that it factor when it came to storytelling and
(26:45):
bars and his voice and everything. Big Daddy Kane was
lyrical but also a hell of a performer. Dougie Fresh
hell of he performer, So there's different levels of that,
but lyrically rock chain with nothing to play with, he
wasn't gonna give you much more than those bars.
Speaker 6 (27:04):
Avar in rapping hip hop is a unit of measurement
that means for crotchets or four single beats, word of lyrics.
Speaker 12 (27:10):
So there's just different levels.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
So you know, LL cool J.
Speaker 12 (27:13):
The girls loved them. He could rap for the girls,
but the streets love him too because he can get
grimmy and go at with whoever won it. So I
was a huge ll fan man, he kept alive a
long time.
Speaker 6 (27:26):
Daddy Oh, It's difficult for me to say the most skillful.
I think Black Thought fits in that category. I think
jay Z fits in that category. If I'm gonna say skillful,
I think Naz fits in that category of skillful.
Speaker 8 (27:45):
Definitely.
Speaker 6 (27:46):
J Cole fits in the category of skillful. Definitely, Andre
thine thousand fits in the category of skillful. Right now,
a guy like Locksmith fits in the category of skillful,
defits in the category of skillful. If you want to
just talk about skillful, MC's guys that take them worse
bust the Rhymes fits in the category skillful. Guys who
(28:09):
take them words and flip it. I mean they do
them things with them words. It's them and then pretty
much seventy percent of the battle raps. I mean I
learned the new Daddy Oh, learned from the battle rap.
I mean I could not do what I do right
now if it wasn't for battle Rap, because I saw
(28:29):
them do things with words that I never thought we
were able to do because I'm so used to that
regular four to fourth pattern. Yes, I'm making sense with it,
but I'm also I saw them do some things and
I'm not fool. Wait a minute, I could do that,
and I start writing lines like Conrad Murray a case
(28:52):
because I killed Mike. I never did nothing like that before.
You know what I'm saying. What after I saw that?
So I would say the guys I mentioned, but seventy
percent of battle rappers fall into category is skillful.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Yeah, I totally agree with my man Daddy Yo for
bringing up battle rappers. Oh my goodness, such an important
part of the hip hop game. And I mean it's
not about songs, but those that mastered the art of
that verbal wordplay. And I want to give a special
shout out to the kids that helped really accelerate the
(29:26):
battle rap game. Smack who started out with Smack DVD
early two thousands with those incredible battles his partner Beasley.
Those dudes created a rap battle league, and there's a
half a dozen other leagues around the country and also
around the world where people compete and spit.
Speaker 8 (29:47):
Those words in the most incredible way.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Yes, indeed, so many great battle rappers out there that
once again have amazing power with those words, making them rhyme,
telling the stories, doing all that good. Yes, Indeed, my
man Daddy Yell shahm reed, music journalists.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
My illness, rappers may embody certain things. But I would
have the top person I would have to give it
to is Black Thought, because I've spent the better half
of twenty five years. Like, for example, one of my
best closest friends is Comal in the room, So I've
spent the better half of twenty five years witnessing Black Thought. Like,
(30:34):
I don't have record references or anything like that. I've
seen this man freestyle for like two hours straight and
you would think it was a record or it was
something he memorized. I've seen his like, he's probably the
most incredible rapper I've ever seen in his pure element.
(30:56):
You know, I don't count making records as an element
like that, right, those are like those are controlled environment.
I'm talking about the equivalent of a tiger. For example,
a tiger at the circus is doing nothing but jumping
through whoops, that's a record. A tiger in the wild
is spazzing the hell out at all costs at all times.
(31:19):
That's who Thought is to me.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
That was well stated.
Speaker 8 (31:21):
Shahem.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
You know when you take it out of the controlled
environment of you know, working with producers and beats and
you know, making records and studios, y, that's.
Speaker 8 (31:31):
A different thing, an important thing, but a different.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Part of the hip hop game.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
But like a tiger in a while, I want to agree,
Black Thought without questions one of the best that ever
did it.
Speaker 8 (31:41):
I've been a big fan forever. Yeah, Black thoughts to
wrap her from the roots.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
About five years ago, he dropped a ten minute freestyle.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
Of Jess verbal perfection unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Just go to after this episode hit YouTube search Black
Thought funk Flex. He dropped amazing just when on and
on till you break the dawn at the height of
what it's all about.
Speaker 8 (32:04):
Yes, indeed, totally agree with you on that one.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
Baby.
Speaker 4 (32:07):
Then I've seen other, like other incredible things like for
lack of a better you know, people wouldn't think about it,
but I've seen too Short stand on the stage every
night for a month straight, thirty thousand people minimum in
the audience and never wrap was able to stand there,
(32:27):
hold his mic out, start the line off and see
thirty thousand people do his show for him.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
That's an MC.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
Even a jay Z moment like I've seen jay Z
pull on Michael Jackson, like get out on Summer Jam
and just stand there for like five minutes with the
shades on and sixty thousand people lose their brains just
because it's jay Z, you know, And that's a moment.
