Issue 137 March 2017 A NEWSLETTER OF THE ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY The Golden Age of Hip Hop on the Silver Screen O WEN CLARK Hip hop is dead. I can’t exactly recall the Illmatic. I’m possibly stretching the truth point at which I frst heard this phrase, for the sake of my ‘rep’; I defnitely possess This Month’s Issue but it seems to be etched in my earliest several of Shaquille O’Neil’s critically- memories of acquainting myself with rap lauded singles in my old CD rack, so who music, and all of its accompanying baggage. can say which came frst, but let’s just say Undoubtedly, journalistic decries of the I started listening around the time that The Golden Age death of entire genres of music, sports, those black and white ‘parental advisory’ or really anything entertainment related, stickers started appearing on CDs—great of Hip Pop 1 have become tiresome clichés. Jazz is dead; job Tipper Gore, you really deterred our O WEN CLARK boxing is dead; this writer’s short-lived interest. Tis isn’t some sort of brag; had career is dead—frankly these assertions my sister not attended Abbeydale Grange, are as banal as they are dubious. However, Shefeld’s version of Dangerous Minds, the only upshot of such a declaration is I might have been listening to the same that it ofen elicits a thoughtful discourse Spice Girls CDs as my peers, but I think Culture Corner as to how we reached this supposed nadir, it led me to buy into the idea that post- “Truth” in Painting and the state of things to come. gangsta rap music just wasn’t worth my 5 Let me just say from the outset, if time. B ERNIE L ANGS you’re looking for a detailed analysis on Flash-forward to the present, rap is the current state of hip hop music, you certainly alive and well. Summer sixteen can stop reading. I’m far from an expert (the summer, not the album) was about on the subject, and in all honesty, I detest the time I realized that the genre is to NYC Dialect the critic culture that currently dominates some extent semi-unrecognizable from New York-ese: Lesson 5 internet journalism. However, like many the rap I know and love. Tat August, 7 others, I share an afnity for rap, and my former roommate/current friend A ILEEN MARSHALL see it as having a fairly unique origin and I attended a Lil Dicky show in and evolution that will always fascinate Manhattan. For those of you that don’t me. If I may be so bold, I will say that know, Lil Dicky is a technically fawless, my introduction to rap music probably comedy-focused rapper, whose ingenious occurred before the standard age of the parodies efectively spell out all of rap’s Life on a Roll nerdy, white, middle-class demographic shortcomings. Te venue reeked of weed Encountering Maya that I belong to. I was nine or ten when and was populated almost exclusively 8 I purchased my frst rap album, It Was by teenagers (the most frightening Q IO NG WANG Written—Nas’s sophomore studio ofering, and follow up to the highly acclaimed CONTINUED TO P.2* CONTINUED TO P.2 * 1 The Get Down’s Shaolin Fantastic learns the ropes from Grand Master Flash. * CONTINUED FROM P.1 winded introduction and briefy review some of these excellent oferings. Editorial Board demographic). Lil Dicky preceded EDITORIAL BOARD Lil Yachty (why are rappers always Hip Hop Evolution diminutive?), who at the time I hadn’t even Originally airing on HBO, and Jim Keller heard of—but that man, with his braids currently streaming on both HBO and Editor-in-Chief, Managing Editor so bright, managed to whip the crowd of Netfix, this four-part documentary Chew-Li Soh vape-high/Bud Light-drunk teenyboppers follows Canadian rapper Shadrach Associate Editor into a frenzied state. I stood back, terrifed, Kabango (stage name Shad) on a musical but also intrigued. Te next day, I perused pilgrimage to discover hip hop’s origins Yvette Chin, Lil Yachty’s tracks on Spotify, from the in the crime-stricken streets of 1970s Editorial Assistant safety of my living room, and came to South Bronx, and trace key developments Qiong Wang the realization that his particular style throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s, as the Copy Editor, Webmaster, Public Relations Manager of drawling, atonal, syncopated rap- genre took new and exciting directions, talking, in essence exemplifed the current and garnered mainstream success. Shad Juliette Wipf movement in hip hop that somehow takes us on a fascinating journey, revealing Copy Editor, Webmaster, Distribution emerged right under my nose. remarkable insights that are accompanied Lisa Hang Accepting that you’re no longer by a plethora of interviews with key fgures Copy Editor ‘down with the kids’ can be a tough pill in the rap community, both past and to swallow. But for me it came at a