• This topic has 40 replies, 25 voices, and was last updated 8 years ago by DezB.
Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 41 total)
  • 80's Hip Hop
  • fervouredimage
    Free Member

    Feeling a bit nostalgic at the moment and watched Wild Style and Style Wars last night which has sparked my interest in Hip Hop from the 80’s. I only have a vague recollection of it from the time as I was just a bit too young to appreciate it.

    So, could some afficionados point me in the right direction in rediscovering 80’s Hip Hop. Don’t really know where to start.

    dannybgoode
    Full Member

    Breaking Atoms, Slick Rick, Tone Loc, Steinski

    kayla1
    Free Member

    Run DMC, Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, NWA and have a watch of ‘Fear of a Black Hat’ if you can find it.

    Fresh Goods Friday 696: The Middling Edition

    Fresh Goods Friday 696: The Middlin...
    Latest Singletrack Videos
    ninfan
    Free Member

    History of Hip Hop w/ The Rub

    Start at 1979 and away you go…

    rene59
    Free Member
    oldejeans
    Free Member
    binners
    Full Member

    Well worth reading this

    If you can track down the CD too, then it’s got some quality tunes – not the obvious ones – selections and commentary by Cool Herc

    bikebouy
    Free Member

    If you ain’t into a lot of searching these series of compilations are a good place to start..

    DiscJockey
    Free Member

    If you’re interested in hearing the original stuff from the pioneers of that music scene, then you need to read a book called ‘Rap Attack’ written by David Toop.

    There were quite a few good records made in the late 70’s, a good 10 years before all the gangsta rap rubbish.

    You might find that some of the early stuff from the early eighties is more like electro, but that’s what was being listened to at the time, especially early break-dance parties (avoid any films made about this !).

    Obviously this will be an opinionated subject, but I consider the best early ‘hip-hop’ record to be ‘The Message’ by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. It’s also worth hearing, also from 1982, ‘Planet Rock’ by the Soulsonic Force.

    tenfoot
    Full Member

    See if you can get access to the Streetsounds Electro albums.

    There was a lot of electro on there, as the name suggests, but there was plenty of hip-hop – Run DMC, Roxanne Shante, Bambaataa, UTFO.

    Some classic electro on there too such as West Street Mob, Newcleus, Herbie Hancock, Davy DMX, Arthur Baker (Breakers Revenge)…………………happy days

    binners
    Full Member

    Check out some decent british stuff too, including some Nu skool funk

    [video]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IgCKPiCWRdg[/video]

    We rock Hard is a superb album with the subwoofer up to eleven! 🙂

    [video]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1F2HGNYIYUc[/video]

    adamhicks
    Free Member

    This, its epic: (Krafty Kuts, Golden Era Hip Hop Mix)

    porlus
    Free Member

    Was going to mention the electro compilation records. Had a few on vinyl and tape when I was a kid. If you go on YouTube someone has made them all available for streaming. Good for a nostalgic couple of hours.

    binners
    Full Member

    Still got all my Electro’s and Street Sounds album on vinyl.

    I first watched Style Wars when I was about 15 and it was an absolute epiphany. This led to a lot of my pieces on the bridges and subways of the North west, some very unhappy parents when I was inevitably arrested for criminal damage, when going back to finish off the final outline on a 20ft wall to wall, I’d spent 2 whole nights on. Did plenty for my credibility at school though 🙂 And it’s also the main reason I ended up as a designer and illustrator. I honed my style with a dust mask on and a spray can in my hand. Ended up with a career out of it, so worth the record I suppose 🙂

    This bloke was my hero….

    An absolute legend!!!

    [video]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6Wdbdb1IKD4[/video]

    I still do the odd bit of wild style for the kids 😀

    teadrinker
    Free Member

    Bookmarking for later

    Euro
    Free Member

    See if you can get access to the Streetsounds Electro albums.

    Wish i still had mine. Mostly good stuff on them. Stupidly gave all my vinyl to a friend who was into mixing :oops:.

    Very early DMC mix records are brilliant (probably impossible to get mind you).

    No mention of Mantronix???

    yunki
    Free Member

    Heh!.. Never had you pinned as an old head binners!

