48 - North Shore News -— Friday, November 26, 1999
THE HISTORY OF HIP HOP ACCORDING TO RAHZEL

“Rap’s forebvars stretchy back thrauals disco, street fioik, radio dys, Bo
Diddley. the be-bup sinuers, Cab Calloway, Pianueat Markham, the
tap dancers and comics, the Last Poets, Gil Scott-Heron, Mabamimad
Ali, acapelia and doo wep avoups, ring qaines, skip rope rhynies, prison
and arnty songs, toasts, stanifinig aud the desens, all te way back tw

the griats of}

ria and Gantta.” — David Toop The Rap Attack:

African Jive to New York Hip Hop, Plate Press 198-4.

@ Rahzel and Choclair at
Richards on Richards,
Monday, Nov. 29.

John Goodman

This Weck Editor
jolag@nsnews.cem

IN the mid-seventies as
punk was starting to
rejuvenate rock, hip
hop was doing the same
thing fer black popular
music.

We can give you a location
— the South Bronx. We can
even give you a name — Kool
Herc. Of course this simplities
the process but we have to
start somewhere.

In the summer of 1975
the Incredible Bongo Band's
“Apache” vibe could be heard
all over the Bronx. On the
surface this would seem
strange as American blacks
had no time for Jamaican
music.

When Bob Marley toured
North America during this
period he added Miami R&B
star Betty Wright to the bill.
She opened all the shows for
his week-long stand in
Harlem and was also in
Vancouver for the show at the
PNE Coliscum.

“Apache” broke through
the cultural sound barrier
thanks to DJ Kool Here who

- moved to New York in che
late sixties.

As Dick Hebdige tells us
in Cut ’n Mix: Culture,
Identity andi Caribbean Music
{London: Comedia 1987)

_Kool Here had the loudest,
most powerful sound system
in the Bronx. He was the first
hip-hop DJ and developed
many of the techniques that
are used today. On the micro-
phone he would keep things

“ moving saying things like

. “This is the joint.”

Koo! Herc invented the
breakbeat style with his head-
phonc/turntables setup and
introduced MCs to talk over
his dance music just as they
did in Jamaica. Another DJ,
Theodor, started the scratch-
ing technique at this time.
And a third Bronx DJ,
Grandmaster Flash (Joseph
Sadler), was hooking up his
system to street lights to play
at night in local parks.

Flash’s parents were from
Barbades and his dad had a
huge record collection “I
used to get into trouble for
touching his records, but P’'d
go right back and bother
them,” he told Stephen
Harvev fora profile ia the
New York Rocker in 1982.

Grandmaster Flash devel-

oped punch phasing as a tran:
sition technique between
records. And together with
his MC crew, the Furious
Fise, they hooked up with the
Sugar Hill label to get their
sound constructions heard
outside the Bronx. While cas-
settes were available on the
street, the vear 1979 saw the
release of two rap singles —-
“King Tin TH by Brooklyn's
Fatback and “Rapper's
Delight™ by the Supachiff
Gang. The latter record
became an international hit
and established Sugar Hill as
fe kon with.

hip hop history,
or so they say with hundreds
of artists and billions Gf dol-
tars involved in the produe-
tion of the genre.

Mondav night
the’ Godfather of Nov
Rahzel will be in town
Richards on Richards on a
double bill with Toronto's
Cheelair. Rahzel, from the
South Brony, is a meniber of
one of hip hop’s premier
crews The Roots. He alse has
branched out and released 3
solo CD The Fifth Element:
Make the Music 2000,

Even theagh he is on tour
alone he is still a member of
The Roots. “1 don’t think
there is a conflict,” says
Rahzel. “There are a lot of
things coming ouc under the
Roots umbrella, Crush Love
is the drummer for D’Angelo

See Saturated Page 38

An Initiative Sponsoted. in part,
by the Province of dritish Columbia.

Photo Jonathan téanion
HUMAN Beat box Rahzeil returns te Vancouver Monday, Nov. 29 for a show at

Richards on Richards with Chociair.

‘Put an end to this age-old question. When you come in to White Spot
y and order any BC chicken or egg dish, you could win one of hundreds
of prizes including one of the following Grand Prizes!

- $10,000 CASH

® An Executive Suite in GM place for one night where
you and 10 friends can watch a Canucks game
° A ski weekend getaway to Whistler Blackcomb Mountain.

Visit your nearest White Spot Restaurant to enter.

cmt

HIP HOP SPECIAL

Niachine
rage on

G wxe« Rage Against
the Machine — The Battie
of Los Angeles (Epic
69630).

‘Topping the charts Rage
Against the Machine's latest
release The Battle of Los
Angeles has 12 new tracks
produced by the band with
Brendan O'Brien. A melange
of hip hop and hard rock, a lit-
de more focussed and lavered
than their previous releases.

The dint song “Testify” is
abrasive and explosive, a
mournful chant of war and
genocide. Throughout the
dise Tima C and Brad Wilk
are the poundiig force.

Whar sets che Machine
apart from scores of others i
the indasery is theie ability co

See Hip hop nation Page 38