It goes like this…
Carefully curated trawl of lesserspotted cuts from the first wave of hip-hop 45s. By Andy Cowan.
★★★★
Yo! Boombox: Early Independent Hip Hop, Electro And Disco Rap 1979-83
SOUL JAZZ. CD/DL/LP
THE HIP-HOP floodgates truly opened after Rapper’s Delight. The untamed rhyming bliss of Sugarhill Gang’s 15-minute anthem democratised a genre already over half a decade old, but with no cultural imprint beyond the South Bronx block parties that spawned it. As a string of indie labels spr ung up in Harlem, the majors were the only conspicuous party poopers, dismissing hip-hop as the next fly-by-night black craze. As wrong as they were, their disinterest provided a fertile proving ground.
Just as Sugarhill’s Sylvia Robinson employed musicians to replay a break from Chic’s Good Times to let her MCs loose, the surge of goodtimes jams that followed fast in its wake invariably built upon a popular disco break (see Just Four’s infectious recreation of Tom Tom Club’s Genius Of Love or Chapter III’s crowd-moving flip of Cher yl Lynn’s To Be Real). Yet while Soul Jazz’s trio of previous Boombox compilations centred squarely on New York, Yo! casts it net further afield, dredging rare early rap treasure from unlikely quarters.
To the command of “Okay Mr. Harris, hit it!”, the tag-team raps of Chicago’s Carver Area High School’s Get Live ’83 bristle with fun and enthusiasm, kicking unlikely props to their schoolteachers. The P-funk horns accompanying city mate Eye Beta Rock’s old-school dramatics or the engaging baritone of Tri-state rapper Mike T’s slap-bass fest are similarly enlivening, while Californian Magic Trick’s rare private press is a pure slice of early hip-hop B-side gold (unlike its A-Side’s misfiring homage to US marines).
Products of a time when the DJs held sway over MCs, these almost exclusively partyoriented entreaties flow with little reason but plenty of rhyme (see Sinister 2’s bizarre claim to “make all the fly guys start to fart”), their sheer brio compensating for a relative lack of sophistication. While a couple of bandwagon jumpers make up the numbers here – Sangria’s cheesy synth jam, Silver Star’s fanciful nursery rhymes – they help illuminate the wider context.
Tellingly, the strongest cuts come from two Bronx originators. Funky Four Plus One More’s Rappin’ And Rocking The House ranks among the smoothest early rap singles, lit up by female MC Sha-Rock’s cool control. Elsewhere, the superlative interplay of Kidd Creole, Raheem, Cowboy, Melle Mel and Mr Ness on Super Rappin’ No. 2 makes up for Grandmaster Flash not appearing on his own single – the true original’s scratching/mixing innovations eventually surfacing on 1981’s The Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel. Add Sophie Bramly’s (from her excellent Soul Jazz book) intimate photographic portraits and this good-time treasure trove becomes essential.