Brain Rot: Hip Hop Family Tree, The Nightclub Circuit, and the Funky 4 MC's

Read the rest of the Hip Hop Family Tree comics!

• [terry childers]

  fresh. as always. i really look forward to these comics.

• [noah django]

  “… At the Fever!”
  I always heard Sugar Hill were biters, but taping others’ live performances?  Big Bank, I am dissapoint.

• [Ed Piskor]

  There’s a great music video by Just-Ice from the mid/late 80′s describing this period of time and he drops the names of a handful of people we’ve covered in the comic so far…plus more to come.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBjrMNER9gQ

  • [noah django]

     just now getting to this.  never saw that video, but naturally I have the 12″ in the crates [well, actually, my copy is on one of those bootleg whitelabel things, but still.]  Just Ice is so dope, and he had the fresh Sleeping Bag Records varsity jacket, the order form of which is inside the sleeve of my Mantronix LP, oh how I wish I could still send the money in for that.  Red Alert sighted at about 1:00.  I saw him wandering home one evening a few years back, I was washing the windows outside my job in the same building here in ATL that he does his afternoon mix in.  I said something like “Oh, hello sir, it’s nice to finally meet you,” and I was in my work clothes.  He distractedly waved and smiled slightly, but kept it moving lol.  He’s looking more like Grey Alert, these days.

    Peace, NISE.

• [BeaverBeaver]

  Because of these I started reading/watching some more on the topic

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhrSlOa2bsA&feature=related

  skip to about a minute. Super interesting. They talk about Big Bank in part 2 I think.

  • [noah django]

     whoa whoa whoa, stop the presses.  at about 7:25 Herc says he mixed in “Baby Huey’s ‘The Mexican’.”  that’s a pretty glaring error.  Baby Huey was dope, but it was Babe Ruth did The Mexican (later covered by Jellybean.)  I hesitate to say “Herc, I am dissapoint,” but jeez. 

• [Ed Piskor]

  While we’re at it, here’s a great example of DJ Hollywood’s, call-and-response, disco rap. A great time capsule. He created the style of extending the final syllable at the end of sentences, which was copied endlessly in the early days. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqLL9Tw2i6c

• [James Eichelberger]

  This is a comprehensive history, and y’all be historians

• [Incipient Madness]

  Went to HS in the early eighties and while I know many of the artists, it’s great to have the full history. The kids bused in from a local Freedman’s Town were all into this and played this classic hip hop on their boom boxes in the cafeteria lobby. We had some black cowboys from the western edge of the county who would kick the heels of their boots on the unused concession stand to hype the beats.

  But soon rap became the preferred music of white jocks and I lost interest. Got into punk and metal and positioned myself firmly in the nerd /stoner alliance. I think that may have been a mistake. Some of the people who founded Ra[p-a-Lot  Records went to my HS, and their early office was in the building where my mom worked, just a couple miles from my HS. They did get most of their talent from 5th and 3rd wards fro that official inner city sound that was the precursor to the whole “Dirty South” movement. It also provided the soundtrack to Office  Space .

  I love this series. Fills me in on the history I might have been able to know back shortly after the day.

• [Ed Piskor]

  Whoa! Late night trolling, I found a real life picture of the Mighty Sasquatch! My fabricated version is way weaker, but, this photo isn’t, at all, how it was explained originally and the Brother’s Disco DID continue to build things up. This could be a later version.  I’ll ask.

  • [phuzz]

     I guess it’s the same with all sorts of things, but that’s pretty puny compared to some of the soundsystems I’ve seen around my town (bristol in the UK).
    One of my mates has a tiny apartment, with one whole wall taken up with a system about that size, which for the winter at least, is just his personal hifi.
    Fortunately it’s a detached building, so there’s no neighbours right next door :)

    • [noah django]

       word, I’d read that the drum and bass crews really kept up with sound system culture, since even many club systems couldn’t match the frequency ranges of the recordings, particularly the lows.  respect to Bristol.  once hip-hop moved into the clubs, the crew sounds evaporated over here; but, our car culture being what it is, the mobile stereo culture blossomed.

      • [the_proph]

        http://vlvmusic.com/images/aboutimage.png

        http://vlvmusic.com/index.php/sound-system/about-sound-system
        I mean, of course things have progressed over the last–holy shit–thirty years. 

        • [noah django]

          fuuuuuuck yessssss!  respek to Dillinja and Lemon D!  pic is my Dillinja plates

• [Hugh Stimson]

  In which I discover I really like this series even when I’m sober.