Although widely considered a synonym for rap music, the term hip-hop refers to a complex culture comprising four elements: deejaying, or “turntabling”; rapping, also known as “MCing” or “rhyming”; graffiti painting, also known as “graf” or “writing”; and “B-boying,” which encompasses hip-hop dance, style, and attitude, along with the sort of virile body language that philosopher Cornel West described as “postural semantics.” Hip-hop originated in the predominantly African American economically depressed South Bronx section of New York City in the late 1970s. As the hip-hop movement began at society’s margins, its origins are shrouded in myth, enigma, and obfuscation.
Graffiti and break dancing, the aspects of the culture that first caught public attention, had the least lasting effect. Reputedly, the graffiti movement was started about 1972 by a Greek American teenager who signed, or “tagged,” Taki 183 (his name and street, 183rd Street) on walls throughout the New York City subway system. By 1975 youths in the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn were stealing into train yards under cover of darkness to spray-paint colourful mural-size renderings of their names, imagery from underground comics and television, and even Andy Warhol-like Campbell’s soup cans onto the sides of subway cars. Soon, influential art dealers in the United States, Europe, and Japan were displaying graffiti in major galleries. New York City’s Metropolitan Transit Authority responded with dogs, barbed-wire fences, paint-removing acid baths, and undercover police squads.
The beginnings of the dancing, rapping, and deejaying components of hip-hop were bound together by the shared environment in which these art forms evolved. The first major hip-hop deejay was DJ Kool Herc (Clive Campbell), an 18-year-old immigrant who introduced the huge sound systems of his native Jamaica to inner-city parties. Using two turntables, he melded percussive fragments from older records with popular dance songs to create a continuous flow of music. Kool Herc and other pioneering hip-hop deejays such as Grand Wizard Theodore, Afrika Bambaataa, and Grandmaster Flash isolated and extended the break beat (the part of a dance record where all sounds but the drums drop out), stimulating improvisational dancing. Contests developed in which the best dancers created break dancing, a style with a repertoire of acrobatic and occasionally airborne moves, including gravity-defying headspins and backspins.
In the meantime, deejays developed new techniques for turntable manipulation. Needle dropping, created by Grandmaster Flash, prolonged short drum breaks by playing two copies of a record simultaneously and moving the needle on one turntable back to the start of the break while the other played. Sliding the record back and forth underneath the needle created the rhythmic effect called “scratching.”
Kool Herc was widely credited as the father of modern rapping for his spoken interjections over records, but among the wide variety of oratorical precedents cited for MCing are the epic histories of West African griots, talking blues songs, jailhouse toasts (long rhyming poems recounting outlandish deeds and misdeeds), and the dozens (the ritualized word game based on exchanging insults, usually about members of the opponent’s family). Other influences cited include the hipster-jive announcing styles of 1950s rhythm-and-blues deejays such as Jocko Henderson; the black power poetry of Amiri Baraka, Gil Scott-Heron, and the Last Poets; rapping sections in recordings by Isaac Hayes and George Clinton; and the Jamaican style of rhythmized speech known as toasting.
Rap first came to national prominence in the United States with the release of the Sugarhill Gang’s song “Rapper’s Delight” (1979) on the independent African American-owned label Sugar Hill. Within weeks of its release, it had become a chart-topping phenomenon and given its name to a new genre of pop music. The major pioneers of rapping were Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Kurtis Blow, and the Cold Crush Brothers, whose Grandmaster Caz is controversially considered by some to be the true author of some of the strongest lyrics in “Rapper’s Delight.” These early MCs and deejays constituted rap’s old school.
Rap is a musical style in which rhythmic and/or rhyming speech is chanted (“rapped”) to musical accompaniment. This backing music, which can include digital sampling (music and sounds extracted from other recordings), is also called hip-hop, the name used to refer to a broader cultural movement that includes rap, deejaying (turntable manipulation), graffiti painting, and break dancing. Rap, which originated in African American communities in New York City, came to national prominence with the Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” (1979). Rap’s early stars included Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Run-D.M.C., LL Cool J, Public Enemy (who espoused a radical political message), and the Beastie Boys. The late 1980s saw the advent of “gangsta rap,” with lyrics that were often misogynistic or that glamorized violence and drug dealing. Later stars include Diddy, Snoop Lion (formerly Snoop Dogg), Jay-Z, OutKast, Eminem, Kanye West, and Lil Wayne.
Formed in the Bronx, New York City, in 1976, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were one of the first multimember rapping crews. The members were Grandmaster Flash (born Joseph Saddler, January 1, 1958), Cowboy (born Keith Wiggins, September 20, 1960—died September 8, 1989), Melle Mel (born Melvin Glover), Kid Creole (born Nathaniel Glover), Mr. Ness (also called Scorpio; born Eddie Morris), and Raheim (born Guy Williams).
The group was a staple of the earliest hip-hop shows in the Bronx and Harlem, and nonrapping member Grandmaster Flash was credited with being an inventor and innovator of many of the techniques and performing gimmicks associated with hip-hop deejaying. He also jury-rigged a drum machine into his turntable and created miniature audio dramas on his legendary 12-inch single “The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel” (1981) that presaged digital sampling. As recording artists on hip-hop’s flagship label, Sugar Hill, the group was originally known for high-energy singles such as “Freedom” (1980) and “Birthday Party” (1981), which combined their rhyme skills with slick production. With their depiction of the harsh realities of ghetto life in “The Message” (1982), they became the pioneers of socially conscious protest rap, inspiring the likes of Public Enemy’s Chuck D and Boogie Down Production’s KRS-One to create provocative social commentary in the manner of Bob Dylan and Bob Marley. The group also tackled drug abuse in “White Lines” (1983). By the mid-1980s the group had disbanded, and later reunions were short-lived. In 2007 Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five became the first hip-hop act inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Grandmaster Flash accepting an award in 2006. Rick Diamond—BET Networks/PRNewsFoto/AP Images
Gil Scott-Heron (born April 1, 1949, Chicago, Ill.—died May 27, 2011, New York, New York) created music that lacerated the complacency of white middle-class America, most notably with his sardonic spoken-word anthem “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” On his first album, Small Talk at 125th and Lenox (1970), Scott-Heron performed verse from his volume of poetry of the same title, accompanied by bongos and conga drums; highlights of that album included “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” and “Whitey on the Moon.” The following year he began recording a series of soul-jazz albums, among them Pieces of a Man (1971), which contained “Lady Day and John Coltrane” and “Home Is Where the Hatred Is,” and Winter in America (1974), which featured “The Bottle.” He also wrote two novels. Scott-Heron’s career was marred by his addiction to drugs and alcohol, though he occasionally emerged to record music; his final solo album, I’m New Here, was released in 2010.
Launched in 1979 by industry veterans Sylvia and Joe Robinson as a label for rap music (at that time a new genre), Sugar Hill Records, based in Englewood, New Jersey, was named after the upmarket section of Harlem and funded by Manhattan-based distributor Maurice Levy. Sylvia (born Sylvia Vanderpool) had a national hit in 1957 with “Love Is Strange” as half of the duo Mickey and Sylvia; Robinson was a former promotions man. Together they ran the All-Platinum label with some success during the 1970s.
At Sugar Hill a core session team of guitarist Skip McDonald, bass player Doug Wimbish, drummer Keith Leblanc, and percussionist Ed Fletcher provided the compulsive rhythm for most of the label’s releases, including three milestone 12-inch (long-playing) singles in the genre that came to be called hip-hop. “Rapper’s Delight” (1979) by the Sugarhill Gang was the first to make the Top 40; “The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel” (1981) was a 15-minute epic that sampled sections of Chic’s “Good Times” (1979) and showcased the new sound of scratching; and “The Message” (1982) by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, a heartfelt account of life in the ghetto, showed the potential of hiphop for conveying social comment.
In the mid-1980s the next wave of rappers, the new school, came to prominence. At the forefront was Run-D.M.C., a trio of middle-class African Americans who fused rap with hard rock, defined a new style of hip dress, and became staples on MTV as they brought rap to a mainstream audience. Run-D.M.C. recorded for Profile, one of several new labels that took advantage of the growing market for rap music. Def Jam featured three important innovators: LL Cool J, rap’s first romantic superstar; the Beastie Boys, a white trio who broadened rap’s audience and popularized digital sampling (composing with music and sounds electronically lifted from other recordings); and Public Enemy, who invested rap with radical black political ideology, building on the social consciousness of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message” (1982).
