Icons of Hip Hop: an Encyclopedia of the Movement, Music, and Culture, Volumes 1 & 2
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Icons of Hip Hop: An Encyclopedia of the Movement, Music, and Culture, Volumes 1 & 2 Edited by Mickey Hess Greenwood Press ICONS OF HIP HOP Recent Titles in Greenwood Icons Icons of Horror and the Supernatural: An Encyclopedia of Our Worst Nightmares Edited by S.T. Joshi Icons of Business: An Encyclopedia of Mavericks, Movers, and Shakers Kateri Drexler ICONS OF HIP HOP An Encyclopedia of the Movement, Music, And Culture VOLUME 1 Edited by Mickey Hess Greenwood Icons GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut . London Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Icons of hip hop : an encyclopedia of the movement, music, and culture / edited by Mickey Hess p. cm. – (Greenwood icons) Includes bibliographical references, discographies, and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-313-33902-8 (set: alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-313-33903-5 (vol 1: alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-313-33904-2 (vol 2: alk. paper) 1. Rap musicians—Biography. 2. Turntablists—Biography. 3. Rap (Music)—History and criticism. 4. Hip-hop. I. Hess, Mickey, 1975– ML394. I26 2007 782.421649'03—dc22 2007008194 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright Ó 2007 by Mickey Hess All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2007008194 ISBN-10: 0-313-33902-3 (set) ISBN-13: 978-0-313-33902-8 (set) 0-313-33903-1 (vol. 1) 978-0-313-33903-5 (vol. 1) 0-313-33904-X (vol. 2) 978-0-313-33904-2 (vol. 2) First published in 2007 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.greenwood.com Printed in the United States of America The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984). 10987654321 Contents List of Photos vii Volume One Foreword, Jeru the Damaja ix Preface xiii Introduction xvii A Timeline of Hip Hop History, Nicole Hodges Persley xxi Kool Herc, Wayne Marshall 1 Grandmaster Flash, H.C. Williams 27 Roxanne Shante´, Thembisa S. Mshaka 51 Run-DMC, Jeb Aram Middlebrook 69 Beastie Boys, Mickey Hess 91 MC Lyte, Jennifer R. Young 117 Eric B. & Rakim, Shawn Bernardo 141 Public Enemy, George Ciccariello-Maher 169 Salt-N-Pepa, Athena Elafros 193 Queen Latifah, Faiza Hirji 217 The Geto Boys, Jason D. Haugen 243 The Native Tongues, Aine McGlynn 265 Volume Two Preface ix Ice Cube, David J. Leonard 293 Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, David Diallo 317 vi Contents Nas, Susan Weinstein 341 Wu-Tang Clan, Jessica Elliott and Mickey Hess 365 Tupac Shakur, Carlos D. Morrison and Celnisha L. Dangerfield 391 Notorious B.I.G., James Peterson 417 Lil’ Kim, Aine McGlynn 439 Outkast, T. Hasan Johnson 457 Eminem, Katherine V. Tsiopos-Wills 481 Missy Elliot, Joi Carr 503 Jay-Z, T. Hasan Johnson 529 Kanye West, Todd Dills 555 Interviews: Let ’Em In: An Interview with DJ Premier, Shamika Ann Mitchell 579 Word Up: An Interview with DJ Scratch, Shamika Ann Mitchell 591 Afterword: The Twenty-Four Most Overlooked MCs in Hip Hop, Masta Ace 603 Selected Bibliography 609 Notes on Contributors 613 Index 621 List of Photos DJ Kool Herc (page 1) speaking at a news conference to launch “Hip-Hop Won’t Stop: The Beat, The Rhymes, The Life,” the first ever hip-hop initiative at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in New York, 2006. Ó AP Photo/Henny Ray Abrams. Grandmaster Flash (page 27) performing live at Wembley Arena in London, 1985. Ó S.I.N / Alamy. Roxanne Shante (page 51). Ó David Corio. Run DMC (page 69), ca. 1985. Courtesy of Photofest. Beastie Boys (page 91), 1998. Courtesy of Photofest. MC Lyte (page 117). Courtesy of Photofest. Eric B and Rakim (page 141). Ó Waring Abbott / Alamy. Public Enemy (page 169). Courtesy of Photofest. Salt n Pepa (page 193), ca. 1994. Courtesy of Photofest. Queen Latifah (page 217). Courtesy of Photofest. The Geto Boys (page 243) arrive at the 2004 Source Hip-Hop Music Awards at the James L. Knight Center, October 10, 2004 in Miami, Florida. Ó Orlando Garcia / Getty Image. De La Soul (page 265), one of the founding members of the Native Tongues posse, along with A Tribe Called Quest, the Jungle Brothers, Afrika Bambaataa, and others. Ó David Corio. Ice Cube (page 293). Courtesy of Photofest. Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg (page 317), 1993. Courtesy of Photofest. Nas (page 341), 1994. Courtesy of Photofest. viii List of Photos Wu Tang Clan (page 365), 2000. Ó Kevin Winter / Getty Images. Tupac Shakur (page 391), 1996. Courtesy of Photofest. Notorious B.I.G. (page 417), ca. 1997. Courtesy of Photofest. Lil’ Kim (page 439) in the pressroom at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards in New York. Ó AP Photo / Tammie Arroyo. Big Boi and Andre 3000 (page 457) pose in front of the three awards they won at the 46th Annual Grammy Awards, 2004. Ó AP Photo / Reed Saxon. Eminem (page 481), 2000. Courtesy of Photofest. Missy Elliot (page 503) performs during the 2003 MTV Europe Music Awards in Edinburgh, Scotland. Courtesy of Photofest. Jay-Z (page 529) rapper and CEO of Def Jam Records, 2001. Courtesy of Photofest. Kanye West (page 555) performs “Jesus Walks” at the 47th Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, 2005. Ó AP Photo / Kevork Djansezian. Foreword I grew up in the seventies and eighties in East New York, Brooklyn, where summertime meant playing freeze tag, kick the can, and skelly in the streets. Seventy-nine was the year that changed my life forever. “Rapper’s Delight” was played so many times on my grandmother’s stereo that it became part of me. So much so that I know all the words by heart to this day. It was The Great Adventures of Super Rhymes, not Slick Rick (that is the generation following mine) that had me hooked like Benji from the Alice Childress novel A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ but a Sandwich the first time he tried smack. That would be the summer that would change the course of my life or rather put me on the right course. A new family moved onto the block that summer. There was a young mother named Debbie and her young son. I forget his name, but the story goes like this. It was the last block party of the summer and a bunch of dudes we had never seen before were standing in front of the building where the new family was living, clearly friends and family of the new family. The older guys were up in arms because in those days a group of young black men on your block that did not live there usually ended up in some sort of physical confrontation. Dirty looks and ice grills were exchanged and had the block hotter than an Eskimo in the desert. But before it could escalate, some guy that looked like JJ from Good Times called several of the kids indoors. Here we go . The block party had just started and it was going to get shut down already. A few minutes passed and the door of the building flung open but instead of sticks, bats, chains, and other popular tools of destruction, the strangers came out carrying huge speakers. Speakers? All of a sudden fear had become curiosity. I was about eight at the time and had never seen speakers so big. And I grew up in a party house! I wanted to get a better look so I got closer. The young men kept their focus on hooking up the speakers, concentrating on the task at hand. By this time a pretty decent crowd had gathered but they seemed not to notice—like they had done this a thousand times. I had heard stories about block parties with gigantic speakers playing music you could x Foreword hear for miles and kids dancing in the street. But I had never witnessed it firsthand. All we ever did at the neighborhood block party was play hide and seek, round up, catch and kiss, and eat all the different kinds of food everybody’s mother was cheffing up on the grills. And as far as music, people put their stereo speakers on the porch and played Marvin Gaye, Bob Marley, jazz, salsa, and music from their native lands. It was sort of like a musical jambalaya, and every few steps you discovered a new flavor. The scene that was being set up this summer afternoon looked like something I had heard of, the new music that I heard the older kids around the way talking about. Of course! It was unfolding before my eyes. I couldn’t believe that I was about to see hip hop with my own two eyes—I was so excited that I couldn’t move. Out came the milk crates, a piece of plywood, turntables, and last but not least an extension cord from the first-floor window. When they hooked up the power cords it was like watching one of those old-school Frankenstein movies when the scientist hits the lifeless pile of spare parts with a million volts of electricity, but instead of a hideous monster a different beast was awakened. A few of the strange dudes grabbed the mic and started spittin’ the flavor. Rhymes like “dang diddy dang di dang da dang ding, my meat taste better than Burger King ...” orwas that the song they were playing? Whatever it was, they had me mesmerized.