Speaker 7 (32:53):
Master Eights some of the best that I've seen in
my in my years, Big Daddy Came Bizmarcky Duckie, Fresh
Run from Run, Deem c krus One. There's definitely several
others that are people that I watched and paid attention to.
(33:13):
I got a chance to understand what it took and
what it entailed, and I incorporated something from all those
guys into how I put on my show.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Sir mixed a lot rapper, songwriter, record producer.
Speaker 8 (33:30):
Most influential rock him.
Speaker 13 (33:33):
I'm gonna say that because there's a lot of styles
that emanated from his you know now people say, well,
not yours. Yes, I do have songs where you know
you lost to the boss and got knocked off, rip
off rams, get toss because they all st step off
Horse and step on the mix sauce costs to be
the boss and pay you with the right cross.
Speaker 8 (33:50):
That's rock him.
Speaker 13 (33:51):
Come on, man, you know all that, all that stuff
like that, And I was doing that on records, but
those records didn't hit because people don't buy mixed a
lot for that reason.
Speaker 8 (33:59):
I get it. I get it, But I would say
rock Yim. I'm not doing them in any order.
Speaker 13 (34:03):
I'm gonna say DJ Quick because and I'm gonna I'll
tell you why in a minute, because my next one
is I'm gonna say NWA.
Speaker 8 (34:13):
And why do I say those two separately?
Speaker 13 (34:16):
Because Nwa, in my opinion, made gangster rap popular.
Speaker 8 (34:21):
I mean, they blew it up.
Speaker 13 (34:22):
Right, probably almost invented it, really, I mean as far
as the somebody from a helicopter.
Speaker 8 (34:29):
View would say.
Speaker 13 (34:30):
But DJ Quick did something a little bit different and
and skewed it into something musical and almost R and
B esque, so you almost didn't realize he was talking
that gangst it at the same time, and it's like
it was really cool.
Speaker 8 (34:48):
So I'll say them three.
Speaker 13 (34:49):
Obviously, public Enemy care ass one.
Speaker 8 (34:55):
Caress one is pure hip hop.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
I mean, he's pure.
Speaker 13 (35:00):
He ain't doing no I'm doing all kind of crazy shit.
I'm doing shit that he.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
He shouldn't do.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
He shouldn't do that.
Speaker 13 (35:06):
I'm just And then people say, well that much would
hate you. I don't give a you. I respect that
mother man.
Speaker 8 (35:13):
I was like, God, damn.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
I mean, he just literally.
Speaker 8 (35:17):
And to win that crowd over, he won them or
It took me three songs and I got him going right.
It took him the third person he talked about and.
Speaker 13 (35:27):
He wasn't There was no music because look it up,
it's on YouTube.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
No music.
Speaker 8 (35:32):
He was just spitting.
Speaker 13 (35:33):
I said, yeah, okay, I can see what he means
now when he talks about the origins of hip hop
and stuff like that, and why he's so adamant about
it is that something is missing.
Speaker 8 (35:46):
And I didn't know it until I saw that.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
If you're like me, hip hop is in your box.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Russell Simmons, record executive and entrepreneur.
Speaker 8 (35:57):
Alan rappers the storyteller. The rapper is the wather talked,
what's in.
Speaker 14 (36:02):
The heart now, mc A A party is one thing,
but a rapper he's telling her to eat.
Speaker 8 (36:07):
Ain't the poet. The poet who has been pressing within.
Speaker 14 (36:12):
The heart of his heart first, but he mostly if
he's popular in them. What he's saying is in the
heart for many people but not being expressed a lot.
So the rapper is the guy really say a more
heartfelt version of what's been polished over and moved around
and made the fit, made acceptable, made accessible. The rapp
(36:33):
up can, like any pope, can tell it how it feels,
not how it's.
Speaker 8 (36:39):
Always been written promoted, how it really feels. So that's
what a good MC should be able to do.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
For the next episode of the Fifty Years of Hip
Hop podcast series, we're gonna look at the shift and
what went down with hip hop music from the nineteen
eighties into the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
This was a really dynamic.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
Period where a whole lot of incredible advancements happened. A
lot of major artists hit the picture, and your MTV
raps happened. That's right in the fall in nineteen eighty eight, MTV,
which was only playing rock and roll, and you know
it wasn't really showing black music any love, decided to
do something radical.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
Gave me a call, and.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Your MTV raps hit the air, and I featured a
lot of these artists that emerged in this period that
really defined the culture in a really impactful way. And
then we're also going to put a frame around that
golden era of hip hop where so much went down
once again on the next episode of fifty Years of
Hip Hop podcast series. This episode has been executive produced
(37:45):
by Dolly S. Bishop, hosted and produced by your Boy
Fab five Freddy, Produced.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
By Aaron A.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
King Howard, Edit Nick sound by Dwayne Crawford, music scoring
by Trey Jones, Talent booking by Nicole Spent
From iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I Am fab five Freddy and this this fifty years
of Hip Hop podcast series. You know, I'm really excited
about this show because a lot of people ask me
things like, you know, who's your favorite rapper? And you know,
and I realized a lot of the people that asked
me these questions they may not be old enough or
they weren't around long enough to really understand the foundational,
(00:28):
deep roots of hip hop music culture. And I like
to remind y'all as we are celebrating the fiftieth anniversary
of this culture, this is the most dominant and pervasive
music culture on the planet and that still amazes the
hell out of me. Now this episode here, we're gonna
(00:48):
get deep into one of the core elements, masters of ceremony,
the MC, the rapper, what is that all about?