Rap’s classical period (1979–93) also included significant contributions from De La Soul—whose debut album on Tommy Boy, 3 Feet High and Rising (1989), pointed in a new and more playful direction—and female rappers such as Queen Latifah and Salt-n-Pepa, who offered an alternative to rap’s predominantly male, often misogynistic viewpoint. Hip-hop artists from places other than New York City began to make their mark, including DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince (Will Smith), from Philadelphia; the provocative 2 Live Crew, from Miami; and M.C. Hammer, from Oakland, California, who experienced short-lived but massive crossover success with a pop audience.
The most significant response to New York hip-hop, though, came from Los Angeles, beginning in 1989 with N.W.A.’s dynamic album Straight Outta Compton. N.W.A. (Niggaz With Attitude) and former members of that group—Ice Cube, Eazy E, and Dr. Dre—led the way as West Coast rap grew in prominence in the early 1990s. Their graphic, frequently violent tales of real life in the inner city, as well as those of Los Angeles rappers such as Ice-T (remembered for his 1992 single “Cop Killer”) and Snoop Lion and of East Coast counterparts such as Schoolly D, gave rise to the genre known as gangsta rap. As the Los Angeles-based label Death Row Records built an empire around Dr. Dre, Snoop, and the charismatic, complicated rapper-actor Tupac Shakur, it also entered into a rivalry with New York City’s Bad Boy Records. This developed into a media-fueled hostility between East Coast and West Coast rappers, which culminated in the still-unsolved murders of Shakur and the wildly gifted MC known as the Notorious B.I.G.
By the late 1990s hip-hop was artistically dominated by the Wu-Tang Clan, from New York City’s Staten Island, whose combination of street credibility, neo-Islamic mysticism, and kung fu lore made them one of the most complex groups in the history of rap; by Diddy (known by a variety of names, including Sean “Puffy” Combs and Puff Daddy), performer, producer, and president of Bad Boy Records, who was responsible for a series of innovative music videos; and by the Fugees, who mixed pop music hooks with politics and launched the solo careers of Wyclef Jean and Lauryn Hill.
Although long believed to be popular primarily with urban African American males, hip-hop became the best-selling genre of popular music in the United States in the late 1990s (at least partly by feeding the appetite of some white suburbanites for vicarious thrills). Its impact was global, with formidable audiences and artist pools in cities such as Paris, Tokyo, Sydney, Cape Town, London, and Bristol, England (where the spin-off trip-hop originated). It also generated huge sales of products in the fashion, liquor, electronics, and automobile industries that were popularized by hip-hop artists on cable television stations such as MTV and The Box and in hip-hop-oriented magazines such as The Source and Vibe. A canny blend of entrepreneurship and aesthetics, hip-hop was the wellspring of several staple techniques of modern pop music, including digital drumming and sampling (which introduced rap listeners to the music of a previous generation of performers, including Chic, Parliament-Funkadelic, and James Brown, while at the same time creating copyright controversies).
Sean “Diddy” Combs. PRNewsFoto/Sean John Fragrances EsteeLauder, Stuart Morton/Wireimage.com/AP Images
‣ NEW YORK: EAST COAST IN THE ASCENT
By the 1980s the record business in New York City was cocooned in the major labels’ midtown Manhattan skyscraper offices, where receptionists were instructed to refuse tapes from artists who did not already have industry connections via a lawyer, a manager, or an accountant. Small labels such as Tommy Boy, Profile, and Def Jam set up offices in more accessible locations, and through their doors walked an army of rappers accompanied by “posses” of friends, bodyguards, and producers.
Run-D.M.C. brought hip-hop into the musical and cultural mainstream, introducing what became known as “new-school” rap. The members were Run (born Joseph Simmons, November 14, 1964, New York, New York, U.S.), D.M.C. (born Darryl McDaniels, May 31, 1964, New York, New York), and Jam Master Jay (born Jason Mizell, January 21, 1965, New York, New York—died October 30, 2002, New York).
Formed in 1982 in Hollis—a middle-class, predominantly African American section of the New York City borough Queens—Run-D.M.C. was managed by Russell Simmons, who was the brother of group member Run and was cofounder of Def Jam, one of the most successful black-owned record companies. Run, whose nickname came from his quick turntable manipulation, began his musical career as a deejay for old-school rapper Kurtis Blow. Later Run, D.M.C., and Jam Master Jay began performing in New York City clubs. In 1983 Profile Records released the group’s groundbreaking single “It’s Like That”/“Sucker MCs,” which featured a spare, forceful rhythm track and overlapping vocals (group members interweaving lines and words). Not only was their sound different, so, too, was their dress. Whereas earlier rap stars fashioned their looks after the spangled superhero costumes of 1970s funk acts like Parliament-Funkadelic and Rick James, Run-D.M.C. appeared in their signature bowler hats, black leather jackets, unlaced Adidas athletic shoes, and black denim pants, establishing the more casual look of hip urban youth as de rigueur stage wear for rappers.
Run-D.M.C. Frank Micelotta/Getty Images
They were the first rappers to have a gold album—Run-D.M.C. (1984)—and the first rap act to appear on MTV, becoming popular with the cable channel’s largely white audience via their fusion of hardcore hip-hop and screaming guitar solos on hits such as “Rock Box” (1984) and a 1986 remake of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” (featuring the song’s hard-rocking originators). Other hits by Run-D.M.C. include “King of Rock” (1985), “My Adidas” (1986), which led to the first endorsement deal between hip-hop artists and a major corporation, and “It’s Tricky” (1987). Although the group never officially disbanded, their recording and performing activities decreased significantly in the 1990s. In 2002 Jam Master Jay was fatally shot at a recording studio in Jamaica, Queens. Run-D.M.C was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009.
Hip-hop was scorned by the established music industry as a novelty idiom until 1986, when Run-D.M.C. enrolled Aerosmith’s vocalist, Steven Tyler, and guitarist, Joe Perry, to take part in a revival of the hard rockers’ hit “Walk This Way” from 10 years earlier. Released on the Profile label, the resultant record was accepted by many radio formats and became the first rap hit to make the Top Five on the pop chart. Its video was an MTV staple, and Run-D.M.C. became a major live attraction. Multimillion album sales enabled Profile’s owner, Cory Robbins, to pay back the loan to his family that had funded the label’s beginnings and to move into bigger offices (on Broadway in New York City’s East Village neighbourhood). Although the label never found another act of stature comparable to Run-D.M.C.’s, its vital role had been to establish the commercial potential for rap, which other labels then exploited to better effect, notably Def Jam.
Rick Rubin (born March 10, 1963, Long Island, New York, U.S.) grew up listening to heavy metal and early punk, and he frequently took the train into Manhattan from his Long Island home to see New York punk pioneers the Ramones. While a student at New York University, he became interested in rap and immersed himself in the local scene. In 1983 he produced his first single, “It’s Yours,” by T La Rock and Jazzy Jay. Its success as a dance track in local nightclubs inspired him to create his own label, Def Jam Records.
After hearing “It’s Yours,” Russell Simmons, who was already a rising star in the hip-hop scene, joined Rubin at Def Jam. The two, based in Rubin’s dormitory room, collected demo tapes from aspiring rappers and disc jockeys. In 1984 they had their first hit with LL Cool J’s “I Need a Beat,” a single that sold 100,000 copies. Rubin had created Def Jam to fill a niche that the mainstream recording industry had ignored, but the major labels took notice when its sales topped 300,000 albums in 1985. Columbia Records placed Rubin and Simmons under contract, and Def Jam’s roster expanded to include the Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, and Run-D.M.C. (a group that included Simmons’s brother Joseph).
Rubin left Def Jam in 1988 over a disagreement about the structure of the label’s relationship with Columbia. He moved to Los Angeles and founded a new label, Def American, with the heavy metal acts Slayer and Danzig as his first artists. In 1991 he guided the Red Hot Chili Peppers to multiplatinum success with Blood Sugar Sex Magik, and with that success he established himself as a performer’s producer. Whereas Phil Spector’s work was characterized by the “wall of sound” and Sam Phillips made a career of the “Sun sound,” there was no particular aural quirk that could be called “Rubinesque.” His presence in the studio simply seemed to make good artists better.
