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Tuesday, January 27, 2009

History Alan Lee Keyes's History of Hiphop

Posted by on Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 11:46 AM

This is the starting point.


What makes "Sucker M.C.'s" central to hiphop is what makes "No UFO's" central to techno. Each represents for its form a total breaking point and the distinction, and stabilization, of that form. What separates "The Breaks" or "Rapper's Delight" from "Sucker M.C.'s" is that the former have not broken with disco. Similarly what separates "No UFO's" from "Clear" is the former broke with electrofunk, which was the transitional form for both hiphop and techno. The electrofunk of Newcleus was the same as the electrofunk of Cybotron, yet Newcleus leads directly to Run DMC and Cybotron leads to Model 500 and Rhythm is Rhythm.

And so with "Sucker M.C.'s" we finally have a hiphop that is emptied of all disco. It also establishes minimalism as the hiphop standard and point of departure—a similar minimalism shapes techno. (Indeed, it is precisely this minimalism that facilitated techno's break from Chicago house, the very form it used to break from electrofunk—house, of course, continues disco.) The standard in hiphop is to strip the beat "down to the bone" and use only a basic melody or to suggest melodies. That is the stating point: "Sucker M.C.'s."

 

Comments (4) RSS

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1
jam master jay is my cousin, and even i am bored by this. hey, did you hear that hiphop started in the bronx?
Posted by lar on January 27, 2009 at 3:05 PM
2
larry, you can do better than that.
Posted by mudede on January 27, 2009 at 4:36 PM
3
larry, you can do better than that.
Posted by mudede on January 27, 2009 at 4:37 PM
4
What is the point in blowing even more steam up these mythological asses? So we can see how things are 'supposed to be' rather than how they actually are?

Posted by run dmc revival on January 27, 2009 at 4:42 PM

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