Speaker 3 (00:57):
So we're gonna have some of the.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Best go deep, break it all the way down to
the molecular components of this, so to speak. And it's
really interesting and enlightening for me because there's a lot
of agreement across these various artists about who's who and
what's what. This is really a good one, y'all. Fasten
(01:19):
your seatbelt, get your notes out. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
This is hip hop one oh one.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
This is the advanced course all the way up to
the PhD level. So back in the beginning, there was
the DJ. As we've laid this out in the previous episodes,
this is the cat that owned the equipment, the speakers,
the amplifiers, the turntables, the crates of vinyl records are
most importantly with all the most important music and the
(01:45):
skills to mix up a dynamic blend, mixing, cut and
scratching to make.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
The people move, groove, throw their hands in the air
and wave them like you just don't care.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
The DJ sidekick bigging up that DJ's skills and his
greatness was the rapper. Now, in the beginning, the rapper
aka to MC master ceremonies, he'd mostly pick up his DJ,
you know, maybe make the crowd throw their hands in
the air a little bit, make an occasional announcement about
when and where the next party was happening, and also
(02:17):
telling folks out there somebody might have a car double
parked outside the party to go and move your car.
As this progressed, this is seventies, y'all. The DJ's MC
this is all going down in the Boogie Down Bronx,
one of New York City's five Burroughs, the DJ's MC.
He began to drop some little simple raps and nursery
(02:39):
rhymes early on to get the crowd going. And one
of these early rhymes just came to me and I
remember the first time I heard this, everybody thought this
was the coolest thing. This is an example of how
this rapping thing started. Here was this rhyme. I remember
when I die, bury me deep, plant two turntables at
my feet, put the mix near my head so when
(03:01):
you close the casket, I can rock the debt.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
That tore the crowd up.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
And early MC, early rappers had a string of these
little things that they would throw together and it was incredible.
You know, they would drop this during a little instrumental
break of the most popular records at that point in
time at a party. But this nursery rap thing, nursery
rhymes that kind of flavor. It got a lot more involved,
intricate and complex. Then it began to turn into braggadocious narratives,
(03:33):
superhero street type player, the biggest hustler. You know, you
could fantasize about all these things that you wanted to do,
wanted to be, wanted to see, and put that in
your wraps. And this was how it began to grow.
The next guy, the next guy, and the next girl
heard it. Let me add something to it and take
it to the next level. This is a key important
(03:56):
component the foundation of hip hop culture and the development
on the music side. Kind of like a child starting
off a school learning how to read.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
You know those little books.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
You know, Tom Jane Dick, you know the real simple,
real simple sentences, simple story structure. But that was the
foundation that began to develop and turn and literally take
this thing to a Pulleter Prize winning level. Narratives on
a level of the greatest writers in history. That's right,
I'm gonna say it, the greatest writers in history. Within
(04:29):
this hip hop thing. There are those that have hit
those peaks and this is still going on to this day,
that's right. And by the way, Kendrick Lamar did win
a Pulletzer Prize. And this is all leading us to
today once again where hip hop is the world's most
listened to and dominant form of music. Now's something that
hip hop culture does on the slang side is take words.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
And kind of do a remix on them.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
The remixes all through the culture, from what we do
to records or what has been done in different records,
to what's done to different words. There's an evolution going
on different meanings and expansion of meanings, a denotative dissection breakdown,
if you will, of language, and hip hop has done
a hell of a lot to that, and once again
here we.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Go, pious man in town.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
The definition of the MC has been changed over the years,
the same way the definition of freestyle has been changed
over the years. So it's like a dictionary. When you
look at the dictionary, there's words and used to mean something,
and those words have become archaic, which means that they
don't exist anymore. We don't use those words. When you
(05:43):
read in the Old Testament it was written in Old English.
You don't talk like that no more. Nobody walks around
talking like that. If you look at slang words, we
would say chill, we would say, yo, that's the joint.
The Bunkie forour made a song called That's the Joint.
But now we don't say that's the joint no more.
