Great Debate: 7 Times ‘Hip-Hop’ Was Used in Print Before Historians Say

"It was perhaps that casual use in “Rapper’s Delight” that lead some to surmise that the meaning of the term hip-hop wasn’t clearly understood by party-goers in the Bronx or that it hadn’t been meaningfully defined until Manhattan took an interest. But this looks to have been a mistake on the part of regional and/or cultural outsiders."

To read my latest piece celebrating 50 Years of Hip-Hop, zip on over to my Medium page by clicking here. 

Wild Style Revisited: My graffiti art records covers joint deserved better, so...

Credit: Animal Records

After some seven years (or so) of an older piece that I wasn't totally satisfied with just eating at me, I finally gave the work the 'level up' it deserved. 

The original version of this record cover art listicle (2016) was one of my earliest attempts at exploring the then new direction of online content creation: listicles. 

And I had a lot to learn. 

This promptly became apparent when I started writing for MoviePilot (and then CBR), which taught me the fine art of listicle making and gave my online writing the creative boost that I was looking for. 

So...without any further delay or ado, the revised, remixed, and remastered version of an older blog post that ya didn't know ya needed. 

Enjoy. (Click here)

[Press-N-Play™] Steady B - Serious Remix, 1988

Digable Planets - Rebirth Of Slick (Cool Like Dat)

The Size Of A Tiny Crater On The Moon [Hotlinked™]

Phase 2 photographed by MikaV

On December 13, 2019, I would read in the news that my hero, Phase 2 (born Michael Lawrence Marrow), had died from the quiet battle he was having with Lou Gehrig’s Disease. He was 64. 

The news left me drained. So much so that I couldn’t even write about his death. What should I say? For more than a month, my blog was silent on his passing. But then it dawned on me–finally–that everything I’d want to say was already covered in my unpublished interview questions. So I publish them here now, in fond memory of Phase 2.

[Press-N-Play®] DJibril vs Willis | I Love This Dance All Star Kids 2019 | La Cigale, Paris, France

#ILoveThisDance #AllStarKids2019

16 Times Comic Book Artists Absolutely Rocked Hip-Hop Album Cover Art [Hot Linked]

Image Credit: Def Jam, Marvel Comics

"Exhaustively curated here for your viewing pleasure is a senses-shattering listicle showing 16 times comic book artists rocked hip-hop music cover art."

[Press-N-Play®] Bun B & Statik Selektah - Basquiat (Feat. Fat Joe & Smoke DZA)

Shout out to the homie DJ Darrell D for hookin' your boy up with this jazzy-fat-nasty new track from Bun B & Statik Selektah. 

This one's called "Basquiat," y'all, featurin' Fat Joe & Smoke DZA. Since I clicked on the link D sent me (posted above), this joint has been in heavy rotation. Truly dope...on so many levels.

Horn Players by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Collection of the Broad Art Foundation

[Press-N-Play™] MF Doom ft. Kurious - Questions ('Operation Doomsday, 1999)

[Press-N-Play™ Classic] LL Cool J - Big Ole Butt (Walking With A Panther, 1989)

[Press-N-Play™] Ghostface Killah - Winter Warz

DJ Darrell D's 'stylish' Crotona Park Jams recaps

The legendary Ken Swift (Rock Steady Crew) and DJ Darrell D

 

The homie DJ Darrell D made his annual pilgrimage to the Crotona Park Jams in NY, and once again rubbed shoulders with many of the old school legends and luminaries of hip-hop. But he did it while also rocking a couple of t-shirts made by yours truly, including the "Brown" mash-up pictured above. While many of the fellas at the jam were silently 'checking his fresh', he reports that an unexpected number of compliments actually came from the ladies. And when the godfather of hip-hop Kool DJ Herc saw the JB tribute, he loudly shouted out, "That's my man (JB)!" four or five times. Pret-ty dope, right? 

Anyway, to see who else Darrell D (and the Brown shirt) rubbed shoulders with, check out his killer recap of the 2016 Crotona Jams by clicking here (for part 1) and here (for part 2).

