R&B, rocknroll, soul, Motown, Funk, hip hop
(un comentari al swingdic de greuges on sortia un indi de Bollywood imitant Elvis Presley, agost 2019: El que és interessant notar a partir d’aquest vídeo, és quanta música arreu del món ha volgut imitar o s’ha inspirat en música que ve del jazz. Perquè Elvis es va inspirar en el R&B (El seu èxit Hound Dog va ser tret d’un tema de Big Mama Thornton). Sense exagerar gaire, podríem dir que la major part de la música que durant els darrers 100 anys ha fet ballar i emocionar Amèrica i Europa, i bona part d’Àsia i Àfrica segueix un fil que es remunta al jazz. Perquè del jazz en va sortir el R&B dels 50. I amb la influència Gospel, va néixer el soul amb gent com Otis Redding i James Brown. R&B era el que escoltaven els Beatles i els Rollings que després van crear el Pop (els Beatles tenen una versió molt divertida del “Ain’t She Sweet” que a vegades hem ballat). Als ’70 DJs com DJ Kool Herc a les festes del Bronx, manipulant dos tocadiscos que reproduïen fragments curts de discos de soul obtenia loops que feien una base rítmica i d’acompanyament (com una versió de pobre dels riffs dels arranjaments de les big bands) i un MC anava improvisant frases (l’equivalent al solo). Neixia el Hip hop que es faria famós amb el Rappers Delight de Sugar Hill Gang. I als ’80, a Detroit, Afrika Bambaata i altra gent incorporaven la tecnologia de Kraftwerk per obtenir el fons a base de caixes de ritme com el Roland TR808 i sintetitzadors. I tenim el Techno. Pràcticament tot el que escoltem és un descendent, tant llunyà com vulgueu, del jazz. En aquest experiment han agafat una peça de Louis Armstrong, li han tret el fons i li han afegit una base de hip hop. I Armstrong sembla ben bé que estigui rapejant.
RAP
1973 DJ
On August 11, 1973 in the Bronx, New York history was about to be made. DJ Kool Herc (now known as the first DJ & founding father of hip hop) & his sister Cindy began hosting back to school parties in the recreation room of their building. It was these gatherings that would spark the beginning of a new culture we know today as Hip-Hop. One night during history of rapDJ Kool Herc’s set he tried something new he called “merry go round”. He used two turntables playing the same break beat section of the James Brown record “clap your hands”. When one turntable would finish playing the section he would switch to the other turntable and play the same section. This allowed him to extend that section of the song as long as he wanted. This technique is now referenced to as looping and is used by record producers in almost every beat.
From emcee to rapper
how-did-rap-start
Left – (Coke La Rock) Right – (DJ Kool Herc)
As DJ Kool Herc continued to do more parties he realized that speaking on the mic was just as important to keeping a party live as DJing was. In order to keep up with the demands of the crowd he reached out to his good friend Coke La Rock to be the first dedicated MC of these parties. During one of these parties Coke La Rock spit his very first bar, ” There’s not a man that can’t be thrown, not a horse that can’t be rode, a bull that can’t be stopped, there’s not a disco that I Coke La Rock can’t rock”. This one bar made Coke La Rock the very first rapper in Hip-Hop and birthed a new genre of music we know today as Rap music.
The first mainstream rap song emerges
Within the next few years DJ’s & Rappers was popping up at every block party to showcase their talent but record companies considered rap music a fad & was not compelled to invest into it. Rap music finally reached mainstream recognition in 1979. The first rap song to get commercially released was “King Tim III (Personality Jock)” by the Fatback Band. However this song was pushed to the b-side of the tape but after getting a huge response from the clubs it was later released on the a-side and became a top 30 hit on r&b charts.
In the winter of that same year a rap group emerged called Sugar Hill Gang suger-hill-gang-rappers-delightcomprised of Englewood, New Jersey natives Michael “Wonder Mike” Wright, Henry “Big Bank Hank” Jackson, and Guy “Master Gee” O’Brien. They released a rap song titled “Rappers Delight“. This song was over 14 minutes long and used the “Good Times by Chic” sample in the background. Rappers Delight went on to achieve the top 40 billboard spot in 1980.
https://medium.com/12edit/afrikaa-bambaataa-kraftwerk-planet-rock-879769d440f4
Afrika Bambaataa, who, together with Arthur Baker, a DJ from Boston, created an electrofunk which was similar to techno, was into the same things as Atkins. Bam: “This is [Kraftwerk] the music for the future and for space travels — along with the funk of what was happening with James Brown and Sly Stone and George Clinton. Of course, I was listening to a lot of Yellow Magic Orchestra and Gary Numan, as well as Dick Hyman’s Moog sound, and music from John Carpenter’s Halloween. When you put all that together, then you get electrofunk, which is what we were doing.”
In 1981, the label owner Tommy Boy introduced Baker to Bambaataa who then was a musician and a DJ, leader of the Zulu Nation group, who took away talented boys from the hands of the street and taught them scratching, breakdance, graffiti and rapping — everything that would later become hip-hop. The heavyset Bam enjoyed the glory of the first guy in the Bronx River: he wore fashionable clothes and futuristic cyclops glasses, and on stage he transformed into the father of the hip-hop nation in Samurai armour of the 18th century. Hip-hop then was slow rhyming with slow funk breaks. Bambaataa and Baker dreamt of enriching the sound, and both wanted to engage Kraftwerk into it while remaining in the history. Bam: “I don’t think they even knew how big they were among the black masses back in ’77 when they came out with Trans-Europe Express. When that came out, I thought that was one of the best and weirdest records I ever heard in my life.”
According to one legend, Arthur Baker figured out what the next single should be while having lunch on the terrace or in the park. Trans-Europe Express, even four years later was all around buildings, constantly played in this area. At the same time, Baker went to a music shop for something new — his friends who worked there pointed to the Numbers single, for some reason released only in North America; the yellow 45’ with a throbbing rhythm sold in the Bronx like hotcakes. The musicians were severely limited in time and money: without a decent sampler or drum machine. Baker found an announcement in a newspaper: “TR-808 to rent, Joe.” They gave a twenty to Joe, played Numbers and tried to imitate the rhythm pattern. The tune from Express was played from start to finish by a keyboardist they knew. Baker realised that he could get a lawsuit from Dusseldorf and even asked to write an extra tune instead of the German one, but the owner of the label, after hearing the draft, dispelled doubts: “Oh just use the Kraftwerk melody on it.” Almost all the authors of the greatest hits later acknowledged that they didn’t believe in success, didn’t think about the future of their records; they didn’t hope for anything. Baker claims that he foresaw the future of the single during the first session: “Sweetheart, we’ve just made musical history”. With these words he brought the Planet Rock single home.