Cats might say yo, that's crack. Or if somebody is
(06:06):
saying something is any no cat no cat. You know,
all slang is ever changing, that it's evolving. So when
you look at the definition of the MC, I come
from the first generation of hip hop. So the definition
of the MC is the master of ceremony, which means
he had to do more than just rhyme. He had
(06:29):
to be able to know how to command the crowd
at also rhyme at the same time. And Mellie mel
might be the god who was the was the inventor
of that phrase, the MC, because I never heard it
mules before him. So based on my learning and my
(06:50):
teaching of the first generation, the MC is the master
of ceremony, and he does more than just rot. If
you look at Mellie Mel, or you look at Cowboy
or the four or you study Grandmaster Flash and the
Furious Box Cowboy. At the end of his record, he said,
now clap your hands due prepare to go. I'm a
(07:11):
victim of circumstpt because Eric the br Bruh, the Bread
to the butter go when everybody rock wanted up like
he's Roman to clap to a soul clapp and then
he said say ho, and then he's calling response crowd participation,
which is a whole other subject. Call and response has
(07:32):
become archaic and only very few i'm the understanding the
true mastery of cloud participation. Yes, Jo, I've been fortunate
enough because I learned from some of the architects. But
that piece with being able to talk to an audience
(07:55):
and at the same time, why is the true meaning
of an.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
S Daddy O rapper, producer, deep thinker and founding member
of classic Brooklyn rap group Stets of Sonic.
Speaker 6 (08:10):
So I think in the very beginning, I think it's different, right,
I think a little. It's interesting because in the very beginning,
the MC was what the MC was at the Apollo,
or what the MC was at any of the bigger
clubs in New York City, what the MC was at
the Garden, right, which was the master ceremony, was basically
(08:33):
a hoast right, but it was a little more than
a host because that person had a little more flair
than just a regular host. They they might even be
a performer and they're hosting. What went on down the
line we became rhymers, and the very beginning, guys like
(08:54):
Hollywood was not really a rhymer. There was rhyme's and
what he did, but that he wasn't really a rhyme.
The real story is slashes DJ and a party. He
puts the mic down, Keith Cowboy picks up the mic
and the rest is history. And that's our legacy, our legacy.
(09:17):
Anybody from Daddio to Kendrick Lamar is from Calboy because
Cowboy is the one that really started doing those rhymes
see the Hollywood and was doing that.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
Food tag thing.
Speaker 6 (09:30):
I want to go let that's not.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
What he was doing.
Speaker 6 (09:33):
He was a former army guy, so he got on
the mic and did hib hap the hibbit the hawk,
you know, and he started rhyming.
Speaker 5 (09:42):
You know.
Speaker 6 (09:42):
So the MC kind of evolved from just a host
or a flamboyant host, an energetic hoast to a guy
that actually rhymed. And then I love I love rock
Kim's description because he said, MC to me means to
move the crowd.
Speaker 7 (10:00):
No mistakes allowed, custom me and see and Me's moved
the crowd, crowd, crowd.
Speaker 8 (10:04):
I like that.
Speaker 6 (10:05):
I'm like that a lot.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah, there's no question about the contribution that the Great
Rock Kim has made to the culture. Fascinating to hear
Daddy O's recollections, and it's important to understand what rock
Kim really brought to the table. A sense of cool,
conscious embodied street hustler, and most importantly, a passionate poetic
(10:28):
flavor that everybody picked up on right away. Elevated the game.
Speaker 8 (10:32):
To the next level.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Fat Joe recording artists, Bronx hip hop legend and author.
Speaker 9 (10:39):
This is crazy, right, because when I was coming up,
there was a disparity between an EMBc.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
And a rapper.
Speaker 9 (10:47):
Now it pretty much turned into the same thing. But
then MC has always been a master of ceremony. It's
always been a person that can rock the crowd, whether
it's through lyrics and rhymes or it's do let me
he say, oh you know you have physy beat. He
(11:10):
wasn't known as the greatest lyricist rapper. He was known
as an m secause he was the master ceremony.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
I want everybody from Avenue d to me, fam I mean.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
I'm saying died, he died, He died, y'all.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
You you ever been to a party?
Speaker 9 (11:33):
You know that's how calent started, and that's how my man,
pretty you guy, you know you ever noticed this People
who come to parties and you could be playing the same,
but it ain't the same.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
And when this person grabs the mic, he just uplifts.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
It's the gospel, fascinating, the hair, Fat Joe reference, his
good friend DJ Khaled, and amazing to think about what
this brother has achieved, what this Palestinian brother has made happen.
You know a hip hop DJ mixtape maker who's turned
herself into one of the greatest hypemen slash producers of
(12:13):
all time. Okay, he closed out the Grammy performance this year,
which of course was a salute to the fifty years
of hip hop, but a pretty telling occurrence, putting the
DJ back in the forefront, but in a new form
and fashion. Iced Tea at the rapper West Coast hip
(12:34):
hop pioneer.
Speaker 10 (12:36):
A rapper can rap like a lot of rappers can rap,
me make on the studio. They could bust bars. They
could stand in the cipher and bust bars. And MC
controls the crowd so and MC knows how the host
and MC can talk between the records. MC can stop
the music and keep the audience engaged with this conversation
(12:57):
and then go back into a rap, so he has
total control of the stage. A lot of rappers. If
you watch a rap they'll actually turn they back to
the audience. They can't really, they're not comfortable in front
of the artists. And some people are more mcs than rappers,
Like Busy b is more of an MC than a rapper.
(13:18):
KRS one is both. He can control the crowd. So
when you're a master MC like Kine is somebody like that,
you can do both.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
That's the difference a.