[Destroy All Headphones™] Pharoahe Monch & Professor XXL - Big G's Revenge

I wanted badly to have the instrumental track of Pharoahe Monch's "Simon Says" featured in a playlist that I've put together for an upcoming project. As monstrous as the vocal version of this rap track is, the instrumental–much to my surprise–was somewhat on the...repetitive side. If I was gonna use it, the track was gonna need some variations in its sound. So, I imported the track into Garage Band™, grabbed all of my Godzilla and related Toho film soundtracks, and worked a wee bit of magic; my first proper remix, made especially for hip-hop and kaiju film soundtrack lovers like me (and you).

[Press-N-Play®] Ice Box Baby – HUTOCCHO MAMA

Judging the CD by its old school influenced cover, the last thing a listener might ever expect to hear mixed into this 10-track album of retro and internationally seasoned pop music from Ice Box Baby (a mid-1990s here-today-and-gone-the-day-after J-Pop group) is a head bobbin' hip-hop track. But the listener's ears are tossed a dizzying curve ball with "Hutoccho Mama," track five on the group's immensely enjoyable 二人の夏曜日(1995). Paying homage to uptempo rap jams like JJ Fad's "Supersonic" and Salt-N-Pepa's "Push It," "Hutoccho Mama" features Ice Box Baby kickin' the back and forth rhyme ballistics over a booming 808 bass line, and doing it like true school queens of rap. Yours truly has absolutely no idea how much play "Hutoccho Mama" got when it was released as a single back in the day, but he hopes that it somehow saw its fair share of pretend 'hootchie mamas' up in the club, moving their lil' rump shakers on the dance floor, and rapping right along with every well placed word.

[Press-N-Play®] Fu-Shnickens – Movie Scene

"My chopstick will drop kick, my chow mein's plain,  I do the tiger, the snake, the Big Daddy Crane!!"– Poc Fu, 'Movie Scene'

[Archives] Vapors All-City Magazine – Tokyo Issue, Dec-Jan 2003

Features: Ipath Japan//DGK SF-Tokyo//Lui Araraki//Street artist Naomi//Def Jam Japan//Large Professor

Hip Hop Family Tree Three-In-One

Hip Hop Family Tree Three-In-One: Featuring Cosplayers. May 2015, FIRST PRINTING. Art & stories by Ed Piskor. "Cosplayers" art & story by Dash Shaw. • Featured on the front are: Ice-T & Darlene, Ice Cube, DJ Yella, Dr. Dre, MC Ren & Eazy E (NWA), Snoop Dogg, Humpty Hump, Salt-N-Pepa, Eric B. & Rakim, MC Hammer, Notorious BIG, Slick Rick, Adrock, Mike D, Adam Yauch (Beastie Boys), Run, DMC, Jam Master Jay (RUN-DMC), Russell Simmons, LL Cool J, Kool Moe Dee, KRS-One (Boogie Down Productions), and Tupac Shakur • Shout outs to DJ Darrell D for the hook up!

Queens & kings of rap, magazine pin-ups

"Headhuntaz"

Classic curry goat-flavored illustration by Mode 2. The Source Magazine Issue 53, February 1994.

[Destroy All Headphones®] MeccaGodZilla – ERROARS 2.2: Metal Sakura

 

MeccaGodZilla's ERROARS 2.2: Metal Sakura is eighteen tracks of neck snappin', boom-bappin' G-funk. And I don't mean "G" as in "gansta", kiddies. I mean "G" as in... "Gojira". Or maybe it might be much more accurately described as eighteen tracks of E-funk, as in "electronic" and "experimental". Or how about eighteen tracks of I-funk? As in "instrumental" and "intergalactic", or...

Yeah, it's just that difficult to categorize this joint. And this is because ERROARS 2.2: Metal Sakura is all of those things and more. But it should also be mentioned now that the album is also quite good. (Which, by the way, is another adjective that begins with the letter "G".)

If your ears are tuned in to the next level-ish frequencies of music makers like Flying Lotus, DJ Spooky, MeLo-X, and others, then do yourself a big, fat favor and check out MeccaGodZilla's ERROARS 2.2: Metal Sakura. [Sample: "ISA AMBER", "Raye 6.4" and "3rd Ai"]