Posted on 02/09/2020 6:48:14 AM PST by Cecily
“I’m Be-o-wulf, and I’m here to say
Grendel better stay away....HOOH”
“Rapture” was also fun and easy on the ears.
don’t let them know that hill folks invented beat boxing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75qIdhCO2DQ
you’re talking hip hop with the scratching and sampling.
Rapping existed long before that.
Grandmaster Flash “The Message” every dorm room in 1980-81 has this song playing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PobrSpMwKk4
Fab five Freddy was a friend of hers
I guess the accusers missed all the Michael Jackson and Prince videos. Also Lionel Ritchie, Whitney Houston. Janet Jackson and many others. Plenty of black artists.
One of the most memorable bass lines of all time, lifted from Chic's Good Times, by the late, great Bernard Edwards.
plugging into a streetlamp for power and rhyming on the fly over the thump and scratch of vinyl”
thanks for mentioning that. this is a very important element.
I have to insert here, perhaps dangerously on FR, but perhaps this thread is safer :)
But as the author/star of Hamilton on broadway said, Hamilton really is a hip hop story. What he means by that is, Hamilton was orphaned, found his way to NYC, and then worked feverishly hard, really trading in the proliferation of words (wrote like he was running out of time). He also had an edginess to his personality in that he was utterly fearless, because he had so little to lose. (His bayonet charge at Yorktown for example). And of course his attitude towards a lawless British government who was repressing people....well....that is an element of hip hop and has been from the beginning. Now all of us would not really accept the notion that the British government and white cops in NYC are really the same...but...you get the point, and it’s part of the human experience in those urban centers where they did feel that way, rightly or wrongly. (And, it is, actually undeniable, that the LA police department around the time OJ killed two people did in fact have some lawless and racist pockets).
I don’t want this thread taken over by politics....and I don’t like Lin Manual Miranda’s politics, either.
But his work, Hamilton, is a national treasure which we all do well to admire. And knowing what we can of the story of hip hop is part of that.
Ultimately, hip hop is just....human. It’s ok not to “like” it. I always tell students tastes are real, and you don’t really get to argue with someone else’s tastes. But we all do well to acknowledge true creative, complex, deeply historical cultural phenomena when we encounter them. Hip hop is certainly that; AND it is utterly American.
I did not know that! Wow, thank you! AWESOME detective work!!!!!!
for us who are trying our best to learn, we always have to recall that rap and hip hop, though intertwined often, are sort of different.
perhaps you elaborate a little on that.
I know it gets complex.
awesome video.
So at the end he says, “my uncle taught me...” etc.
Oral history, oral transmission of culture....in so many ways, this is ultimately the true aquifier of civilization.
There are stories of the human condition that go beyond nation or race.
If modern audiences think that white folk got them like Hamilton then they need to read more. And maybe travel.
Inequities will always exist.
Bootsy Collins recounts seeing black people in Africa mistreating other black people simply because they had power.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDcTIJu2i9Q
Wow, no you’re throwing down the Johnny Cash gauntlet!
Talk about a legendary, outrageously influential individual. Have you heard his duet with Joe Strummer of the Bob Marley song, REdemption Song?
Are you a professional historian of American music? It seems your knowledge in this area is endless!
Posting some threads on Gospel, and country/rockabilly, oh, and bluegrass would be amazing!
And they are all but gone or forced “underground”.
There are only 3 accepted cultures anymore.
Black, Hispanic and the homosexual culture.
I think the point of Hamilton, is simply this: his story is a human one, and it is uniquely important to ALL Americans (and really to all humans). Hip hop is also a human story, and it is an appropriate vehicle to incorporate into the musical and to tell his story.
That’s the only point.
No suggestion that Hamilton is somehow the greatest (hip hop) story, not at all.
But it is a great story, and to yoru point, it is a story of the human spirit. (AND the American spirit :)).
The elite accept only those, you are correct. But when the elites put together “Yugoslavias”....they aren’t going to be able to keep them together forever artificially.
I am optimistic about human cultures in the longer term.
This is my favorite topic.
I wrote a doctoral dissertation on it, actually. I feel like my optimism is warranted, in the longer view of history ... :)
Just being me, but I cannot stand that song. Nor 99% of rap of any kind.
King James Brown!
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