Introduction by Alan Light In October 1979, a new record label called Sugar Hill Records released a single titled "Rapper's Delight," credited to a trio known as the Sugarhill Gang. A few weeks later--on January 5, 1980, to be precise--the song entered Billboard's Top 40, where it remained for just two weeks, peaking at No. 36. For the burgeoning culture that would come to be known as hip hop, this moment was a fulcrum. "Rapper's Delight" wasn't the first hip hop recording--as the early chapters in this book show, that distinction is as much a judgment call as the first rock 'n' roll song or the first jazz musician--but it marked the first time a national, even international audience stood up and took notice. The revolutionary new sound and style that was being developed by black and Latino kids in the 1970s in the parks, clubs, and parties around New York City had been captured on wax, commodified with visible commercial results. For some, "Rapper's Delight" was the end of hip hop's beginning; for others, it was the beginning of the end. It is now a full twenty years later. (To put that in some context for any who still doubt hip hop's longevity, Woodstock happened only fifteen years after Elvis Presley's first recordings.) After years of denial, dismissal, and disapproval, hip hop has unquestionably become the dominant force in contemporary American youth culture. Lauryn Hill wins a shelf full of Grammy awards and ends up on the cover of Time magazine. Will Smith is one of Hollywood's top leading men. Q-Tip appears in national fashion advertising campaigns. Week in and week out, the top of the album sales chart is packed with rap records, and many of the hitmakers who are classified as pop or rock bands, from Korn to Hanson, reveal the unmistakable imprint of the genre. Across the country and around the globe, hip hop has changed the way songs are recorded and what they can say, how clothes are designed and marketed, which films get made and how they are distributed--and it has helped shape an entire generation's thoughts and attitudes about race. Some would argue--as they do occasionally in these pages--that hip hop has never actually recovered from the success of "Rapper's Delight" (which, it must be pointed out, the Sugarhill Gang, a group initially put together in the studio just for that recording, did not even write). These noble purists believe that the true spirit of the music was traded in for record sales, and with that change came the loss of a genuine community and culture, complete with the eventual weakening of its visual expression (graffiti), physical representation (breakdancing), and musical backbone (DJ-ing). And who that wasn't there in the beginning, who didn't experience the joyous creation of (to quote Sly Stone) a whole new thing, can say that this feeling is wrong? But in return, we have gained the most significant and most innovative cultural force since the emergence of rock 'n' roll in the 1950s. Hip hop has quite simply changed the world, and after years of fighting off the stigma that it was surely nothing more than a passing fad, the time has come to take a look back, to examine everything that has brought the music to the extraordinary, hard-fought status it enjoys today. The time has come to recognize. Contents Foreword by Grandmaster Flash Preface by Danyel Smith Introduction by Alan Light The Real Old School Back in the Day: 1975-1979 DJ Kool Herc Sugar Hill Records Graffiti: Graphic Scenes, Spray Fiends, and Millionaires The Second Wave: 1980-1983 Breaking It All Down: The Rise and Fall and Rise of the B-Boy Kingdom Run-D.M.C. Sasha Frere-Jones You Spin Me Round (Like a Record, Baby): Last Night a DJ Saved Hip Hop Hip Hop Radio L.L. Cool J Battle Rhymes Word Microphone Fiends: Eric B. and Rakim/Slick Rick The Juice Crew: Beyond the Boogie Down Early Los Angeles Hip Hop Pop Rap The Beastie Boys Hip Hop Video KRS-One The Big Willies Money, Power, Respect: Hip Hop Economics Public Enemy DJs vs. Samplers Ladies First Native Tongues: A Family Affair The Pinnacle: 1988 Hip Hop in the Movies Salt-N-Pepa Regional Scenes Too Short MC Hammer Rap and Rock Hard Left: Hip Hop's Forgotten Visionaries N.W.A Cheo Eazy-E The Dirty South 2 Live Crew Trial Great Aspirations: Hip Hop and Fashion Dress for Excess and Success Gangsta Rap in the '90s "Cop Killer" and Sister Souljah: Hip Hop Under Fire Tupac Shakur Hip Hop Soul Gangsta, Gangsta: The Sad, Violent Parable of Death Row Records New York State of Mind: The Resurgence of East Coast Hip Hop The Wu-Tang Clan Bad Boy Mixed Cuts: How Remixes Compliment and Complicate The Blackspot Dancehall Planet Rock: Hip Hop Supa National Future Shock: Trip Hop and Beyond Ill Na Nas, Goddesses, and Drama Mamas The Fugees 15 Arguments in Favor of the Future of Hip Hop Master P Excerpted from The Vibe History of Hip Hop by Vibe Magazine Staff All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. 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