Rubin’s gift was perhaps most clearly demonstrated in 1993, when country legend Johnny Cash was at the nadir of his popularity, having been dropped by his label and facing an audience that was seemingly indifferent to his brand of music. The 1994 release American Recordings (Rubin had dropped the “Def” from the label’s name the previous year) was a surprise smash hit. This success marked the beginning of a partnership that would earn five Grammy Awards and restart Cash’s career. The 2002 release American IV: The Man Comes Around included Cash’s interpretation of the Nine Inch Nails song “Hurt.” The song, released only months before Cash’s death, was transformed by Rubin from an industrial rock anthem into a poignant elegy, further demonstrating his ability to transcend genre.
Through the 2000s Rubin continued to lend his talents to established performers such as Neil Diamond, Jay-Z, and Tom Petty. In keeping with his unflappable, bearded guru image, he chose to avoid the 2007 Grammy Awards ceremony, and, although he won the Grammy for best producer, he characterized the previous year as “not unusually special.” Nonetheless, Rubin exerted a quiet dominance on the industry’s sales charts. He had production credit on two of the five nominees for album of the year (the Dixie Chicks’ Taking the Long Way and the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Stadium Arcadium) and had contributed to a third (Justin Timberlake’s FutureSex/LoveSounds).
Rick Rubin at his home in Los Angeles, 2007. © AP Images
Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons managed several pioneer hiphop acts, including Run-D.M.C., through their Rush Management agency, and in 1984 they set up their own Def Jam label; shortly thereafter, Columbia Records made a deal with the label and became its distributor. Def Jam’s first success was LL Cool J, a soft-spoken “love” rapper whose style was compatible with black radio’s still-conservative ideas of itself and its audience. Next up were the Beastie Boys, a trio of white New Yorkers who helped redefine rap as a cool alternative for white suburban kids, notably with the infectious, tongue-in-cheek anthem “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party)” in 1986. Def Jam’s next substantial act, Public Enemy, was altogether more confrontational, stoking the flames of antiwhite and antipolice rhetoric. Rubin went off to form Def American, leaving Simmons to sustain the most successful of the first generation of rap labels.
In May 2007 Rubin was named cochairman of Columbia Records. The label was struggling with declining revenues as a result of the contraction of the compact disc market, and its parent company, the Sony Corporation, felt that Rubin could provide a fresh alternative to its existing business model. Rubin’s loose management style immediately clashed with executives, and his emphasis on creativity over commerce, exemplified by his relocation of the Columbia headquarters from Los Angeles to an I.M. Pei-designed office building in Santa Monica, California, evoked comparisons to Factory Records cofounder Tony Wilson. His studio talents were undiminished, however, and he collected a second Grammy as producer of the year in 2009 for his work on albums for Metallica, Neil Diamond, and Weezer, among others.
At age 16 James Todd Smith (born August 16, 1968, New York, New York, U.S.) took the stage name LL Cool J (“Ladies Love Cool James”) and signed with fledgling rap label Def Jam. Distinguished by hard, fast, sinuous rhymes and artfully arrogant phrasing, his first single, “I Need a Beat,” sold more than 100,000 copies. His first album, Radio, was released in 1985, the year he appeared in Krush Groove, the movie celebrating Def Jam’s origins.
Thereafter he outlasted most of his competition by constantly creating daring, fresh modes of expression—gaining airplay with rap’s first romantic ballad, “I Need Love” (1987), and prefiguring West Coast rap with “Goin’ Back to Cali” (1988), recorded in California. Criticized by some for his crossover success, LL responded by teaming with producer Marley Marl for the musically and thematically innovative album Mama Said Knock You Out (1990).
Following the huge commercial success of that album, the increasingly versatile LL began acting in films and on television. He starred in the situation comedy In the House (1995–99), and he continued to record, releasing the double-platinum Mr. Smith (1995); a string of solid albums followed. LL also branched into the world of fashion, debuting his James Todd Smith clothing line in 2004.
The Beastie Boys were the first white rap performers to gain a substantial following. As such, they were largely responsible for the growth of rap’s mainstream audience. The principal members were MCA (born Adam Yauch, August 5, 1964, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.—died May 4, 2012, New York City), Mike D (born Mike Diamond, November 20, 1965, New York City), and King AdRock (born Adam Horovitz, October 31, 1966, South Orange, New Jersey).
Founded in New York City in 1981 by a group of arty middle-class Jewish kids responding to Manhattan’s eclectic downtown music scene, the Beastie Boys evolved by 1983 from a hard-core punk quartet (including original guitarist John Berry and drummer Kate Schellenbach) into a trio—MCA, Mike D, and King AdRock. They signed with Def Jam, and early 12-inch singles and a brief tour with Madonna in 1985 finally brought them press attention. It was not until they toured with popular black rappers Run-D.M.C., however, that the Beastie Boys won credibility with the rap audience. Good timing and a clever blend of hard rock samples and parodic fraternity-boy posturing turned Licensed to Ill (1986) into a smash debut album, confirming the emotional and stylistic affinities some critics found between rap and hard rock. After moving from Def Jam to Capitol Records for their 1989 release, Paul’s Boutique, the Beastie Boys strategically appropriated retro-funk influences, adding an acoustic dimension to digital sound-collage techniques learned from Rick Rubin and Grandmaster Flash.
The band launched the Grand Royal record label in 1992. In addition to the Beastie Boys, its roster included the alternative girl group Luscious Jackson, Australian singer-songwriter Ben Lee, and German techno act Atari Teenage Riot. Check Your Head (1992), the Beastie Boys’ first release on Grand Royal, featured a collection of radio-friendly rhymes that layered pop culture references over distorted funk instrumentation. The group’s next album, Ill Communication (1994), had a similar sound, and the music video for the hit single “Sabotage”—a tongue-in-cheek homage to 1970s television police dramas—was in near-constant rotation on MTV. The band took an electronic turn on the Grammy-winning Hello Nasty (1998) and scored another hit with the single “Intergalactic.” In 2001 Grand Royal folded as a result of slow sales and mounting debts, and the Beastie Boys returned to Capitol for the 2004 release To the 5 Boroughs.
Beastie Boys, c. 1980. L. Cohen/WireImage/Getty Images
The instrumental hip-hop album The Mix-Up (2007) represented a return to basics, and its fusion of funk, Latin, and lounge music won the band another Grammy. The trio’s eighth studio album, Hot Sauce Committee Part One, was scheduled for release in 2009, but Yauch was diagnosed with cancer in July of that year, and the group suspended all recording and touring activity. With Yauch’s health improving, the Beastie Boys resumed recording and in May 2011 released Hot Sauce Committee Part Two (with the exception of one song, the track list was virtually identical to the unreleased Part One). Stylistically, it was similar to Ill Communication, and the star-studded video for the debut single “Make Some Noise” demonstrated that the group had not lost its sense of the absurd. In 2012 the Beastie Boys were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Just weeks after that event, Yauch succumbed to cancer.
Go-go, a style of funk heavy on bass and percussion, originated in Washington, D.C., in the late 1970s. Go-go bands were large ensembles with multiple percussionists who could maintain a steady beat for hours at a time. By 1982 go-go was the most popular music of the dance halls (called go-gos) in the black parts of the capital. The go-go pioneers were Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers, who cultivated the steady, rigid use of the funk beat, and Trouble Funk, who packaged their powerful shows into some of the best studio recordings of the go-go era. Other steady go-go acts were Redds and the Boys, E.U. (Experience Unlimited), and Rare Essence.
Go-go bands were influenced by George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic, who frequently played four-hour concerts in the region. The tireless percussive rhythms of go-go also have connections to the Caribbean dance styles of soca and reggae. The rigid beats served some of the early rap sides for New York City hip-hop acts Afrika Bambaataa and Kurtis Blow; and rappers of the mid-1980s, such as Doug E. Fresh, Run-D.M.C., and the Beastie Boys, utilized the distinctive go-go beat in their music. The zenith of go-go’s popularity was E.U.’s “Da Butt,” from Spike Lee’s film School Daze (1988).
Go-go recordings were almost exclusively released on independent labels, the most successful of which was D.E.T.T. Records, founded by Maxx Kidd. In 1985 Island Records made a brief attempt to record and market go-go groups, but the style never became nationally known, and its associations with hip-hop faded as urban rap styles changed in the 1990s.
Public Enemy was one of the most popular, controversial, and influential hip-hop groups of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The original members were Chuck D (born Carlton Ridenhour, August 1, 1960, New York, New York, U.S.), Flavor Flav (born William Drayton, March 16, 1959, New York), Terminator X (born Norman Lee Rogers, August 25, 1966, New York), and Professor Griff (born Richard Griffin, August 1, 1960, Long Island, New York).
Public Enemy was formed in 1982 at Adelphi University on Long Island, New York, by a group of African Americans who came primarily from the suburbs. Chuck D, Hank Shocklee, Bill Stephney, and Flavor Flav collaborated on a program on college radio. Reputedly, Def Jam producer Rick Rubin was so taken with Chuck D’s booming voice that he implored him to record. Public Enemy resulted and brought radical black political ideology to pop music in an unprecedented fashion on albums with titles that read like party invitations for leftists and warning stickers for the right wing: Yo! Bum Rush the Show (1987), It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988), Fear of a Black Planet (1990), and Apocalypse 91: The Enemy Strikes Black (1991).
Acclaimed as Public Enemy’s masterpiece, Nation of Millions revived the messages of the Black Panther Party and Malcolm X. On tracks such as “Night of the Living Baseheads,” “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos,” and “Don’t Believe the Hype,” the strident, eloquent lyrics of Chuck D combined with bombastic, dissonant, and poignantly detailed backing tracks created by Public Enemy’s production team, the Bomb Squad (Shocklee, his brother Keith, Chuck D, and Eric “Vietnam” Adler), to produce songs challenging the status quo in both hip-hop and racial politics. The Bomb Squad sampled (composed with other recordings) a wide variety of genres and sounds, including classic funk tracks by James Brown, jazz, the thrash-metal of Anthrax, sirens, and agitprop speeches. Flavor Flav provided a comic foil for Chuck D.
‣ HIP-HOP AND THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION
The radical development of digital technology that had begun in the 1980s was evident in the new devices for sampling and manipulating sound, which were used by dance music engineers who had already been exploring the rhythmic and sonic possibilities of electronic instruments and blurring the distinctions between live and recorded music. Over the next decade the uses of digital equipment pioneered on the dance scene fed into all forms of rock music making. For a hip-hop act such as Public Enemy, what mattered was not just a new palette of “pure” sound but also a means of putting reality—the actual voices of the powerful and powerless—into the music. Hip-hop, as was quickly understood by young disaffected groups around the world, made it possible to talk back to the media.
Comments by Professor Griff to the Washington Times in 1989 brought charges of anti-Semitism, which ultimately resulted in his leaving the group. Public Enemy’s open admiration for the Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan also brought it into conflict with Jewish organizations. While Public Enemy’s activism inspired other artists to take up topical themes, the group’s influence in the hip-hop community waned in the early 1990s as younger, more “ghettocentric” performers such as N.W.A. and Snoop Doggy Dogg (as he was then known) came to the fore. The group seemed to have folded after Muse Sick N Hour Mess Age (1994), but in 1998 they produced a new album of songs for Spike Lee’s film He Got Game and went on tour.
De La Soul was formed in 1988 by three high-school friends—Posdnuos (born Kelvin Mercer, August 17, 1969, New York, New York, U.S.), Trugoy the Dove (born David Jolicoeur, September 21, 1968, New York), and Pasemaster Mase (born Vincent Mason, March 24, 1970, New York)—in Amityville, New York. Impressed by the trio’s demo, “Plug Tunin’,” “Prince Paul” Houston of the rap group Stetsasonic helped them secure a contract with Tommy Boy Records and produced their landmark debut.
Dance Music Report editor Tom Silverman started up Tommy Boy Records in 1981 in his Manhattan, New York City, apartment on West 85th Street. Producer Arthur Baker helped put the label on the map with hits by Afrika Bambaataa—“Looking for the Perfect Beat” (1982) and “Planet Rock” (1983)—whose robotic rhythms were inspired by European groups such as Kraftwerk. With radio slow to recognize this new idiom, exposure for hip-hop came mostly through 12-inch singles in dance clubs, but Tommy Boy’s focused approach to artists-and-repertoire and promotion led to commercial breakthroughs with quirky character acts. Based in California, Digital Underground was led by the eccentric Shock-G, who brought a George Clinton-like sense of the absurd to the group’s repertoire; their radio hit “The Humpty Dance” (1989) paved the way for the amusing and friendly vibe of De La Soul, hippielike rappers from Long Island, New York, whose album 3 Feet High and Rising (1989) sampled the entire panoply of pop and had a particularly big impact in Britain and continental Europe.
Conceptual, densely layered, and replete with quirky interlude skits, 3 Feet High and Rising (1989) influenced not only De La Soul’s own self-constructed “family” of alternative rappers (ranging from A Tribe Called Quest to Queen Latifah) but also groups as disparate as Public Enemy (who were inspired by the collage-sampling technique of “Prince Paul”) and gangsta rap pioneers N.W.A. (who incorporated interlude skits). Moreover, prior to the emergence of De La Soul, the primary source for hip-hop samples was the music of James Brown; in the wake of 3 Feet High and Rising, George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic catalog became the mother lode.
The group’s second—and arguably best—album, De La Soul Is Dead (1991), dealt with weighty issues such as incest, mortality, and the buckling pressure of prior success. Despite the alternative that they offered to the proliferation of increasingly nihilistic and hypermaterialistic hip-hop in the mid-1990s, De La Soul’s next releases, Buhloone Mindstate (1993) and Stakes Is High (1996), failed commercially. On the latter, De La Soul, having contributed so much to hip-hop’s development lyrically and musically, forsook their usual coded poetry to take an unabashed stand against the pervasiveness of shallow lyrics and unimaginative sounds they believed to be too characteristic of the hip-hop era they had helped usher into existence. The group returned in 2000 with Mosaic Thump, the first volume in the proposed Art Official Intelligence trilogy. The album featured guest appearances by Busta Rhymes, the Beastie Boys, and Redman, among others.
The success of Queen Latifah (born Dana Elaine Owens, March 18, 1970, Newark, New Jersey, U.S.) in the late 1980s launched a wave of female rappers and helped redefine the traditionally male genre. She later became a notable film actress.
Queen Latifah, 2003. PRNewsFoto/VH1/AP Images
Owens was given the nickname Latifah (Arabic for “delicate” or “sensitive”) as a child and later adopted the moniker Queen Latifah. In high school she was a member of the all-female rap group Ladies Fresh, and, while studying communications at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, she recorded a demo tape that caught the attention of Tommy Boy Records, which signed the 18-year-old. In 1988 she released her first single, “Wrath of My Madness,” and the following year her debut album, All Hail the Queen, appeared. Propelled by diverse styles—including soul, reggae, and dance—and feminist themes, it earned positive reviews and attracted a wide audience. Soon after, Queen Latifah founded her own management company. Her second album, Nature of a Sista (1991), however, failed to match the sales of her previous effort, and Tommy Boy did not re-sign her. After signing with Motown Records, she released Black Reign in 1993. The album was a critical and commercial success, and the single “U.N.I.T.Y.,” which decried sexism and violence against women, earned a Grammy Award.
In 1991 Queen Latifah made her big-screen debut in Jungle Fever, and after several television appearances she was signed in 1993 to costar in the series Living Single. After the show ended in 1998, Queen Latifah returned to the big screen, playing a jazz singer in the 1998 film Living Out Loud. Her commanding screen presence brought roles in more films, including The Bone Collector (1999) and Brown Sugar (2002). In 1999 she began a two-year stint of hosting her own daytime talk show, and that year she published Ladies First: Revelations of a Strong Woman (co-written with Karen Hunter).
Queen Latifah’s prominence in Hollywood was cemented in 2003, when she received an Academy Award nomination (best supporting actress) for her portrayal of Matron Mama Morton in the big-screen adaptation of the stage musical Chicago (2002). The film was followed by the comedies Bringing Down the House (2003), which Queen Latifah both starred in and produced, Barbershop 2: Back in Business (2004), Beauty Shop (2005), and Last Holiday (2006). She again brought her musical background to the screen for her role as Motormouth Maybelle in the film Hairspray (2007), a remake of the stage musical.
In 2008 Queen Latifah starred in The Secret Life of Bees, a drama about a white girl taken in by a family of beekeeping African American women in 1960s-era South Carolina. She later appeared in the romantic comedies Valentine’s Day (2010), Just Wright (2010), and The Dilemma (2011). In Joyful Noise (2012) she starred opposite Dolly Parton as the director of a competitive church gospel choir. In addition, her voice was featured in several movies, including Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006) and its sequel, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009).
Throughout her acting career, Queen Latifah continued to record. Her other albums include The Dana Owens Album (2004) and Trav’lin’ Light (2007), collections of jazz and pop standards that showcased her strong singing voice, and Persona (2009), an eclectic return to hip-hop.
Will Smith (born September 25, 1968, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.) was given the nickname “Prince Charming” in high school, which he adapted to “Fresh Prince” in order to reflect a more hip-hop sound when he began his musical career. He formed an alliance with schoolmate and deejay Jeffrey Townes, whom he met in 1981. They began recording as DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince and released their first single, “Girls Ain’t Nothing but Trouble,” in 1986, later followed by the album Rock the House. In 1988 the group released the groundbreaking single “Parents Just Don’t Understand,” which went on to win a Grammy Award (the first Grammy ever presented in the rap performance category).
Smith’s act, notable for its wide crossover appeal, was sometimes characterized as “light rap” because of the lack of hard-core lyrics and themes in his compositions. Platinum-certified recordings and accompanying videos subsequently brought him to the attention of television producers. The television sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which began in 1990 and was loosely based on Smith’s real-life persona, ran on NBC for six successful seasons, ending at the star’s request. During the series’ run, Smith garnered two Golden Globe nominations and served as an executive producer for the final season.
Will Smith, 2006. Vince Bucci/Getty Images
Buoyed by his small-screen success, Smith expanded into cinema with Where the Day Takes You (1992). His first leading role was in the film version of John Guare’s successful stage play Six Degrees of Separation (1993). The action comedy-thriller Bad Boys (1995), however, proved to be the turning point in his film career. While the movie was not a critical success, it made more than $100 million worldwide, proving Smith’s star power. In 1996 he starred in that year’s top-grossing movie, Independence Day. He was a hit at the box office again the next year with the science-fiction comedy Men in Black, for which he also recorded the Grammy-winning title song; sequels to the film appeared in 2002 and 2012. In 1998 Smith released his first solo album, Big Willie Style, which included the hit “Gettin’ Jiggy wit It,” and starred in the dramatic thriller Enemy of the State.
After releasing the album Willennium in 1999, Smith demonstrated his remarkable versatility as an actor, playing an enigmatic golf caddy in The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000); the boxer Muhammad Ali in the biopic Ali (2001), for which he received an Academy Award nomination; and a “date doctor” helping a romantically inept man find love in Hitch (2005). Lost and Found, Smith’s fourth solo album, was released in 2005. The next year he starred in and coproduced The Pursuit of Happyness, and his performance as a single father who overcomes adversity earned him a second Oscar nomination for best actor. In I Am Legend (2007), Smith appeared as a scientist who is perhaps the last human on Earth following an epidemic. Hancock (2008) featured Smith as a superhero trying to revamp his unpopular image, and in Seven Pounds (2008) he played a man seeking redemption after accidentally killing seven people in a car accident. In addition, in the early 21st century Smith served as a producer for several films, and with his wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith (married 1997), he helped create and produce the sitcom All of Us (2003–07).
Gangsta rap came to dominate hip-hop in the 1990s, working as a reflection and product of the often violent lifestyle of American inner cities afflicted with poverty and the dangers of drug use and drug dealing. The romanticization of the outlaw at the centre of much of gangsta rap appealed to rebellious suburbanites as well as to those who had firsthand experience of the the harsh realities of the ghetto.
‣ LOS ANGELES: THE WEST COAST RESPONSE
After the buoyancy and optimism of the 1980s, black music in Los Angeles in the early ’90s turned desolate. As economic recession and crack cocaine swept through Watts and East Los Angeles, a generation of artists chose to portray the world of the ghetto with unfettered realism. These were tough guys acting tough, and the sound they created was called gangsta rap. Over grinding electronic samples, they rapped about cops, crack, gangs, and lust (though seldom love).
Ice-T, who had experienced the world of gangs firsthand, introduced his steel-hammer-rhythm braggadocio on albums for Sire Records in the late 1980s, and N.W.A.’s Straight Outta Compton (initially released on group member Eazy-E’s Ruthless label in 1988) was widely popular with both black and white teenage males reveling in their disaffection. When N.W.A. split, Ice Cube channeled the anger he had learned in south-central Los Angeles into a solo career—prompting outrage with several provocative tracks on AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted (1990). A third member of N.W.A., Dr. Dre, emerged as one of the most creative musical innovators of the decade, designing sublime soundscapes for his own records and those of other rappers, including Snoop Doggy Dogg for Death Row Records. The outrage of middle America over the violent content of so much rap discouraged most of the major labels, leaving a path clear for Interscope Records to sign some of the most controversial rappers, either directly or through label distribution deals.
Gangsta (“gangster”) rap first came to prominence on the East Coast. Schoolly D, of Philadelphia, presented graphic tales of gangs and violence such as “PSK—What Does It Mean?” (1985); and Boogie Down Productions, formed in New York City by DJ Scott LaRock (Scott Sterling) and KRS-One (Lawrence Krisna Parker), offered hard-hitting depictions of crack-cocaine-related crime on Criminal Minded (1987). In Houston, Texas, the Geto Boys’ sex- and violence-dominated music was the subject of outrage in some corners. But gangsta rap became a national phenomenon in California, where a distinct school of West Coast hip-hop began with Eazy E’s Los Angeles group N.W.A. (Niggaz With Attitude).
In Oakland, Too $hort had become a major regional force, and his profane and sexually explicit style influenced N.W.A. member Ice Cube’s early writing. It was N.W.A.’s controversial album Straight Outta Compton, however, that shifted hiphop’s geographic centre. The most distinguishing characteristic of N.W.A.’s approach was the very plain way that violence was essayed: as plainly as it occurred in the streets of south-central Los Angeles and neighbouring Compton, argued the group. Hyperrealism was often conflated with myth and declarations of immortality; exaggeration became a kind of self-protective delusional device for listeners who were actually involved in the dangerous lifestyle N.W.A. was chronicling.
In the mainstream press and among African Americans nationwide, N.W.A., by virtue of their name, single-handedly reignited a debate about the word “nigger.” Its appropriation by black youth transformed it into a positive appellation, argued Ice Cube. For many, the persistent misogyny in N.W.A.’s work, which was alternately cartoonish and savage in its offensiveness, was less defensible.
As N.W.A. splintered, the group’s importance multiplied with each solo album. Ice Cube’s AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted (1990) employed Public Enemy’s production team, the Bomb Squad, and introduced New York City listeners to the West Coast sound, known by this point as gang-sta rap. In 1992 N.W.A. producer and sometime rapper Dr. Dre released the California rap scene’s most influential and definitive record, The Chronic; its marriage of languid beats and murderous gangsta mentality resulted in phenomenal sales. Most significantly, it launched Death Row Records and the career of Snoop Doggy Dogg.
As early as 1988, other important artists from California began making an impression. Like Too $hort, Ice-T relied on his self-styled image as a pimp to propel sales; though his lyrics were well-respected, his single “Cop Killer” (1992), like gangsta rap in general, raised controversy. N.W.A.’s influence could be heard in groups like Compton’s Most Wanted, DJ Quik, Above the Law, and countless other gangsta groups, but by the early 1990s groups had surfaced whose approach was the antithesis of N.W.A.’s violence and misogyny. The jazzily virtuosic improvisers Freestyle Fellowship and the Pharcyde, of Los Angeles, and Souls of Mischief, of Oakland, owed more to East Coast abstractionists De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest than to gangs. Nevertheless, by the mid-1990s Death Row Records and Bad Boy Records were engaged in a “coastal battle.” Life imitated art imitating life; the violence that had been confined to songs began to spill over into the world, culminating in the tragic murders of New York City rapper Notorious B.I.G. (Christopher Wallace), and California rapper Tupac Shakur (2Pac).
Dr. Dre, 2003. PRNewsFoto/Coors Light/AP Images
Born to teenage parents who aspired to singing careers, André Young (born February 18, 1965, Los Angeles, California, U.S.) took the stage name of Dr. Dre in the early 1980s. He performed as a hip-hop deejay and as part of the group World Class Wreckin’ Cru at clubs and parties in Los Angeles’s south-central district. In 1986 he founded N.W.A. with fellow rappers Eazy-E and Ice Cube. The group’s second album, Straight Outta Compton (1988), was a breakthrough for the nascent gangsta rap movement, featuring explicit descriptions (and often glorifications) of street violence and drug dealing. While Dre appeared prominently as a rapper in N.W.A., his most lauded role was as a producer, crafting ambitiously noisy, multilayered sonic collages to back the group’s inflammatory lyrics.
Dre left N.W.A. in 1992 and cofounded Death Row Records with Marion (“Suge”) Knight. That year his solo debut, The Chronic, introduced the “G-funk” production style, characterized by plodding tempos, synthesizer washes, and copious musical “sampling” of 1970s funk records, especially those by Parliament-Funkadelic. The Chronic’s multiplatinum success helped make this sound dominant in mainstream hip-hop in the mid-1990s. In 1996 Dre left Death Row to form Aftermath Records and solidified his shift from recording his own albums to producing other artists’ work. Some of his most notable protégés include rappers Snoop Doggy Dogg and Eminem. Among the artists he collaborated with in the early years of the 21st century were Mary J. Blige, Jay-Z, and 50 Cent.
Among the individuals responsible for the flourishing of hip-hop in Los Angeles in the 1990s was a white man, Jimmy Iovine, a former engineer on recordings by Bruce Springsteen and the new head of Interscope Records. Although Interscope had a stable of successful alternative rock acts—including Nine Inch Nails and Bush—its greatest impact came from its alliance with Death Row Records. Founded by Marion (“Suge”) Knight, Death Row rapidly became the home of gangsta rap. Essentially it was an outlet for the talents of N.W.A’s Dr. Dre. The attention drawn to gansta rap’s violent lyrics tended to mask the unschooled but innovative nature of the music, shaped by producer Dre’s distinctive slurred, lazy studio sound.
Among the Death Row releases to top the pop charts were Doggystyle (1993) by Snoop Doggy Dogg, who emerged from a cameo role on Dre’s own work, and the gritty All Eyez on Me (1996) by Tupac Shakur. As the decade progressed, Death Row became increasingly enmeshed in legal proceedings—both financial and criminal—that were reflective of its gangsta rhetoric. Snoop was found innocent of a murder charge, then left the label. Shakur died in Las Vegas, Nevada, as a result of gunshot wounds—a victim of the rivalry between East Coast and West Coast rappers that exploded into murder. Knight was sentenced to nine years for assault, and Interscope severed all connections with Death Row.
For many, Snoop Lion (born Cordozar Calvin Broadus, Jr., also known as Snoop Doggy Dogg and Snoop Dogg, October 20, 1971, Long Beach, California, U.S.) was the epitome of West Coast hip-hop culture. His signature drawled lyrics took inspiration from his early encounters with the law. After high school he was in and out of prison for several years before seriously pursuing a career in hip-hop. Eventually he came to the attention of famed producer-rapper Dr. Dre, who featured him on his single “Deep Cover” and on his landmark album The Chronic (both 1992). Snoop’s prominent vocals on the hit singles “Dre Day” and “Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang” fueled a rapid ascent to stardom. His own album Doggystyle (1993) became the first debut record to enter the Billboard 200 at number one.
Snoop Lion, formerly known as Snoop Dogg. PRNewsFoto/Spike TV/AP Images
While recording Doggystyle, Snoop was arrested in connection with a drive-by shooting. Although he was ultimately cleared of all charges, the incident entangled him in court for years, contributing to a long delay before the release of his next album, Tha Doggfather (1996). By that time the gangsta rap movement had begun to ebb. For a few years Snoop’s records failed to generate excitement comparable to that of his debut, but his carefully cultivated—and at times cartoonish—public persona made him a popular icon. His West Coast slang and exaggerated verbal tics entered the popular American vocabulary. Snoop was a frequent guest on radio and television talk shows and amassed a substantial number of film credits. In 2008 he starred in Snoop Dogg’s Father Hood, a reality television series chronicling his home life.
In July of 2012, in a self-professed desire to leave the world of gangsta and hip-hop behind and embrace reggae, which he calls the “music of love,’ Snoop announced at a news conference that, after a spiritually moving experience on his trip to Jamaica earlier that year, he was changing his name from Snoop Dogg to Snoop Lion. He told reporters that the idea for the name change came from a Rastafarian priest, who in essence said that a lion was a far more fitting animal for the singer.
The Notorious B.I.G. (born Christopher Wallace, May 21, 1973, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.—died March 9, 1997, Los Angeles, California) transformed from drug dealer and street hustler to one of hip-hop’s premier artists as chronicled in his platinum-selling debut album, Ready to Die (1994). Weeks before the release of his second album, Life After Death, he was killed during a drive-by shooting. The event was widely perceived to be the bloody fallout of a feud between East Coast and West Coast rap communities. The rapper’s death catapulted his associates into the limelight. Diddy, who had discovered and signed the Notorious B.I.G. (who was also known as Biggie Smalls) to his label, recorded “I’ll Be Missing You” as a tribute to the late rapper, featuring his widow, Faith Evans, on vocals. The song was a massive hit, and both Diddy and former B.I.G collaborator Mase followed with full-length albums that topped the Billboard album charts.
Nate Dogg (born Nathaniel Dwayne Hale, August 19, 1969, Long Beach, California—died March 15, 2011, Long Beach) was an integral part of the West Coast rap sound, contributing soulful vocal hooks as a guest artist on numerous G-funk and gangsta rap songs beginning in the 1990s. Early in the ’90s he formed the rap group 213 with Snoop Dogg and Warren G; the demonstration tape that 213 recorded impressed producer Dr. Dre and resulted in contributions by Nate Dogg and Snoop to cuts on Dr. Dre’s classic 1992 album The Chronic. In 1994 Nate Dogg and Warren G released the platinum single “Regulate,” and thereafter Nate Dogg was in great demand as a collaborator, notably on “Area Code” with Ludacris (2001) and “Shake That” with Eminem (2005). He recorded the solo albums G-Funk Classics, Vol. 1 & 2 (1998) and Music & Me (2001). Nate Dogg never fully recovered from strokes that he suffered in 2007 and 2008.
Lesane Parish Crooks (born June 16, 1971, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.—died September 13, 1996, Las Vegas, Nevada) was the son of Alice Faye Williams, a member of the Black Panther Party, and she renamed him Tupac Amaru Shakur—after Peruvian revolutionary Tupac Amaru II—when he was a year old. He spent much of his childhood on the move with his family, which in 1986 settled in Baltimore, Maryland, where Shakur attended the elite Baltimore School of the Arts. He distinguished himself as a student, both creatively and academically, but his family relocated to Marin City, California, before he could graduate. There Shakur took to the streets, selling drugs and becoming involved in the gang culture that would one day provide material for his rap lyrics. In 1990 he joined Digital Underground, an Oakland-based rap group that had scored a Billboard Top 40 hit with the novelty single “The Humpty Dance.” Shakur performed on two Digital Underground albums in 1991, This Is an EP Release and Sons of the P, before his solo debut, 2Pacalypse Now, later that year.
2Pacalypse Now was a radical break from the dance party sound of Digital Underground, and its tone and content were much closer to the works of Public Enemy and West Coast gangsta rappers N.W.A. The lack of a clear single on the album limited its radio appeal, but it sold well, especially after Vice Pres. Dan Quayle criticized the song “Soulja’s Story” during the 1992 presidential campaign. That same year Shakur joined the ranks of other rappers-turned-actors, such as Ice Cube and Ice-T, when he was cast in the motion picture Juice, an urban crime drama. The following year he appeared in Poetic Justice, opposite Janet Jackson, and he released his second album, Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. The album did not stray far from the activist lyricism of his debut, but singles such as “Holler If Ya Hear Me” and “Keep Ya Head Up” made it much more radio-friendly.
With increased fame and success came greater scrutiny of Shakur’s gangsta lifestyle. A string of arrests culminated with a conviction for sexual assault in 1994; he was incarcerated when his third album, Me Against the World, was released in 1995. Shakur was paroled after serving eight months in prison, and he signed with Suge Knight’s Death Row Records for his next release. That album, All Eyez on Me (1996), was a two-disc paean to the “thug life” that Shakur embodied. It debuted at number one on the Billboard charts and sold more than five million copies within its first year of release. Quick to capitalize on his most recent success, Shakur returned to Hollywood, where he starred in Bullet (1996) and Gridlock’d (1997).
On the evening of September 7, 1996, Shakur was leaving a Las Vegas casino, where he had just attended a prizefight featuring heavyweight champion Mike Tyson, when he was shot by an unknown assailant. The incident, believed by many to be the result of an ongoing rivalry between the East Coast and West Coast rap communities, shocked the entertainment world. Shakur died six days later. In spite of his relatively short recording career, Shakur left an enduring legacy within the hip-hop community. His popularity was undiminished after his death, and a long succession of posthumous releases (many of them were simply repackaged or remixed existing material, and most were of middling quality), ensured that “new” 2Pac albums continued to appear well into the 21st century.
One particularly notable post-humous release occurred in April 2012 at the Coachella Music Festival in Indio, California. There, a video projection of Shakur that gave the eerie 3-D appearance of a hologram was shown on stage. Performing with Shakur were Dr. Dre and Snoop Lion (then Snoop Dogg). The optical technology gave rise to speculation as to how onstage performing—of both the living and the dead—might change.
Nas (born Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones, September 14, 1973, Queens, New York, U.S.), the son of a jazz musician, grew up in public housing in Queens. He dropped out of school in the eighth grade and searched for a creative outlet, finally settling on hip-hop. His breakthrough came in 1992, when his song “Half Time” (credited to Nasty Nas) appeared on the soundtrack to the film Zebrahead. Columbia Records soon signed him to a contract. His debut recording as Nas, Illmatic (1994), drew widespread acclaim for its poetic narration of hard-edged inner-city life.
The more pop-oriented approach of It Was Written (1996) helped that album reach an even wider audience than its predecessor but ignited a recurring tension in Nas’s career between the appetite of the pop audience and the demands of hip-hop purists. By 2000, sales and airplay of his records had declined somewhat; at the same time, he became embroiled in a public feud with fellow rapper Jay-Z over which of the two was the preeminent voice in East Coast hiphop. The schism inspired Stillmatic (2001), a comeback album that was well received by both critics and consumers. The two rappers publicly settled their differences in 2005, and shortly thereafter Nas signed with Def Jam, of which Jay-Z was president at the time. Nas’s first album for the label was Hip Hop Is Dead (2006). A Greatest Hits compilation with Columbia Records followed in 2007, though Nas continued to record new music for Def Jam. His self-titled Nas (2008) was a fiercely challenging work, and Distant Relatives (2010) paired Nas with Damian Marley, the youngest son of reggae legend Bob Marley, in an effort to raise funds for education in Africa.
Hip-hop mogul Diddy seemed to amass names and titles with equal ease. Born Sean John Combs (November 4, 1970, New York, New York, U.S.) but variously known as Sean “Puffy” Combs, Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, and Diddy, the rapper, record producer, clothing designer, and entrepreneur controlled an entertainment empire that was worth over $500 million in the early 21st century.
Nas (left) and C-Sick (Charles Dumazer). PRNewsFoto/Red Bull Big Tune/AP Images
Combs was born and raised in Harlem in New York City, where his father was murdered when Combs was three. Nine years later the family moved to suburban Mount Vernon, New York, where Combs attended prep school and supposedly received the nickname “Puffy” for his habit of puffing up his chest during football practice. He attended Howard University in Washington, D.C., but he left college after two years to become an intern at Uptown Records in New York City; within a year he had moved up to vice president. In December 1991, 9 people were crushed to death and 29 were injured as crowds pushed their way into a charity basketball game Combs had promoted at the City College of New York.
In 1993 Combs was fired from Uptown, and he turned his energies to his own label, Bad Boy Entertainment. He soon discovered and befriended a street hustler named Christopher Wallace, who rapped as Biggie Smalls and recorded as the Notorious B.I.G. By 1994 Wallace was a rising rap star, and Combs had negotiated a $15 million deal to move Bad Boy to Arista Records, which gained him a growing industry-wide reputation as a rap impresario and entrepreneur. In spring 1997 the Notorious B.I.G. was murdered, and Combs’s first album, No Way Out—released that summer under the moniker Puff Daddy—included the single “I’ll Be Missing You,” a musical eulogy featuring the voice of Wallace’s widow and the melody from the Police’s “Every Breath You Take.” Several more singles from No Way Out dominated the pop charts in 1997.
In 1998 Combs toured in support of No Way Out and maintained his presence on the airwaves; for the movie Godzilla he enlisted guitarist Jimmy Page to concoct the single “Come with Me,” a thunderous reworking of Page’s Led Zeppelin song “Kashmir.” That year Combs took home two Grammy Awards, for rap album (No Way Out) and rap performance (“I’ll Be Missing You”), and he also launched the Sean John clothing line.
Legal troubles, however, soon overshadowed Combs’s music and fashion achievements. In 1999 he was found partially liable for the City College stampede and was made to pay settlements on several resulting claims. Later that year, he pleaded guilty to second-degree harassment after an altercation with a record company executive, and in December 1999 he was present during a shooting at a Manhattan nightclub. Charged with several crimes, including illegal gun possession, he was acquitted in 2001 on all counts. He subsequently made a symbolic break with his past by changing his name to P. Diddy and releasing his second album, The Saga Continues (2001). He claimed another Grammy in 2004 for his collaboration with the rapper Nelly on “Shake Ya Tailfeather,” and later that year he was honoured by the Council of Fashion Designers of America as their menswear designer of the year. He publicly dropped the “P.” from his name in 2005 and released his third album, Press Play, the following year as Diddy.
Influential hip-hop and R&B producer Timbaland (born Timothy Mosley, March 10, 1971, Norfolk, Virginia, U.S.) grew up in Virginia with rappers Missy (“Misdemeanor”) Elliot and Magoo. At age 19, he began to learn how to use studio equipment under the direction of producer and musician DeVante Swing, whose pronunciation of the shoe manufacturer Timberland resulted in a new name for his protégé. Timbaland’s inventive production skills were first evidenced on Aaliyah’s 1996 hit “One in a Million.” Soon afterward Timbaland signed with Blackground Records as both a solo act and part of the rap duo Timbaland and Magoo. In 1997 the two put out their first album, Welcome to Our World; featuring the contributions of Elliot and Aaliyah, along with the hit song “Up Jumps da Boogie,” it achieved platinum sales status.
By the late 1990s Timbaland had developed a signature sound that made him a much sought-after and often-imitated hip-hop and rhythm-and-blues producer. He used original beats—rather than samples—to create complex syncopated rhythms and complemented them with quiet background rapping or obscure sounds, such as a whinnying horse. With an uncanny knack for crafting commercially successful singles and albums, Timbaland produced hits for Jay-Z, Ginuwine, Elliot, Ludacris, and Snoop Dogg. In the early 2000s Timbaland moved beyond the genres of hip-hop and rhythm and blues to produce albums for rock and pop stars, including Nelly Furtado, Justin Timberlake, Beck, Bjork, and Madonna. In addition to his notable work as a producer, Timbaland continued to release albums, both as a solo artist and in conjunction with Magoo. He created new record labels under the umbrella of Interscope—Beat Club and Mosley Music Group—and received a Grammy Award (2006) for his work on “Sexy Back” with Timberlake.
In addition to his music career, Combs occasionally acted. In 2001 he appeared as a death row inmate in the critically acclaimed Monster’s Ball. He later portrayed a record executive in the comedy Get Him to the Greek (2010). His television credits include the 2008 adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun.
From an early age, Missy Elliott (born July 1, 1971, Portsmouth, Virginia, U.S.) demonstrated a knack for performance. Her big break came in 1991 when Jodeci band member DeVante Swing signed Elliott’s group, Sista, to his Swing Mob Records label. Lack of funds prevented the release of Sista’s debut album, however, and the group subsequently broke up. Elliott, known as Missy Misdemeanor at this time, teamed up with childhood friend Timbaland to cowrite and coproduce songs for the American rhythm-and-blues artists Jodeci and Aaliyah. Elliott was only 25 years old when the head of the Elektra Entertainment Group offered her a deal that would enable her to write, produce, and record music under the umbrella of her own Gold Mind record label.
Elliott’s first album, Supa Dupa Fly (1997), went platinum and was nominated for a Grammy Award, and her follow-up, Da Real World (1999), spent almost a year on the Billboard rhythm-and-blues chart. Miss E…So Addictive (2001), featured the crossover dance track “Get Ur Freak On,” and the album won Elliott her first two Grammy Awards. She won a third Grammy for “Work It,” a single from her 2002 album Under Construction. Her 2005 album, The Cookbook, contained the Grammy-winning single “Lose Control.” In addition to her Grammy wins, Elliott collected the Black Entertainment Television (BET) Award for best female hip-hop artist numerous times, and her music videos earned her accolades as well as a regular presence on MTV.
Lauryn Hill (born May 26, 1975, South Orange, New Jersey, U.S.) embarked on an entertainment career at an early age. She and high school classmate Prakazrel (“Pras”) Michel performed together under the name Tranzlator Crew and were joined shortly thereafter by Michel’s cousin Wyclef Jean. As a teenager, Hill also acted on the television soap opera As the World Turns and alongside Whoopi Goldberg in the film Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. With the money she earned from her acting jobs, she helped finance her group, renamed the Fugees in 1993.
Lauryn Hill, 2001. Scott Gries/Getty Images
The Fugees were eventually signed to a division of Columbia Records, but their debut album, Blunted on Reality (1994), attracted less-than-spectacular reviews. Critics commented that Hill overshadowed her partners and that she should strike out on her own. The group’s second album, The Score (1996), which featured an impressive remake of Roberta Flack’s 1973 hit “Killing Me Softly with His Song,” was much better received, selling more than 17 million copies and earning two Grammy Awards. Hill, who had been pursuing a degree in history at Columbia University, abandoned her studies, and the group’s members decided to pursue their individual interests.
In 1996 Hill established the Refugee Project, an organization designed to aid underprivileged youths, and the following year she and Rohan Marley (Bob Marley’s son) had their first child. In early 1998 she began putting together a solo album, flying to Jamaica to record the work at the Bob Marley Museum Studio. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was released that August, and in November she gave birth to her and Marley’s second child. Fueled by the release of the single “Doo Wop (That Thing),” the album went multiplatinum, and in 1999 Hill was nominated for 10 Grammy Awards. She won five, including those for best new artist and album of the year.
Hill’s sound, often categorized as “neo-soul,” bridged hip-hop and mainstream popular music. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was also notable for its deeply personal lyrics, which addressed such themes as the meaning of self, family, and community. She followed her debut solo recording with a two-disc live album taken from her appearance on MTV’s Unplugged 2.0 series in 2002. The album, which featured an unpolished performance by Hill on acoustic guitar, was punctuated throughout with extended, tear-filled meditations on the burdens of celebrity. Although Unplugged 2.0 sold poorly, Hill proved that she could still be a significant draw when she co-headlined the Smokin’ Grooves tour with OutKast later in 2002. After that tour, she left the public eye but contributed single songs to film soundtracks.
Wyclef Jean, 2007. PRNewsFoto/Nickelodeon—Don Bowers/AP Images
Born in a suburb of Port-au-Prince, Wyclef Jean (born Nel Ust Wyclef Jean, October 17, 1969, Croix des Bouquets, Haiti) was raised by relatives after his parents immigrated to the United States. At age nine he and his younger brother joined their parents in Brooklyn, New York. The family moved to Newark, New Jersey, when he was a teenager. Jean’s father, a Nazarene minister, prohibited rap music and encouraged Jean to channel his musical talents into the church choir. Nonetheless, Jean joined Tranzlator Crew (later known as the Fugees), a rap group founded by Prakazrel (“Pras”) Michel and Michel’s friend Lauryn Hill, in the late 1980s.
Jean studied music at Five Towns College in Dix Hill, New York, before dropping out to concentrate on his rapping. He continued to perform with Michel and Hill, and in 1994 they released their debut album, Blunted on Reality. Though the album was only moderately successful, the trio continued to record and in 1996 released their sophomore effort The Score as the Fugees. The recording, which innovatively blended elements of jazz, soul, reggae, and hip-hop, sold more than 18 million copies and won two Grammy Awards.
The members of the group then embarked upon solo efforts, a trajectory some observers attributed to an ill-fated affair between Jean and Hill. In 1997 Jean released Wyclef Jean Presents the Carnival Featuring Refugee All Stars, which mirrored the syncretic style of his efforts with the Fugees. Between albums, he collaborated with performers including Carlos Santana, for whom he produced the song “Maria, Maria,” and Whitney Houston, for whom he cowrote the hit “My Love Is Your Love.” In 2000 Jean followed up with The Ecleftic: 2 Sides II a Book and in 2002 released Masquerade. Further efforts included Sak Pasé Presents Welcome to Haiti: Creole 101 (2004) and Carnival Vol. II: Memoirs of an Immigrant (2007).
In 1998 Jean founded the Wyclef Jean Foundation (later known as Yéle Haiti). The organization raised money and engineered programs to assist victims of poverty in Haiti. Following the Haiti earthquake of 2010, Yéle Haiti raised several million dollars for those affected. Jean announced in August of 2010 that he would run for president of Haiti, but he was deemed ineligible because he was not a resident of the country.
Neo-soul vocalist Erykah Badu (born Erica Wright, February 26, 1971, Dallas, Texas, U.S.) was the eldest of three children. Although she was never formally trained in music, she majored in dance and theatre at Grambling State University in Louisiana after graduating from the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas. She dropped out of Grambling in 1993 to pursue a singing career and formed the group Erykah Free with her cousin while also working as a waitress and a drama teacher. In 1995, while the group was opening for singer D’Angelo, Badu came to the attention of Kedar Massenburg, who was just starting his own record company. Badu disbanded Erykah Free when Massenburg offered her a contract; she thought that she would receive more individual attention as a solo artist at a smaller label. In January 1997 “On & On,” Badu’s first single, was released and quickly became a hit. The next month, her debut album, Baduizm, for which she wrote all but one of the songs, was released. It rose to number two on the Billboard album chart, thanks to the crossover appeal of Badu’s bluesy vocals—which were frequently compared to those of jazz legend Billie Holiday—backed by down-tempo hip-hop beats.
Her sound drew from the roots of African American popular music, and she cited among her early influences Miles Davis, Al Jarreau, Chaka Khan, Stevie Wonder, and Marvin Gaye. Badu’s follow-up album, Erykah Badu Live, reached the top five on the Billboard pop charts. The combined sales of the two albums exceeded three million copies, and both efforts were certified as platinum. That year, she captured two NAACP Image Awards, four Soul Train Awards, an American Music Award, and two Grammy Awards. Her second album of original material, Mama’s Gun (2000), sold well on the strength of singles such as “Bag Lady,” and she followed with Worldwide Underground (2003), a collection that was marketed as an EP (extended play) in spite of its 50-minute length. In 2008 she released New Amerykah, Part One: 4th World War, a bass-heavy album that blended elements of funk with Badu’s socially aware lyrics. A flurry of publicity greeted New Amerykah, Part Two: Return of the Ankh upon its release in 2010. The controversial video for that album’s first single, “Window Seat,” featured Badu completely disrobing while she walked through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, the site of the assassination of U.S. Pres. John F. Kennedy.
