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Rap and Hip Hop: Rap, recognizable as rhythmic spoken prose usually performed over beat-driven music, derives from older African-American oral traditions. The term “hip hop,” often used synonymously with rap and rap-influenced rhythm and blues music, specifically refers to a distinct urban cultural movement that began in New York City during the late 1970s. Originally involving mainly black “rappers” (rap performers), graffiti artists, “turntablists” (turntable DJs), and break dancers, hip hop emerged from the funk and disco culture prevalent at that time. Hip hop turntablists blended multiple songs using two turntables to create an array of innovative sonic effects. Techniques such as “needle dropping” (which allowed DJs to prolong drum breaks) and “scratching” (moving a record back and forth against the turntable’s needle) helped provide the unique new hip hop sound.
Jamaican immigrant, DJ Kool Herc, was the first major hip hop artist to emerge in the late 1970s. Based in the Bronx section of New York City, Kool Herc began taking his turntables to house parties and clubs, where dancers started developing innovative new dance steps to accompany Herc’s extended drum breaks. This new style of dancing, known as “break dancing,” soon spread among local youth and became associated with the growing amateur graffiti art movement among the city’s young, urban population. Because he often spoke in rhythm over his musical tracks, Kool Herc helped originate modern rap, as well. Though it became an integral part of the new hip hop culture, rap actually was rooted in such older African-American musical traditions as spoken blues, “jive” talk, and a rhythmic Jamaican form of speech known as “toasting.”
The early hip hop culture in New York led to a proliferation of underground DJs and rappers in the area, but the 1979 release of the song Rapper’s Delight by the Sugarhill Gang brought both rap and hip hop to national attention. The Sugarhill Gang’s groundbreaking single went to the top of the charts and found an audience with urban youth throughout the country. Other early rappers, such as Kurtis Blow and Grandmaster Flash, soon released best-selling albums and helped ensure a devoted following for the new genre. Because most rap songs told of the difficulties of urban street life, they provided a more realistic soundtrack for working-class youths than did mainstream pop music.
New York continued to dominate the hip hop movement well into the 1980s, with acts such as Run DMC, LL Cool J, Public Enemy, and the Beastie Boys, a trio of white rappers who garnered a following outside the predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods where hip hop was most popular. Rap’s national popularity soon spread as such television networks as MTV and BET began to broadcast hip hop programming as a way to capitalize on the music’s growing popularity among youth of all ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a new sub-genre of rap emerged known as “gangsta rap.” This more hard edged style appealed directly to inner city black and Hispanic males with tales of gang life, drug use, and hard crime. The 1989 release of the album Straight Outta Compton by the Los Angeles group Niggaz with Attitude (NWA) ushered in an era of explicit lyrics and violent themes that expressed the frustrations many urban ethnic minorities experienced in relation to a lack of educational and employment opportunities. Gangsta rappers, such as California’s Ice T, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Snoop Doggy Dog, and Tupac Shakur, perfected a West Coast style of hard rap that rivaled the East Coast sounds of Schoolly D, Public Enemy, Nas, and Biggie Smalls. Exceptionally violent and explicit lyrics proved to be very marketable, and, by the late 1990s, rap and hip hop records out-sold all other forms of popular music.
Some of the first major hip hop artists from Texas got their start in the “gangsta” genre. Enthralled with the budding West Coast style of gangsta rap, entrepreneurs James Smith and Cliff Blodget started the Houston-based Rap-A-Lot Records in 1985. The label intentionally sought out the most graphically explicit rappers in the city, and, by 1988, had released an album by the local group the Geto Boys. The Geto Boys, who soon became known for their unabashed drug and violence-laden lyrics, consisted of Jamaican-born Bushwick Bill (Richard Shaw), Fifth Ward native Willie D (Willie Dennis), and South Acre’s Scarface (Brad Jordan.) The Geto Boys and Rap-A-Lot Records released a few moderately successful albums in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but when James Smith negotiated a distribution deal with Priority Records in 1991, the Geto Boys’ album We Can’t Be Stopped became a national hit. The group’s notoriety increased dramatically in light of the growing national debate over the social dangers of gangsta rap. With the success of We Can’t be Stopped, several personnel from the Rap-A-Lot label left to try their own fortunes in the business. Producer and engineer Doug King opened Newstyle Records in Houston, and Blodget started Flash Point Records in Austin.
