Celebrating
Old School Hip Hop, Disco Rap & Funky
Flavas
NEWS! Winter 2010
Catch The Beat: The Best Of Soul Underground 1987-91
Soul Underground was one of the best dance music and clubbing magazines around in the late 80's. A new book 'Catch The Beat: The Best Of Soul Underground 1987-91' features 440 pages of reprinted articles, interviews and charts from back in the day. From hip hop greats like Spoonie Gee, Mr. Magic, Public Enemy and Marley Marl to funk icons the calibre of Fred Wesley.
"Left to itself, rap's been the fastest evolving music for a long time - listen to The Sugarhill Gang and compare it with today's rap, they sound like disco music... they had a house band. It'll always survive if it goes on changing like that."
"We, the deejays, had to do something to make our shows a little bit different... a little unique. Rappin' really started on the instrumental breaks. It began as ego-trippin'... y'know, childish and quite irrelevant, but pretty soon it became an accepted thing, almost expected in fact, and those clubs who had rappin' deejays started to pick up."
Click
on the Kurtis Blow image above to get there.
September
2007: Just added an interview with The Funky Four Plus One from
1981.
"It
was DJs and B-boys. All the groups had MCs but the MC wasn't
into rhyming or unity yet, they were just talking, like radio
announcers. Then it got to a point where somebody started "Hip,
hop, hip hipity hop" and "To the beat y'all, freak
freak y'all." And people started wanting to hear that."
Plus
a short interview with Sylvia Robinson dishing the facts on
Sugarhill Records.
The
lowdown on a US Rap obscurity from 1984 -
Irvington, New Jersey's one and only Rapping Police Officer...
Click the 'Cracker Rapper' link on the left and check him out!
____________________
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five - The Message (Live on The Tube 1983)