Speaker 10 (13:30):
Lot of cat It's kind of like to me, it's
like a graffiti artist, like a cat that can draw
in the black book dope but can never put it
on a train shahem.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
We music journalists and.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
The hip hop says, a MC has always been not
just somebody who can rhyme, because to me, that's just
a rapper. But an MC is somebody who's able to
control the whole stage construct. So you're rhyme in you're
also able to bring the crowd to attention. You're also
(14:05):
able to control the crowd, you know, do calling responses.
You're also able to vibe with your DJ or if
you have a band, vibe with your band and able
it's like you're almost like a conductor. You know, you're
giving out singles your whole presence controls everything that's happening
on that stage. And I think that is a clear
(14:27):
difference between a rapper who just gets out there and
rhymes or nothing never gets out there, he just at
a in his house rhyming on his computer, as opposed
to an MC who could get on stage and just
deal with it. If you're an MC and you get
on stage and say, for example, your DJ's equipment goes
out and there's no sound, and MC knows how to
(14:51):
keep that vibe going even without the music and keep
the crowd engaged and keep you know, whether it's calling responses,
whether it's it could be anything. You could be cracking jokes,
you can spit freestyles, whatever it is. Your job is
to keep that motion, that that stage motion going at
(15:13):
all times.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Kid could pree Grammy Award winning DJ and producer, a.
Speaker 6 (15:18):
Master of the ceremony, somebody that could paint a picture
for you and don't need a record to do it,
make you understand because you probably went through it, or
better yet, can paint a picture for you that you
of something that you probably never even thought of and
make you reconsider something. A real MC, somebody that like
(15:41):
Biggie was a real MC. Why because he could paint
the picture. When he ronmed, you could see what he's saying. Krs,
you could see what he said. Rob Kim, you could
see what he's saying. You know what I'm saying. Like
there's certain them scenes that they don't need to make
no more hit records. Their records that they came out
with is going to be here forever because they painted
the picture for you.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Master as rapper record producer.
Speaker 7 (16:02):
To me, and master's ceremony is the person who gets
that mic in his hand at an event, a party,
whether it's a party or an outdoor VET or indoor VET.
And they basically control the audience from the standpoint that
they can get the audience to say certain things, They
can get the audience to do certain things, put your
(16:24):
hands up, put your hands down. They can make announcements,
somebody's cars getting told, you know, last call for alcohol.
And also to highlight the DJ, the guy that's playing
the music, because typically DJ's in those days anyway didn't
really get on the mic per se. So they needed
(16:45):
somebody to tell the crowd about them. And so that's
how this all started. They needed somebody that had a
good relationship with the crowd that wasn't afraid to be
in front of the you know, audience with the mic
and tell the crowd, this is DJ such and such
tearing it down and tell you about him. And so
(17:09):
the way it started was in the midst of telling
you about the DJ, some masters of ceremony decided to
say some cool little things that ron to kind of
entertain the crowd even more, some little you know, poems
or whatever with the rhythm, and so it got to
the point where it wasn't as much about the DJ
(17:30):
as it was about these guys that were getting on
the mic, talking to the crowd and getting the crowd
to say al and say ho, and do this and
do that. Those guys became the entertainment instead of the DJ.
And that's where things shifted in terms of today's culture.
(17:54):
The master ceremony is the guy with the mic in
his hand in front of the audience that's going to
be entertain that audience with everything that he's doing on
that mic and around that mic. And if you don't
get control of the crowd, then you can call yourself
a mc LL.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Cool jet actor, rapper entrepreneur considered one of the best
to ever do it.
Speaker 6 (18:18):
I just think it's an ultimate form of self expression.
It's a way to uh explore your inner power. It's
a way to you know, to die deep within yourself
and touch other people. Because when you truly, truly explore
your inner power and tap into what society you, you
connect with other people because specificity is universal. So it's
(18:38):
like to me, the MC is confidence, his bravado, his
his storytelling, his his technique, his uh way with words,
his his approach. It gives other people the license to
be free. So so so my job, you know, I
make your troubles disappear.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
I set you free.
Speaker 6 (19:00):
When I step on a stage and you lock in
for me or me for sixty or ninety minutes or
whatever it is, you get an opportunity to be free.
And that to me is like performing a service, like
that's my job. That's what I was born to do.
Speaker 8 (19:16):
Daddy O.
Speaker 6 (19:17):
What it takes to be a skill for MC, I
will say, first, it's studied, but I also have to
expand that because I do believe this is just daddy O.
Speaker 8 (19:29):
I do believe that.
Speaker 6 (19:30):
Some people are just solidly born with that town I
work with Biggie. I believe he was solidly born with
that town. There's certain people you work with, you believe
they're solidly born, and then the rest of us, like
my pastor used to say, the rest of us bumblebees.
Speaker 10 (19:44):
We have to learn.
Speaker 6 (19:45):
So that's what I say. For the most part, what
it takes to be a talent to MC is to study.