    I also had the electro albums, along with a heavy dose of funk as my soundtrack to graffiti nights and days spent breakdancing on a square of lino in the city’s high street.. Graffiti and dancing were my thing, and I was always lucky enough to be surrounded by top notch DJs so my musical knowledge is shamefully lacking..
    My graffiti apprenticeship was cut short when many of our crew were swept up in the infamous Operation Anderson of 1989 where kids mums houses got their doors kicked down in dawn raids, unique and irreplaceable photographic archives from all over the world, along with countless original artworks that would have great historical value considering how things eventually turned out, were seized and destroyed and teenaged boys faced prison and the threat of having to pay millions of quidsworth of damages individually!

    I was picked up myself in the weeks that followed, but evaded charges.. It was enough to make me consider a different career path to avoid breaking my mum’s heart..
    The bug never really left me though, and graffiti, funk and old school hip hop are still the defining culture in my family home..

    fervouredimage
    Free Member

    Thanks all. Some great stuff to get started with there. Fantastic stuff – nostalgia overload.

    binners – any examples of some of you work – current or from ‘back in the day’?

    slackman99
    Free Member
    Euro
    Free Member

    Some kindred spirits in here. Breakin’ ‘n’ bombin’ 😀

    My mate Gee (Stix) and me (Zone) were… Bad Company. Signed our pieces Stix ‘n’ Zone Will Break Yo Bones. Seemed pretty cool at the time 😆 . Started off bombing subways, skateparks anywhere really and ended up doing murals in peoples houses and clubs. Must see if i can dig out some pics of pieces (honestly don’t think i have any though) from the 80s. Do have these that someone took and stuck on facebob – our first homemade halfpipe mid build, circa ’87 (me on the right with the lightsabre 8) and testing the ramp when it was done.

    p.s. Also ended up as a graphic designer (or tarter-upper as i prefer to call it)

    binners
    Full Member

    I’ll have to see if I can did up some pictures of my pieces from back in the day. If you traveled by train anywhere around manchester in the mid and late 80’s you’ll have seen my work. I’ve still got my old Adidas top with ‘Graffit Art Stylists’ (our old crew) painted on the back of it in Wildstyle.

    This thread is great! I’m gettingg proper nostalgic 😀 Loving your work Euro. Got any of your recent stuff?

    Yunki – I’d go as far as to say that the graffiti made me who I am. I was painfully shy when I was at school. When I discovered Hip Hop and more importantly graffiti, it changed my life. I was always drawing stuff, but I’d never had a focus for it. Wild style and style wars were an enormous influence on my life. From then on I spent my time (when I wasn’t BMXing) sketching pieces, planning, then bombing the bridges and subways, all night at weekends. Did loads of pieces on mates walls.

    I’ve never really stopped. I just do it on a Mac nowadays. I’d bloody love to go and do a subway now. Nowadays I could even afford the paint, as opposed to the old routine of bunking off school, and ‘liberating’ them from B&Q 😉

    fervouredimage – you must have seen my stuff on here. I’m not shy of posting it up. I try to do the Monday Night Pub Ride graphic every week. Heres last one of my illustrations…

    a picture of Chipps, Singletracks esteemed Editor…

    T shirt print…

    More bike stuff. This is an A1 framed print…

    Non bike stuff. The is one of the print and greetings cards designs I’ve done for the local railway

    I hope you can still see I’m just an ageing bomber through the style and colour. More of my stuff here

    Sorry if I’ve dragged it a bit off topic 😀

    qwerty
    Free Member

    Grand Master Melle Mel & the Furious Five with World War Three:

    Life is a Game of Business
    And in the end we sight (swear to god)
    The new and old are bought and sold
    And everybody thinks they’re right

    War is a game of business
    A game we shouldn’t play (swear to god)
    Cause men with guns killed all our sons
    They blew us all away

    They Called it
    World (Paranoina!)
    War (it’s Almost Over)
    3 (Cause Nobody Hears what the People Say)

    Realistcally the Bombs are ready
    Technically, Nuclear by name
    Capability of total Destruction
    Radioactive death and flame
    There is talk of a firey doom
    Prophesied since the dawn of time
    In a world of bloodshed, mass confusion
    Killer diseases, Pollution and Crime
    Man is in Conflict with nature
    And that is why there’s so much sin
    Mother nature’s delicate balance will fix it so nobody wins

    In World (Catastrofic)
    War (Reaganomic)
    3 (and nobody hears what the people say)

    World (it’s Atomic)
    War (catastrofic)
    Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

    A thousand miles away from home
    A mortally wounded soldier dies
    And on the blood stained battlefield
    His life flashes before his eyes
    Before he dies the man saw jesus
    And jesus christ took his hand
    And on the soldier’s dying breath
    The good lord took him to the promised land

