rap music - where were you when it started?
 

the compton thread made me think about Rap.

It was 1986 - Rap was starting to make an impression with Run D.M.C. and "Walk this Way" - I'm hearing snippets of it from far away cities/states like Canada - in Montana you couldn't hear Walk This Way unless you wanted to hear the Aerosmith version, which got a LOT of airplay -

so I hear Rumors by the Timex Social Club, and Friends by Whoduni, and find both on a tape called "Rap's Greatest Hits, Vol II" - a compilation put out by Priority records and sold at the local Woolworth's in MT

I was just listening to a lot of hippie music, but somehow some of the tunes on that album were more melodic and more interesting - Old School Rap is like Johnny Cash - you respect the pioneers and it wasn't nearly as Gangsta back then. I remember the Fat Boys - Run DMC had "King of Rock" on there which is a kickass song -

And somewhere in white bread Montana I said to myself "gee, it might be cool to play in a rap band someday"

A rap band - I could not be more redneck if I tried -

wish I still had the tape tho. Introduced me to a world I would little care about but it's stars (like Wyclef Jean) still stay in rotation once in a while on the mp3 player.

bought the Kayne West albums - maybe I'll listen to them someday too.

woolworths - man - a rap cassette in woolworths. That is where the magic begins

RB

Re: rap music - where were you when it started?
 

Nowadays rap artists coming half-hearted
Commercial like pop, or underground like black markets
[so more importantly]
Where were you the day hip-hop died?

I didn't exist when hip hop started and I didn't appreciate it until it was already dead.

(edited for factuality)

Re: rap music - where were you when it started?
 

if it died, the zombies are out in full force -

I would argue that no genre is inheriantly dead - they go in and out and purists bring them back -

RB

Re: rap music - where were you when it started?
 

Nowhere in your post did you mention where you were when "rap started." Location plz.

Re: rap music - where were you when it started?
 

apparently Woolworths in NW Montana.

RB

Re: rap music - where were you when it started?
 

Rap music started for me in fifth grade. My elementary school was involven in a program which taught dance to kids. The head of the program was a well known dancer/choreographer, Jacques D'Amboise. Of course, he spent all of his time with the inner city kids who really were the focus of the program and he shipped his assistant out to deal with the white kids in the suburbs. Anyway, one of the songs we used was Rapper's Delight. This was in 1982.

Location - elementary school gym, Searingtown, NY (Long Island)

Re: rap music - where were you when it started?
 

'Is it too early to mourn? Is it too late to ride?'

For myself, it was in elementary school in northern Minnesota listening to my MC Hammer, Kris Kross, and Arrested Development tapes. I really got into it around 8th grade with Bone Thugs n Harmony's 'Crossroads.'(The first rap cd I ever bought, though I almost took it back because there was so much cussing, I guess I didn't want it warping my fragile little mind, lol)

Re: rap music - where were you when it started?
 

Sleepover in the gym to end 5th grade. A kid had a tape of RUN DMC's Raising Hell. I thought it was amazing. Hooked since then.

In college I wavered a bit, as all my friends were in punk bands my freshman year. Then I met a kid in my dorm, super nice guy, a black/japanese kid who dealt acid. He got me hooked on Wu-Tang and whatever love for hip-hip I had came rushing back.

Re: rap music - where were you when it started?
 

I remember the first time I became aware of rap. There was a new black kid in my elementary school. I saw him walking down the hall "beat boxing" and asked the kid next to me why he was spitting in his hand.

Re: rap music - where were you when it started?
 

The first rap artist/act I remember is the Fat Boys when I was probably 7 or 8 ('88 or '89). Then there was the big NWA/2 Live Crew controversy so that's the first time I really had exposure to it. I think I heard a 2 Live Crew song on the radio over at a friend's house and I was SHOCKED AND APPALLED.

Re: rap music - where were you when it started?
 

sometime in the summer of 80, a friend of mine came back to hawaii from vacation in nyc with a tape of rappers delight

Re: rap music - where were you when it started?
 

I think I was in China when rap started.

Re: rap music - where were you when it started?
 

I'd also like to know where you all were when hip hop started?

LOL at the guy who quoted the song lyrics about hip hop dying and tried to get very dramatic about it.

Re: rap music - where were you when it started?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I'd also like to know where you all were when hip hop started?

LOL at the guy who quoted the song lyrics about hip hop dying and tried to get very dramatic about it.

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL

Re: rap music - where were you when it started?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I'd also like to know where you all were when hip hop started?

LOL at the guy who quoted the song lyrics about hip hop dying and tried to get very dramatic about it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think rap started before I did.

The first time I remember liking a rap song was when Vanilla Ice was in Ninja Turtles 2.

NT

Re: rap music - where were you when it started?
 

I remember hearing Rapper's Delight back in about '80 too. And a few other really early rap songs - I grew up in NYC - it's possible I heard some stuff before Rapper's Delight, but unlikely.