Because if you think about guys like Black Thought, you
think about guys like Eminem, you think about guys like
Kendrick or j Cole, that's all study. Yes, those guys
are probably naturally talented, but they had to kind of
get their chops. They had to figure that out. They had
(20:07):
to figure out where they was gonna flow, They had
to figure out what their voice was going. Even guys
like Andre three thousand didn't sound the same at the
end that he sounded in the beginning. So I think
that studying is a really, really big part of being
a talented MC lyricist. I mean, you know, I know
(20:27):
they have all types of subcategories, but I think for
the most part, I would use the word study.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Fat Joe. To be a true FC, you gotta write
your own lyrics.
Speaker 9 (20:38):
Now have I come to accept like you know Kanye
West one of my favorite rappers. He don't write all
the lyrics, but it's cadences flow.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
I've come to ben new rules as we got older.
Speaker 9 (20:51):
Growing up, it was like, you write graffiti, you better
go steal the spray paint, because if your moms give
you money to buy a spray paint, it don't mean
the same thing of MC.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
And you don't write your own, it ain't valid. You know.
Speaker 9 (21:04):
That's how I grew up in the hip hop, that diversity.
You know, I love you know. My favorite hip hop
record of all time is Vapors by biz Markie Rest
and Peace because I grew up so far, I grew
up so picked up. They treated me like they used
to kick me while I was down on the floor.
You know what I'm saying that. Then when I started
getting a couple of dollars hustling, and I got in
(21:25):
that bench and I got in that beama, I would
ride through the same block, past the same moth, slow.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Motion pumping the vapors. They caught the Vapors.
Speaker 9 (21:36):
But now what we say biz Marquis is as lyrical
as rock him.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
But Rock Kim was coming.
Speaker 9 (21:42):
Up with consciousness and never even cursed right then you
got slick Wick was telling these stories.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
They were like insane.
Speaker 9 (21:51):
Once upon a time, not long ago, when people around
and lived like slow and don't think the nasties and
people with every.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Like hell to uh.
Speaker 9 (22:00):
There was a little roy who was thinking about he
got the shot, dang the old things you don't don't
know that mean enough walk to fad, you know what
I'm saying. So he was telling them stories, you know,
Laurence Hill consciousness, Black Power, Chuck d Fight the Power,
(22:21):
exclaim poor righteous teacher.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
And then you had kidding Blake dancing the nice guys
next door.
Speaker 11 (22:29):
Then you had Latifa talking about who you calling the bitch.
Then you had em c Light Light is a rock,
Heavy deep made me to this day when I just flied.
I'm still trying to battle heavy deep heavy deeds the flies,
fat guy.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Ever.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
You know, it's important to point out that everybody here
speaking giving you this insight info has the idea of
the MC near DNA. A lot of these guys who
have been around long enough to have seen it, seen
the best doing it, and really giving you that deep
understanding of what the MC is. You know what I'm saying,
(23:12):
this is a really important factor here, because you know
there's people that go out and sell tens of millions
of records, but nobody's talking about how many who sold.
What it's all about the skill factor and the command
and control of the crowd by that MC that master
of ceremonies and by the way, that spelled e M
(23:34):
m CEE thanks to mail E mail Shahim reed music journalists.
Speaker 6 (23:41):
Well, I mean ra Kim said it the best, and
you see needs to move the crowd. And when I
think of the masters the ceremonies and seeds, I don't matter.
Only think of like the live show first.
Speaker 7 (23:55):
I think that the greats who could just get on
stage and don't really have to do what's perceived as
a lot, because these dudes do do a lot, but
they don't do what's perceived as a lot to really
just shake a hold of arena. Like I gotta give
it to Douggie fresh Man. Like you know, Doug is
(24:17):
one of the ones that he may not have like
twenty massive hits to do a versus or something like that,
but you put Douggie on that stage and I've seen
him rock a crowd of all type of audience. I've
seen him do like an Essence best crowd, an older
brown and sexy crowd. I seen him rock for hids.
(24:40):
I've seen him do on YouTube.
Speaker 6 (24:42):
You can look at it. He's at a Scientology convention
where it's all white people and a lot of little
white kids, and Dougie is marauding that stage, like killing it.
I seen him do a crowd with just like young Cats.
I've seen him do all type of flavors. So doug
(25:03):
is one of the ultimate master ceremonies. I gotta give
it to my brother Buster just the Connegie Hall. He's
gonna kill any stage she gets on him. Star, DJ
scratch It Tall, the late great d NX, k arrest One, Kanye,
you know, before his unfortunate remarks and behavior, Kanye absolutely
(25:26):
a master when he get on that stage. So when
I think of MC, the first thing I do I
think about just the live aspect, and that even goes
back to the origin of hip hop because you know,
most scenes, I would say, all them sees before they
(25:46):
made records, they was doing it live. You know, they was,
they was insighther us. They was you know, even if
they wasn't insphers, they was rappers for their friends at
the crib or on the block. So it's always that
live ass first and then when I think about it,
sees this is my thing. But when I think at MC,
(26:07):
I don't think about just live. I also think about
mastery of the craft, and I think I call the
MC somebody who's mastered the craft.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Peter Guns hip hop artists and Bronx representative.
Speaker 12 (26:21):
I like a well rounded MC, somebody that got skills.
I'll come from the era of skills, patterns, a storyteller,
a performer, so bars, storytelling, and there's a little bit
of a swag toward the it factor that you had.
Slick Rick, for me, was one of the guys that
had that it factor when it came to storytelling and
(26:45):
bars and his voice and everything. Big Daddy Kane was
lyrical but also a hell of a performer. Dougie Fresh
hell of he performer, So there's different levels of that,
but lyrically rock chain with nothing to play with, he
wasn't gonna give you much more than those bars.
Speaker 6 (27:04):
Avar in rapping hip hop is a unit of measurement
that means for crotchets or four single beats, word of lyrics.
Speaker 12 (27:10):
So there's just different levels.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
So you know, LL cool J.
Speaker 12 (27:13):
The girls loved them. He could rap for the girls,
but the streets love him too because he can get
grimmy and go at with whoever won it. So I
was a huge ll fan man, he kept alive a
long time.
Speaker 6 (27:26):
Daddy Oh, It's difficult for me to say the most skillful.
I think Black Thought fits in that category. I think
jay Z fits in that category. If I'm gonna say skillful,
I think Naz fits in that category of skillful.
Speaker 8 (27:45):
Definitely.
Speaker 6 (27:46):
J Cole fits in the category of skillful. Definitely, Andre
thine thousand fits in the category of skillful. Right now,
a guy like Locksmith fits in the category of skillful,
defits in the category of skillful. If you want to
just talk about skillful, MC's guys that take them worse
bust the Rhymes fits in the category skillful. Guys who
(28:09):
take them words and flip it. I mean they do
them things with them words. It's them and then pretty
much seventy percent of the battle raps. I mean I
learned the new Daddy Oh, learned from the battle rap.
I mean I could not do what I do right
now if it wasn't for battle Rap, because I saw
(28:29):
them do things with words that I never thought we
were able to do because I'm so used to that
regular four to fourth pattern. Yes, I'm making sense with it,
but I'm also I saw them do some things and
I'm not fool. Wait a minute, I could do that,
and I start writing lines like Conrad Murray a case
(28:52):
because I killed Mike. I never did nothing like that before.
You know what I'm saying. What after I saw that?
So I would say the guys I mentioned, but seventy
percent of battle rappers fall into category is skillful.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Yeah, I totally agree with my man Daddy Yo for
bringing up battle rappers. Oh my goodness, such an important
part of the hip hop game. And I mean it's
not about songs, but those that mastered the art of
that verbal wordplay. And I want to give a special
shout out to the kids that helped really accelerate the
(29:26):
battle rap game. Smack who started out with Smack DVD
early two thousands with those incredible battles his partner Beasley.
Those dudes created a rap battle league, and there's a
half a dozen other leagues around the country and also
around the world where people compete and spit.
Speaker 8 (29:47):
Those words in the most incredible way.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Yes, indeed, so many great battle rappers out there that
once again have amazing power with those words, making them rhyme,
telling the stories, doing all that good. Yes, Indeed, my
man Daddy Yell shahm reed, music journalists.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
My illness, rappers may embody certain things. But I would
have the top person I would have to give it
to is Black Thought, because I've spent the better half
of twenty five years. Like, for example, one of my
best closest friends is Comal in the room, So I've
spent the better half of twenty five years witnessing Black Thought. Like,
(30:34):
I don't have record references or anything like that. I've
seen this man freestyle for like two hours straight and
you would think it was a record or it was
something he memorized. I've seen his like, he's probably the
most incredible rapper I've ever seen in his pure element.
(30:56):
You know, I don't count making records as an element
like that, right, those are like those are controlled environment.
I'm talking about the equivalent of a tiger. For example,
a tiger at the circus is doing nothing but jumping
through whoops, that's a record. A tiger in the wild
is spazzing the hell out at all costs at all times.
(31:19):
That's who Thought is to me.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
That was well stated.
Speaker 8 (31:21):
Shahem.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
You know when you take it out of the controlled
environment of you know, working with producers and beats and
you know, making records and studios, y, that's.
Speaker 8 (31:31):
A different thing, an important thing, but a different.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Part of the hip hop game.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
But like a tiger in a while, I want to agree,
Black Thought without questions one of the best that ever
did it.
Speaker 8 (31:41):
I've been a big fan forever. Yeah, Black thoughts to
wrap her from the roots.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
About five years ago, he dropped a ten minute freestyle.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
Of Jess verbal perfection unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Just go to after this episode hit YouTube search Black
Thought funk Flex. He dropped amazing just when on and
on till you break the dawn at the height of
what it's all about.
Speaker 8 (32:04):
Yes, indeed, totally agree with you on that one.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
Baby.
Speaker 4 (32:07):
Then I've seen other, like other incredible things like for
lack of a better you know, people wouldn't think about it,
but I've seen too Short stand on the stage every
night for a month straight, thirty thousand people minimum in
the audience and never wrap was able to stand there,
(32:27):
hold his mic out, start the line off and see
thirty thousand people do his show for him.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
That's an MC.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
Even a jay Z moment like I've seen jay Z
pull on Michael Jackson, like get out on Summer Jam
and just stand there for like five minutes with the
shades on and sixty thousand people lose their brains just
because it's jay Z, you know, And that's a moment.
Speaker 7 (32:53):
Master Eights some of the best that I've seen in
my in my years, Big Daddy Came Bizmarcky Duckie, Fresh
Run from Run, Deem c krus One. There's definitely several
others that are people that I watched and paid attention to.
(33:13):
I got a chance to understand what it took and
what it entailed, and I incorporated something from all those
guys into how I put on my show.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Sir mixed a lot rapper, songwriter, record producer.
Speaker 8 (33:30):
Most influential rock him.
Speaker 13 (33:33):
I'm gonna say that because there's a lot of styles
that emanated from his you know now people say, well,
not yours. Yes, I do have songs where you know
you lost to the boss and got knocked off, rip
off rams, get toss because they all st step off
Horse and step on the mix sauce costs to be
the boss and pay you with the right cross.
Speaker 8 (33:50):
That's rock him.
Speaker 13 (33:51):
Come on, man, you know all that, all that stuff
like that, And I was doing that on records, but
those records didn't hit because people don't buy mixed a
lot for that reason.
Speaker 8 (33:59):
I get it. I get it, But I would say
rock Yim. I'm not doing them in any order.
Speaker 13 (34:03):
I'm gonna say DJ Quick because and I'm gonna I'll
tell you why in a minute, because my next one
is I'm gonna say NWA.
Speaker 8 (34:13):
And why do I say those two separately?
Speaker 13 (34:16):
Because Nwa, in my opinion, made gangster rap popular.
Speaker 8 (34:21):
I mean, they blew it up.
Speaker 13 (34:22):
Right, probably almost invented it, really, I mean as far
as the somebody from a helicopter.
Speaker 8 (34:29):
View would say.
Speaker 13 (34:30):
But DJ Quick did something a little bit different and
and skewed it into something musical and almost R and
B esque, so you almost didn't realize he was talking
that gangst it at the same time, and it's like
it was really cool.
Speaker 8 (34:48):
So I'll say them three.
Speaker 13 (34:49):
Obviously, public Enemy care ass one.
Speaker 8 (34:55):
Caress one is pure hip hop.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
I mean, he's pure.
Speaker 13 (35:00):
He ain't doing no I'm doing all kind of crazy shit.
I'm doing shit that he.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
He shouldn't do.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
He shouldn't do that.
Speaker 13 (35:06):
I'm just And then people say, well that much would
hate you. I don't give a you. I respect that
mother man.
Speaker 8 (35:13):
I was like, God, damn.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
I mean, he just literally.
Speaker 8 (35:17):
And to win that crowd over, he won them or
It took me three songs and I got him going right.
It took him the third person he talked about and.
Speaker 13 (35:27):
He wasn't There was no music because look it up,
it's on YouTube.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
No music.
Speaker 8 (35:32):
He was just spitting.
Speaker 13 (35:33):
I said, yeah, okay, I can see what he means
now when he talks about the origins of hip hop
and stuff like that, and why he's so adamant about
it is that something is missing.
Speaker 8 (35:46):
And I didn't know it until I saw that.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
If you're like me, hip hop is in your box.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Russell Simmons, record executive and entrepreneur.
Speaker 8 (35:57):
Alan rappers the storyteller. The rapper is the wather talked,
what's in.
Speaker 14 (36:02):
The heart now, mc A A party is one thing,
but a rapper he's telling her to eat.
Speaker 8 (36:07):
Ain't the poet. The poet who has been pressing within.
Speaker 14 (36:12):
The heart of his heart first, but he mostly if
he's popular in them. What he's saying is in the
heart for many people but not being expressed a lot.
So the rapper is the guy really say a more
heartfelt version of what's been polished over and moved around
and made the fit, made acceptable, made accessible. The rapp
(36:33):
up can, like any pope, can tell it how it feels,
not how it's.
Speaker 8 (36:39):
Always been written promoted, how it really feels. So that's
what a good MC should be able to do.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
For the next episode of the Fifty Years of Hip
Hop podcast series, we're gonna look at the shift and
what went down with hip hop music from the nineteen
eighties into the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
This was a really dynamic.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
Period where a whole lot of incredible advancements happened. A
lot of major artists hit the picture, and your MTV
raps happened. That's right in the fall in nineteen eighty eight, MTV,
which was only playing rock and roll, and you know
it wasn't really showing black music any love, decided to
do something radical.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
Gave me a call, and.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Your MTV raps hit the air, and I featured a
lot of these artists that emerged in this period that
really defined the culture in a really impactful way. And
then we're also going to put a frame around that
golden era of hip hop where so much went down
once again on the next episode of fifty Years of
Hip Hop podcast series. This episode has been executive produced
(37:45):
by Dolly S. Bishop, hosted and produced by your Boy
Fab five Freddy, Produced.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
By Aaron A.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
King Howard, Edit Nick sound by Dwayne Crawford, music scoring
by Trey Jones, Talent booking by Nicole Spent
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