    Cause there’s.. No (people living)
    More (People Dying)
    Pain (Everybody Disappeared)

    [Hook:]

    Breakdown, Pain

    1984, See the world at war
    Your darkest fears of reality are knockin’ down your door
    Drones and mutations, Clones and deviations
    And there’s no one that can escape the nuclear revelation

    Because

    [Hook:]

    The silver moon, the midnight stars, jupiter collides with mars
    And out of the darkness spirits roar
    To cast revenge on the earth once more
    The leaders of the world are hypnotized
    By wizards, dark and in disguise
    Brought to earth by an evil hand
    To devour souls in a brand new land
    They let the leader think that war brings peace
    And out come the one with the mark of the beast
    There’s evil behind closed doors
    In the year of 1984

    [Hook:]

    Long ago and all too soon
    2 different wars fought on the moon
    One put (creators?) on it first
    Then we blew futher in the universe
    Both of these were nuclear wars
    Breaking universal laws
    Then falling stars and meteorites
    Dropped to earth by day and night
    Twisters, earthquakes, hurricanes
    Volcanos, drops and torrential rain
    Then one day, the UFO’s
    Came to see the whole world explode
    We will pay the ultimate price
    And a lesson is to be learned
    When we play with nuclear fire
    Everybody’s gonna get burned

    [Hook:]

    Pain! Pain! (so let the music play on)

    Between the boundaries of time and space
    Was the planet earth and the human race
    A world alive and centuries old
    With veins of diamonds, silver and gold
    Snow capped mountains over looked the land
    And the deep blue sea made love with the sand
    Full grown strands of evergreen hair
    Kissed the sky with a breath of air
    Where exotic fish once swam in the sea
    And the eagles soared in the sky so free
    But the foolish clan that walked the land
    Was the creature, that they called man
    They’re cannibalistic, paranoid fools
    Tricking each other with games and rules
    Training their men to kill and fight
    Moving and stearing their mechanized might
    Only thought that man had in mind
    Was to conquer the world and the rest of mankind
    And with the thought that they were right
    They gave you permission to take a man’s life
    The ones you killed fought just as hard
    Then you even had the nerve to pray to god
    But god don’t wanna hear all your mess
    When you ain’t the one that he laid to rest
    The devil’s children with no disgrace
    Crushed and killed the human race
    While they got rich off the games and war
    What in the hell were you fighting for
    A silly ass metal, a stupid parade
    For all those innocent people you slaid
    And after that, you couldn’t even get a job
    Cause fighting that war made you a slob
    A seargeant and major, a corporal, Lieutenant
    Titles and positions were all invented
    You, and me, and all this mess
    Are just a bunch of pieces in a game of chess
    It’s all the same, a third world war
    A blood thirsty massacre just like before
    It’s genocide, three billion tears
    Feeding on a war every twenty years
    Then one day we heard the sound
    Of the whole damn world tumbling down
    Just one big boom, and what do you know
    The world is a ghetto, high and low
    Crumbling buildings all around
    Man’s creation burned to the ground
    Chaos, panic, fear and pain
    Days of radioactive rain
    Grotesque figures burned alive
    Miraculously seem to survive
    Everything of reality is the science fiction on TV
    Mutant dog and sabertoothed rats
    Eat men with guns and baseball bats
    The dead won’t die, the (rudie?) won’t cry
    And everybody’s asking the question “why”
    Until swarms of millions walk from the city
    And thousands more went underground below
    With their head held down in their own pity
    Wondering where, they do not know
    Cause in this game we had a chance
    But we blew it for cheap thrills and romance
    Maybe one day we’ll get another play
    But until then remember what i say

    [Hook:]

    One of my favorite tunes, fantastic lyrics & message, beats all that gang shite into a pulp.

    Check out their other stuff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandmaster_Flash_and_the_Furious_Five

    fervouredimage
    Free Member

    I’ve seen a few bits and pieces of your stuff on here Binners but I hadn’t realised you did it for a living.

    Really like the Downhill print. Do you sell prints of these?

    aphex_2k
    Free Member

    Streetsounds electro

    Euro
    Free Member

    Sorry for the hijack OP, but i’m playing my ‘3 Pillars’ joker. Maybe we should do a new thread titled ‘things you made yonks ago!’

    Cheers Binners, some nice stuff there yourself and still into bombing i see 😀 I gave up keeping any design stuff years ago. I suppose i really should but most of it is fairly bland stuff that pays the bills, then on to the next one.

    I do wish i had more pics from BITD though. Hardly any of me riding my bike or of the pieces we did. But…

    Euro – quoting himself…Must see if i can dig out some pics of pieces (honestly don’t think i have any though) from the 80s.

    I had a rummage and found a few lo-fi pics of a couple of solo efforts. We did our best stuff as a duo, mind you.

    One of my first and most memorable. Not because it’s good (it’s shit tbh) but it was a freezing winters night/morn with very heavy fog. The nearest light was orange which made choosing colours very hard (everything was various shades of brown 😆 ). Add in the fact that i had to shake each can for ages due to the cold and, at the time, the ‘troubles’ were flaring up again so there was a constant stream of soldiers driving up and down the road (which i kinda had to hide from). It took forever and i’d no idea what it looked like until the next morning.

    An ‘action’ shot for Portglenone skatepark (’88). And a finished pic too – really crappy image as it was dark by the time i was done (shouldn’t have brought the board with me). The keen of eye might spot the ‘piece’ painted onto my All Stars (used to do custom hats and back panels of jackets too, which i’d completely forgot about)


    Struck lucky with this one as there’s a few in progress shots (but again , not great quality)

    Shit, almost forgot this one. Me on my bike, riding a ramp i help build and paint.

    Like yourself, i’d love to have another go at it. Very much happy days.

    You can’t see this, but i’ve just done a backspin, struck a pose and pointed at you! 8)

    tenfoot
    Full Member

    1984 film Beat Street is worth a look. Great soundtrack

    binners
    Full Member

    Great pics Euro! I must have some somewhere. As an aside, my mates sons band, China White (who are worth a listen too) supported the Furious Five on a recent tour. I got backstage passes, and at 2 in the morning was sat having a beer and chatting with Melle Mel and Kurtis Blow, trying not to look too awe-struck.

    Fervouredimage – I do indeed sell the prints. I’ve just got back from dropping one off now. I’ve just had my last batch framed. I’ve got one of the ‘All Downhill’ prints, A3 size, window mounted in a nice chunky black frame. Looks lovely! Mates rates apply to STWers. if your interested just drop me an email fella.

    cubist
    Free Member

    I’ve been reminiscing a bit of late and putting myself a hip hop play list on Spotify which has some cracking old school tunes (even if I do say so myself) http://open.spotify.com/user/1166049951/playlist/2nZR7EHjIveRw1vSDtp5d0

    iwmunt
    Free Member

    Boogie Down Productions, EPMD, Mantronix,
    Eric B & Rakim, Derek B (UK) PE, Roxxane Shante. KMD bloody love it all

    iwmunt
    Free Member

    Oh and check out some battles too.

    cubist
    Free Member

    3rd Bass
    Digital Underground
    Gang Starr
    EPMD
    Eric B and Rakim

    All later in the 80 but rarely surpassed.

    kudos100
    Free Member

    This is why I end up coming back to STW. Amongst the bickering and squabbling, you have gems like these. Great thread.

    No quite as old as some of you guys, but still appreciate 80’s hip hop.

    One from the late 80’s

    [video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2l2O-JOXG_I[/video]

    kudos100
    Free Member

    [video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjlNZQe6U-A[/video]

    Takes me back to smoking soap bar in mates bedroom while cranking EPMD out on his 1210’s 🙂

    binners
    Full Member

    For the whole spirit of 80’s hip hop, we’ve got to have some Jurassic 5 😀

    [video]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KeN9c2GYJkk[/video]

    porlus
    Free Member

    Right, back with a video this time

    [video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phOW-CZJWT0[/video]

    DezB
    Free Member

    Posted this on the tune association thread the other day, first hip hop album I bought –
    [video]http://youtu.be/DdAUYNVSrts[/video]

    Tom_W1987
    Free Member

    The big brother thread reminded me of this, not 80s – but 90’s. Still, it’s class!

    [video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcYqcLDp3JM[/video]

    addy6402
    Full Member

    Just popping a reminder here…..takes me back a few years!

    Saw Public Enemy on Friday night which was cool…

    eddiebaby
    Free Member

    Just started listening to it all over again that’s to the Hilltop Hoods having Nosebleed Section used on a XC video a couple of months back.

    fervouredimage
    Free Member

    I’ve accidentally created a really great thread. Some amazing stuff in here, some amazing photos there Euro, keep em coming.

    Binners – i’ll drop you a mail.

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 41 total)

The topic ‘80's Hip Hop’ is closed to new replies.