I got really into it in the mid-80's in college: my roommate was a "New Yorican" from the South Bronx and he'd bring a new mix tape back from the ghetto after every vacation. So we'd all get into all the "freshest jams." Plus, of course, there was the first Run DMC album (I'm DMC in the place to be / I went to St. John's University...), the first Beastie Boys album, and some other gems like Eric B. and Rakim, LL Cool J's early stuff, Doug E. Fresh....

In the 90's I ended up working for Death Row Records. Now I don't get into rap as much any more; it's probably partly me, and probably partly the music, but rap just isn't as fun as it used to be (with a few notable exceptions).

Re: rap music - where were you when it started?
 

Wow, awesome. You should start a new thread and tell us some stories about working at Death Row.

Re: rap music - where were you when it started?
 

Suge has to be one of the worst people you could ever work for

Re: rap music - where were you when it started?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Suge has to be one of the worst people you could ever work for

[/ QUOTE ]

That is the absolute truth, and not coincidentally the reason I don't want to tell stories that might let on who I am. That guy is not cool; it isn't hype with him.

Cliff notes of my Death Row life: I moved up the ranks rapidly because many people got scared and quit, I worked occasionally with the big names (Snoop and Dre), worked a lot with lesser-knowns, did bong hits with Kurupt and Daz of Tha Dogg Pound (nice guys, called me "good people"), made a lot of money, saw some crazy [censored], eventually got scared myself and quit.

Re: rap music - where were you when it started?
 

ptmusic,

Wow, I really wish you could post more about it, but I understand wanting to stay anonymous. Sounds like you have some good stories though.

Re: rap music - where were you when it started?
 

I had listened to some rap before, but I was at a skatepark and got the Wu Tang demo tape from before 36 Chambers and I listened to it about 30 million times.

I'd pay like a thousand dollars to find that tape. I tore my entire room up a few years ago with no luck

Re: rap music - where were you when it started?
 

First exposure to rap was in the sixth grade. I remeber the bigest black kid in the school was in my class. His name was Kenney and he had a big fro'. Anyway, one day in class he pulled out these 12" records from his bookbag. I remember seeing the Fat Boys album and whodini. I went home and asked my mom to buy these for me for christmas. I got both on cassette and listened to them over and over. I actually remember going to the music stores and seeing the rap section with like 6 groups it literally took up about 2' of shelf space. Started breakdancing shortly after and really getting into the whole scene. Still appreciate good lyricists to this day. In high school I worked and would take my money and buy silver chains (cheaper than gold) and British Knights tennis shoes. I even had a matching BK suit. Me and my friend would take a double cassete player and stay up all night making beats and writing lyrics to put on them. It would take hours to get a cool 5 minute beat. Those were the days.

Re: rap music - where were you when it started?
 

The Thumbless Attempted Burglary Victim was in the basic environs when I first gave hip-hop the barest openminded listen. My then roommate was a large, deceptively intelligent quiet black guy who provided the invaluable and unenviable service to our middle-class white friends of at least pretending to care about their opinions vis-a-vis hip-hop. Somewhere along the way of my screeching "pissing on its grave" to Talib Kweli's not-so-haunting rhetorical question, and getting the enjoyable bass-baritone bellowed reply of "around the corner kicking punks ass" I realized that "rap" didn't belong with "Country-music" as the only exceptions to the "Everything" I claimed to like. Turns out "Country" has some awesome sounds too and "Everything" mostly sucks.

In a straight response to the question, probably a cassete of "Bigger and Deffer" found with a few other cassetes on the edge of a basketball court in upstate New York. The owner clearly had "eclectic" taste in music since the bag also contained a Judas Priest "Turbo" cassete.

Not long after I got a copy of "Feel My Power," which was promptly stolen. I can only describe that event as an act of Providence, and for the next decade I maintained a staunch and unapologetic hatred of "rap."

Those were good years.

Re: rap music - where were you when it started?
 

[ QUOTE ]
did bong hits with Kurupt and Daz of Tha Dogg Pound (nice guys, called me "good people")

[/ QUOTE ] doesn't surprise me, those dudes always seemed real cool.

Re: rap music - where were you when it started?
 

My neighbor growing up was an old man. He couldn't get around too well and used to hire guys to help him work in the yard. I don't remember how old I was, but I was at his house one day talking to one of the guys he had hired. He was a young black guy. I asked him what kind of music he listened to, and he pulled a cassette tape out of his pocket. It was MC Hammer. I looked at it for a second and said, "McHammer?"

Re: rap music - where were you when it started?
 

Old timers... lol

Eminem was the first rap artist I started to like and listen to, then it went from there and now I [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] Rap

Re: rap music - where were you when it started?
 

[ QUOTE ]
doesn't surprise me, those dudes always seemed real cool.

[/ QUOTE ]

lolol

Re: rap music - where were you when it started?
 

Rap started for me when a friend let me borrow 2 dubbed tapes of some new group called Cypress Hill and NWA "Niggaz4life." I think the first tape I ever purchased was Black Sheep "A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing."