Rappers
All photos on this page are courtesy of the awesome crew down at www.hiphopnz.com.
MCs are probably the best and most outspoken component of modern hip hop.
The style comes from gospel and roots/ethnic African music, as well as blues and jazz. It was a response to ghetto living in the late seventies and early eighties under conservative governments, and it was an alternative to pop and disco culture. It grew up in the NYC culture that gave us the train graffiti and was obviously the sound track for the b-boys of the time.
Some of the earliest hip hop tracks, were spinning records while talking over top. It didn't take long for this to split into two seperate tasks, djing and mcing. The DJs began to mix together samples (or extracts) of music with other samples of music while the MC's 'rapped' over top.
MCing began in earnest in the late 1970's and became popular fast. The verbal sparring stylings of two rappers, a 'battle', like in 8 mile with eminem, were crowd pleasers, and before long this underground sound was going public. In 1979 the world had its first hip hop single with The Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight". After this came the great old school hip hop MC's, Afrika Bambattaa, Grandmaster Flash, then the first of the Mega star's Run DMC. and L.L. Cool J.
With the public going crazy for hip hop stylings, there came more producers and artists in the hip hop scene and the styles inevitably split. Part of the reason for this split was because some of the early sucessful rappers had lost touch with their roots and hence their audience. There was much argument over middle class MC's who had never known ghetto life using hip hop to make money. Into this atmosphere came Public Enemy, KRS-One and Ice T and with them controversy. These rappers stirred up high emotions within their listeners and politicians. A stand out example of this was Ice T's 'cop killer' track, which led to him not being allowed to perform here in Aotearoa. While the politicians argued that these rappers were merely going out to cause controversy, they responded that they were talking about what they knew from Ghetto existences and that what upset white America was that it was the truth. It was due to these rappers we have the Parental Advisory Explicit Lyrics stickers that you see on most of today's Hip Hop Albums.
A sad consquence of some of this gangsta rap is the gangsta mentality that goes along with it. This is embodied in the murders of Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac in the nineties due allegedly partly to gang connections. If you want to know more about this check out Labyrinth from our collection. Today this element has largely been finished with, and though there's much banter between rappers, most of it is harmless. The lastest in this new wave of gangsta are guys like Eminem, 50 cent, Nelly, Snoop and the list goes on.
However for all the controversy, growing alongside this was a new awareness of African American culture and worth. Artists like Arrested Development and The Fresh Prince were raising awareness and pride in those who listened to their music. This has definitely gone from strength to strength, as hip hop gets more popular you have a large number of people who like the sound but not gangsta lyrics. There's a movement to a smarter more political hip hop, with rappers like Black Eyed Peas, De La Soul, Outkast
raising many of the issues that face African Americans and take pride in their histories as a people.
There were a lot of fusion artists around with the scratching techniques being a huge exercise in sampling other people's work. The biggest influences are the Jazz artists. Some of the artists into this style are guys like the Roots, Erykah Badu - basically anytime you hear smooth, clear hip hop without scratching and lots of instruments.
Meanwhile the women of hip hop began to emerge. They were preceded by the early jazz singers like Ella Fitzgerald and soul singers like The Supremes. The earliest of the big name female MC's was Roxanne Shante, a brash advocate of the cutting early style of MC battles. She took pride in standing up to the men of hip hop and going one better. Alongside her came acts like Salt 'n' Pepa, BWA and Queen Latifah. Queen Latifah is often held up as a women who speaks up for all women, and goes against the conventional image of flygirls. Today we've got massive awesome female MCs including Mary J Blige, TLC, Lil' Kim, Missy Elliott, Eve and Lauren Hill
They come from all walks and styles, some are brash, others poetic but all are happy to go head to head with men and go one better. Missy said it best when saying why she didn't want to sign to Puff Daddy, "I didn't want to be under him, I wanted to be at the same table drinking the same champagne. I wanted to be buying him drinks."
Locally the earliest NZ hip hop acts to make an impact was Upper Hutt Posse. They broke New Zealand out of it's big, bad Rock and Roll Addiction. They were the foundation out of which most New Zealand Hip hop springs. They were followed by acts like Sisters Underground, DLT, and more recently Che Fu, King Kapisi and the Dawn Raid boys like the Decepticonz and the Footsouljahs. New Zealand hip hop is going from strength to strength with more solo MC's emerging and Cd releases this year alone by Mareko, Scribe and King Kapisi. The best thing about local talent is you can get out and see it all the time. If you're into seeing the local boys in action check out GND and the Homofied crew next time they're out and about. For info on the local talent, have a look at our interview with MC Kyla a female MC working in and around Welly.
Recommended websites:
International
Okay Player
Dirty Dozen
The world's biggest hip hop site Hip-hop.com
And try the latest addition to our pages - a brief bio of Eminem
National
For all the latest pictures and news locally you've got to go to Hiphop NZ who are also the people who kindly let us use these photos.
For some more background to New Zealand hip hop try NZ Music
For interviews with Scribe and Mareko look at one of NZ's best teen websites NZgirl.com
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