RFI: What was the first notable downtempo/"chillout" hip-hop track?

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I almost take it for granted whenever I listen to something like "Mind Playin' Tricks on Me" or "Can I Live" or "The Score" and the like, but I know that moody, downtempo or mid-tempo hip-hop with a kind of mellow or melancholy feel was almost unheard of for most of the '80s. What was the first real example of this kind of style?

― Stupornaut (natepatrin), Monday, 21 March 2005 05:18 (twenty-one years ago)

BDP -- Love's Gonna Getcha

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Monday, 21 March 2005 05:21 (twenty-one years ago)

EPMD - Please Listen to My Demo

― tremendoid (tremendoid), Monday, 21 March 2005 05:59 (twenty-one years ago)

"The Message," if its electro-isms aren't too far out of the way of your definition here. Or maybe "Beat Bop."

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Monday, 21 March 2005 06:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Matos OTM (even though I had never really thought about "The Message" that way until Chang's book.)

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 21 March 2005 06:57 (twenty-one years ago)

"The Message"'s biggest contribution to hip-hop was taking the tempo way down: discuss.

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Monday, 21 March 2005 06:59 (twenty-one years ago)

It's pretty big. It probably outweighs the serious music that's okay for intellectual white people to like thing.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 21 March 2005 07:03 (twenty-one years ago)

that's sort of faulty, though, because intellectual white people did like hip-hop prior to it--"The Breaks" won P&J's singles poll in '80 and "That's the Joint" was 9th in '81. they just didn't like it because it was serious.

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Monday, 21 March 2005 07:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, I realize that. I'm trying to put into words exactly what the end "The Message" was, but maybe I am overinflating its importance. It certainly seems now like the first uber-canonized hip hop track (far more so than "That's The Joint" or even "Planet Rock") but maybe I am just overreading its effect.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 21 March 2005 07:17 (twenty-one years ago)

no, that's accurate. I'm just being pedantic. what's amazing to me is that I can still listen to and enjoy "The Message" despite all that baggage.

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Monday, 21 March 2005 07:25 (twenty-one years ago)

I have no idea why "The Message" slipped my mind, except that maybe (as mentioned) it had too much "oomph" to it.

― Stupornaut (natepatrin), Monday, 21 March 2005 15:25 (twenty-one years ago)

isnt the message too spiky and shiny to be thought of as chillout?

― charltonlido (gareth), Monday, 21 March 2005 15:30 (twenty-one years ago)

I always thought some tracks on the Melody Nelson album by Serge Gainsborough could be thought of as proto trip-hop (if not hiphop)

― Bidfurd, Monday, 21 March 2005 15:41 (twenty-one years ago)

I'd vote for "Beat Bop" in terms of tempo. Its message (pardon the pun) seems pretty fierce for chillout, though. Rammel is chillin in the depths of hell but K-Rob's spiel sounds proto-gangtser to me.

― lovebug starski (lovebug starski), Monday, 21 March 2005 15:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Too $hort wasn't the originator, but he reigns supreme over all hip-hop that is mellow.

― DJ Face Down in the River (ADK), Monday, 21 March 2005 15:45 (twenty-one years ago)

I nominate Digital Underground's "Freaks of the Industry."

― ffirehorse (firehorse), Monday, 21 March 2005 16:15 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm glad someone mentioned Too $hort, that would be my vote for most mellow hip hop. some of that sh#t is like 70 bpms and he don't stop rappin. it's music to play really loud in your car. or some tracks from Big Daddy Kane's 1st LPs. BiZ did a lot of slower tracks too. Most of the tracks mentioned like the Message or Beat Bop seem too New York in your face style to be considered chillout. the Message is still like 100bpms, so technically it's not that slow. great track though. And don't forget the Pharcyde "passin me by". not the 1st but it's solid.

