RFI: Learn me some old-school hip-hop

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I suspect that like me, there are unwashed millions of people who are vaguely aware of the big canonical figures (Afrika Bambattaa, Grandmaster Flash, Sugarhill Gang, etc), may have even dipped their toes in the waters of obscurity on occasion, but were born too late to have heard this stuff the first time around.

I'd like to start bridging the (admittedly huge) gap between total ignorance and all-encompassing Rap Expert knowledge, but don't know where to start. This is where you suggest compilations, books to read (the Vibe History Of Hip-Hop seemed like a good bet), artists to investigate, resources etc.

― Dave M. (rotten03), Thursday, 23 September 2004 15:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Big Daddy Kane - RAW
Audio Two
Cool C
KOOL G. Rap and DJ Polo
Special Ed
Biz Markie
Leaders of the New School
Big L
Eric B and Rakim
The D.O.C

― Velveteen Bingo (Chris V), Thursday, 23 September 2004 16:30 (twenty-one years ago)

get the Ego Trip Book of Lists (or whatever its called). And the Wild Style soundtrack.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 23 September 2004 16:48 (twenty-one years ago)

kurtis blow!

― zappi (joni), Thursday, 23 September 2004 16:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Schooly D!

― noodle vague (noodle vague), Thursday, 23 September 2004 17:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Haha Big L is old school? This is a new one to me.

Funky 4 + 1!!!

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Thursday, 23 September 2004 17:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Treacherous Three
Busy Bee
Spoonie G
and of course fuckin SLICK RICK/Doug E. Fresh and the Get Fresh Crew.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 23 September 2004 17:24 (twenty-one years ago)

black by demand
3 times dope
3rd bass
positively black
special ed
pete rock and cl smooth
2 live crew
run dmc
cold crush brother

― equinox, Thursday, 23 September 2004 17:32 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm drawing a line in the sand: nothing that is from '85 or more recent is Old School.

― oops (Oops), Thursday, 23 September 2004 18:28 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah, I kinda agree with that, arbitrary tho it may be.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 23 September 2004 19:41 (twenty-one years ago)

I agree with Shakey! Anyway, this thread was great:

please explain to me the appeal of old OLD old skool hip-hop

― chuck, Thursday, 23 September 2004 19:53 (twenty-one years ago)

I will say this: I'm continually amazed that no one has ever really repackaged or reissued a lot of that old school stuff (at least not that I'm aware of). I mean, is La-Di-Da-Di/The Show even available on CD? Is the Beat Street soundtrack? Why hasn't anyone collected together all those early 12"s from Enjoy and Sugarhill and packaged them all together? Tracking down stuff by the Funky Four + 1 or the Treacherous Three or Busy Bee vs. Kool Moe Dee or early Ramelzee is next to impossible. Actually, maybe we should devote this thread entirely to decent Old School collections, cuz I sure could use some pointers myself.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 23 September 2004 20:54 (twenty-one years ago)

thanks chuck that thread was useful. i'm totally shocked that nobody brought up drum and bass or ukgarage MCing, which is the obvious parallel in my mind to the early we-rap-over-disco stuff. it's just not as fast and furious, most of the time.

also, it's clear that the Wild Style and Beat Street soundtracks are key, and the Sugarhill box certainly gets a lot of shoutouts. what about artist albums?

― Dave M. (rotten03), Friday, 24 September 2004 17:51 (twenty-one years ago)

OTM.

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Friday, 24 September 2004 17:59 (twenty-one years ago)

is La-Di-Da-Di/The Show even available on CD?

there's this handy Rhino comp.

and then, for some of your treacherous three and funky four +1 neews, there's this series of 3 cds...

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drc900/c998/c99861a88n4.jpg

...which rhino might've put out of print, i'm not sure.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 24 September 2004 18:17 (twenty-one years ago)

you can't quite see it in the above jpeg, but that series is kurtis blow presents...

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 24 September 2004 18:19 (twenty-one years ago)

They've reissued a lot of that stuff on vinyl. Dr. Wax in Chicago/Evanston has some reissues from treacherous three, sugarhill records, etc. On CDs its a bit harder to find stuff. Even Grandmaster Flash's 'greatest hits' CD is missing neccessary cuts like "Superrappin' 2"

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Friday, 24 September 2004 18:20 (twenty-one years ago)

argh. might have to abandon my "i will save up for a technics rather than buying a cheap turntable" philosophy.

― Dave M. (rotten03), Friday, 24 September 2004 19:19 (twenty-one years ago)

DON'T. I had that philosophy and I finally got the technics this past summer and it is the COOLEST FUCKING THING EVER. Stick with it.

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Friday, 24 September 2004 19:27 (twenty-one years ago)

there have been Enjoy! collections...

look for the Beat Classics comp, along the lines of my new favorite era...1985, sorta lost between the classic old school stuff(comped a million times) and the famous "Golden Age" which starts like 86/87. Fantasy Three-It's Your Rock, Davey DMX-The DMX will Rock etc.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Friday, 24 September 2004 19:36 (twenty-one years ago)

i used to hang out in the music office at my college radio station way after listening hours were over, trying to do the scribble and the crab with old Xzibit 12"es and homemade paper slipmats. SCRIBBLE!

― Dave M. (rotten03), Friday, 24 September 2004 19:47 (twenty-one years ago)

those Kurtis Blow comps look pretty great (and I like how Volume 1 is all funk/disco - ha!) but Amazon lists them as $60 apiece! And out of stock to boot. LAME.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 24 September 2004 20:04 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah there were at least two Enjoy comps on Japanese P-Vine, but expensive as hell.

Beat Classic was a great selection but they used so many instrumental versions it was kind of irritating. Good liners from Toop though.

the Lookin' For the Perfect Beat and Ol' Skool Butter comps are worth tracking down, too.

― Reed Moore (diamond), Friday, 24 September 2004 20:16 (twenty-one years ago)

The perfect beat ones are great but they're mostly electro/early 80s dance, not a great number of hip-hop tracks on it other than some classic Bam tracks. All the same they are hot and among my most prized CDs.

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Friday, 24 September 2004 20:19 (twenty-one years ago)

see, I just don't understand why it's like this - with everything scattered across widely varying, expensive, and often out-of-print collections. What folks have listed here is often great, but none of this stuff is easy to find or widely available. All the old school stuff I have is on DJ mixes/comps of varying quality. It seems like there's a lot of money to be made here by someone issuing some sort of attempt at a comprehensive collection domestically, on CD, at normal prices.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 24 September 2004 20:31 (twenty-one years ago)

twelve years pass...

batteram owns, heard it the other day (bumper music for local afternoon drive time sports station)

https://youtu.be/We1Q2t0EkxI

is there a thread for old west coast stuff? rhyme syndicate etc?
might have pappawheelie/upper mississippi/D-40/etc dropped a graf or two about it at some point?

kind of brought to mind captain rock's "cosmic blast" (an east coast track)
https://youtu.be/SRy8Z5iZJgs

― brimstead, Sunday, 30 October 2016 01:04 (nine years ago)

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