time present. Johannes Buheitel when I happened to notice an uptick in the Te show explores crucial Copy Editor appearance of documentaries/dramatic innovations in hip hop, beginning with Owen Clark portrayals exploring the early origins and the founder himself, DJ Kool Herc, and his Copy Editor, Distribution development of hip hop music. Tis might ‘merry-go-round’ idea of using side-by- be a slightly tangential straw at which side turntables playing the same (or similar) Alice Marino I’m grasping at, but this speaks to me as record, in order to elongate rhythmic drum Copy Editor, Distribution a collective acceptance, that rap has in a beats in soul and funk tracks—known Thiago Carvalho way, come full circle. Maybe not in the as break beats—at legendary parties in Copy Editor true sense of that phrase, but what I mean the recreation room of the Bronx project Aileen Marshall is we’ve reached the point where we can he called home. Herc would punctuate sit back (‘with a Buddha sack’) and wax these breaks with rhyming slang phrases, Copy Editor lyrical about the earlier days of the music, normally delivered through an Echoplex Nan Pang & Guadalupe Astorga with a sense of nostalgia that only comes delay, and thus hip hop was born. We see Designers with frm, mainstream, establishment; and how some of the originating icons built on some current, unfamiliar deviation from the methods of others to fnesse early hip selections.rockefeller.edu our perceived norm. So with that muddled [email protected] sentiment in mind, I will end this long- CONTINUED TO P.3* 2 * CONTINUED FROM P.2 of teenagers as they navigate the burning period footage to solidify pertinent scenes. Bronx of the late 1970s—struggling to steer One of the reasons why I call hop—Grand Master Flash’s ingenious clear of the street gangs, rising crime, and New York home is its riveting history, technique for identifying the precise political corruption that blighted the city, particularly the 70s and 80s, where soaring location of break beats; Melle Mel’s use of while establishing a hip hop crew mighty crime rates and near-bankruptcy led parts rap to bring awareness to the social strife enough to topple the throne of Grand of the city to resemble a dystopian war experienced in the woefully deprived Master Flash. Although co-creator Baz zone. I’ve read books on the subject, and communities of inner city America, in the Luhrmann’s trademark style of production watched myriad YouTub e videos cataloging timeless classic Te Message; Run-DMC’s provides a brightly colored, comic book the widespread arson that leveled the at the time startling decision to drop the feel; the show weaves a captivating Bronx in particular (where my mother instrumental samples and rap purely over narrative—perfectly illuminating the key grew up in the 40s and 50s), but until now beats; Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin’s developments of the 70s hip hop scene I’ve had to make do with Te Warriors as savvy entrepreneurial strategy that turned described in Hip Hop Evolution, with a the closest thing to a historical portrayal rap into a multi-million dollar business, dramatic spin. We’re treated to scenes like of this captivating period. Te Get Down and took hip hop center stage with acts like Grandmaster Flash sending his protégé flls an obvious void, and manages to tie LL Cool J and Te Beastie Boys. Te fnal Shaolin Fantastic, on a dangerous race multiple developments together such as episode explores the genres infltration against Te Savage Warlord street gang, to grafti artistry, disco music, breakdancing, into West Coast circles, and how the crack retrieve a rare copy of a record to sample and Ed Koch’s mayoral campaign, over six epidemic, police brutality, and rising gang (which was a huge part of gaining an edge hour-long episodes, while maintaining a warfare on the streets of LA engendered for early DJs). We see the inside of one of compelling story. the gangsta rap that came to dominate the DJ Cool Herc’s aforementioned parties 90s. (also depicted in Vinyl), in a hunt for a Time Is Illmatic Tere’s a thought-provoking scene mystery bootlegger—a key feature of the Tis was always going to be a in the short-lived and divisive HBO drama dissemination of early hip hop tracks; and winner for me. In my humblest of humble Vinyl, in which we see a presumed DJ Cool we get a glimpse of what life was like for opinions, I can say without any shadow Herc—honing his craf by spinning funk kids whose playgrounds were the burnt of a doubt that Nas’s 1994 debut album records side by side to create break loops— down tenement buildings and abandoned Illmatic is the greatest rap album of all maligned by the elders and their calls to lots around the South Bronx’s Charlotte time.