― Miguelito, Monday, 21 March 2005 17:47 (twenty-one years ago)

"Set It Off" Strafe (1985)

― lovebug starski (lovebug starski), Monday, 21 March 2005 20:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Set Adrift on Memory Bliss?

(sidenote - wtf is a "neutron fan"?)

― Basically G for ages (Lynskey), Monday, 21 March 2005 20:34 (twenty-one years ago)

I was thinking maybe Slick Rick or EPMD or ... Schooly D's "Saturday Night" is kind of mellow isnt it? Jungle Bros? I haven't heard the first Jungle Bros LP in like 3 years.

― deej., Monday, 21 March 2005 20:47 (twenty-one years ago)

LL's "I Need Love" was downtempo long before "Memory Bliss" ...

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Monday, 21 March 2005 20:56 (twenty-one years ago)

"beat bop" and "the message" do make sense, in a way, but they never really struck me as ballads in any way (they both PUSH way too hard to feel like a chillout)....what year was "hey love" by king sun d moet or whatever his name was? that one sticks in my head, but i doubt it was the first ballad per se either (possibly not even before "i need love" by l.l. cool j, come to think of it)

xp!

― xhuxk, Monday, 21 March 2005 20:57 (twenty-one years ago)

LL Cool J claimed in interviews back in the day that he "invented ballad rap" w/ "I Need Love" FWIW

― lovebug starski (lovebug starski), Monday, 21 March 2005 21:00 (twenty-one years ago)

i do, agree, though, with those who say that one big deal about "the message" is that it let hip-hop push less than much hip-hop previously had, no question there (mainly, it took the best part of "superrappin", slowed it down, and put neon lights around it saying, "look at us, we're talking about relevant stuff here." when the relevant stuff was already there in the first place.) (And not to blow my horn or anything, because I'm not sure when Jeff Chang came up with the idea, but I'd already said it in my own second book, published eight years ago: "'The Message''s message was immeasurably more effective in its 'Superrappin'' version, when its rhythm was looser and faster, more disco.")

― xhuxk, Monday, 21 March 2005 21:05 (twenty-one years ago)

What part of "Superrapin'" are you referring to? Mel's line "I knew I could make myself somebody" = "The Message" ? I'm confused. Also I think Robt Xgau wrote in the early 90s that its synth line might be the most innovative/influential aspect of "The Message."

― lovebug starski (lovebug starski), Monday, 21 March 2005 22:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, "best part" might be an exagerration, come to think of it.

Basically, I mean Melle Mel's verse: "A child is born with no state of mind, blind to the ways of mankind, God's smiling on you but he's frowning too, 'cause only God knows what you go through, you grow in the ghetto livin' second-rate..." etc etc etc (that's from the top of my head, so forgive me if I got a word or two wrong.)

― xhuxk, Monday, 21 March 2005 22:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Remember, though, there were TWO "Superrapin'"s before "The Message"; Melle Mel's verse is only in the first one, if I remember right.

― xhuxk, Monday, 21 March 2005 22:32 (twenty-one years ago)

AHA! The second version must be on the Best of Enjoy Records CD. Cause I recently listened to it and actually had this vague feeling like "something's missing." FWIW "SR" might be my favorite Flash.

― lovebug starski (lovebug starski), Monday, 21 March 2005 22:43 (twenty-one years ago)

"best part" might not be an exaggeration, that verse is intense in any version.

― lovebug starski (lovebug starski), Monday, 21 March 2005 22:50 (twenty-one years ago)

what year was "hey love" by king sun d moet or whatever his name was?

"Hey Love" (based on Art Of Noise "Moments In Love") was Spring 87, so ahead of "I Need Love" which came out two or three months later. It was almost certainly the first properly chilled-out hip-hop track I'd heard.

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 10:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Cool!...so does that mean I win???

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 22 March 2005 17:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five: "It's a Shame (Mt. Airy Groove)."

― ffirehorse (firehorse), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 22:18 (twenty-one years ago)

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