Electro-funk remains prosperous as the Hip Hop soul movement grows with C-Bank which foreshadows Shannon's 'Let the Music Play' which truly begins another Hip Hop variant born out of electro-funk: freestyle music or Latin Hip Hop.Īnother healthy year.

Kraftwerk venture into Hip Hop with 'Tour De France', and Cybotron birth techno with their electro-funk anthem 'Clear'. debuts with the first 'hardcore' rap as do punk rockers Beastie Boys with their first rap record 'Cooky Puss'. La Rock & Jazzy Jay kick start Hip Hop's biggest record label, Def Jam, as Ice T. debut with 'It's Like That/Sucker MCs'' single and begin their conquest as Hip Hop's biggest and most influential group of all time ('Sucker MCs'' is regarded as the first hardcore rap track). Man Parrish also releases the seminal 'Hip Hop, Be Bop (Don't Stop)'. release the electro-funk Grammy winning 'Rockit' while Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five release their second most important recording that ranks with Afrika Bambaataa's 'Looking for the Perfect Beat': 'White Lines (Don't Do It)'. Jazz legend Herbie Hancock and Grandmaster D.St. Knowledge and understanding and respect for Hip Hop and its roots are vital.Īnother successful year for Hip Hop. Hip Hop is first and foremost a culture with five important elements: the b-boys (break dancers), Graffiti/Aerosol artists, MCs, DJs, and the beatboxers. This list targets critical Hip Hop records during the old school era (1979-roughly 1985) before the revolution of 'cut-n-paste' music and Run-D.M.C.'s seminal Hip Hop anthem 'Walk This Way' in 1986. Later, The Sugar Hill Gang debuted in the summer with Hip Hop's most famous commercial record yet,'Rapper's Delight'. Artists that laid the template for such aggressive spoken word set to a funky beat include James Brown, Gil Scott-Heron, The Watts Prophets, and The Last Poets.īy the spring of 1979, the first rap record surfaced with funk band The Fatback Band's 'King Tim IIII (Personality Jock)'. The first rappers (called MCs) would rap over funk, reggae, dub, soul, and disco beats and would hold spontaneous rhyming battles that were meant to verbally attack an opponent called 'freestyles' (freestyling and flowing were words used to describe the impromptu vocal delivery). Rap music has always existed as an element of Hip Hop since the culture's birth in the early 1970s.

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