Several other smaller labels appeared in Austin, Dallas, and elsewhere, but “H-town,”as Houston was called, remained the epicenter of hip hop and rap in Texas. Throughout the 1990s, the Geto Boys continued to release hit albums, both individually and together as a group, including 1993’s Till Death Do Us Part and Scarface’s 1993 The World is Yours. As the band gained greater international popularity, scores of other rappers and producers emerged, hoping to duplicate the success of the Geto Boys and Rap-A-Lot. Local production studios, distribution houses, packaging companies, design firms, and a radio station supportive of local artists, 97.9 The Box, helped contribute to a flourishing Houston hip hop scene, independent of most major record labels.
This environment attracted rappers from all over Harris County and the surrounding area, but, for most, success beyond the local market was limited. Port Arthur natives Bun-B (Bernard Freeman) and Pimp-C (Chad Butler) formed the Underground Kingz (UGK) in the 1980s but were unable to produce a major success until 1996’s Ridin’ Dirty. Immensely popular in the Houston Area, UGK took their hard raps to the forefront of the national stage with cameo appearances on two major albums in 2000– Jay-z’s Vol. 3: Life and Times of S. Carter and Three Six Mafia’s When the Smoke Clears. New York rap mogul Jay-z personally invited UGK to appear on his anthem “Big Pimpin’” and Memphis powerhouse Three Six Mafia joined with the Texans in their track “Sippin on Some Sizzurp,” an ode to the codeine infused promethezene cough syrup popularized by Houston rappers in the 1990s. While not releasing any platinum-certified albums themselves, UGK helped promote the Houston-area rap style on two of the most popular rap albums of the year, energizing the field of Houston hip hop talent and attracting more national interest to the region.
In addition to the Geto Boys and UGK, the 1990s brought widespread attention to such Houston rappers as South Park Mexican (SPM) and Lil’ Troy gain some national attention. In the mid-1990s a pioneering artist, DJ Screw (Robert Davis from Bastrop, Texas) introduced an entirely new sub-genre of rap which revolutionized the entire rap industry. Screw’s signature technique involved “screwing down” the tempo of a given song for the entire duration of the track and repeating selected drum kicks and phrases. This style eventually became known as “screwed and chopped.” As demand for this new sound skyrocketed, Screw opened Screwed Up Records and Tapes on Cullen Boulevard in south Houston. Although they initially received little attention outside of Houston, “screw tapes” eventually became one of the most influential innovations in rap. DJ Screw assembled a group of rappers, known as the Screwed Up Click (SUC), which consisted of members from Everyday Street Gangster (E.S.G.), Fat Pat, Big Pokey, and Lil’ Keke. The music they produced came to be known locally as “riding music,” suitable for cruising slowly around the vast sprawl of Houston, and especially favorable for listening to while ingesting “lean,” or the prescription cough syrup found in abundance on the streets.
The excitement surrounding the rapid development of the Texas rap scene was marred, however, by two untimely deaths. Fat Pat, perhaps the most promising rapper in the SUC, was shot dead while collecting money from a show promoter in 1998, and DJ Screw died in 2000 of a drug overdose.
DJ Screw’s innovative “screwed and chopped music” became nationally popular following his death due mainly to the efforts of a North Houston DJ named Michael “5000” Watts. Watts’s record label, Swisha House Records, popularized the style outside of Houston by aggressively marketing their mixtapes throughout the South. Watts perfected Screw’s “chop” technique and recruited the most innovative and exciting rappers in Houston to join Swisha House. The release of the 2005 single “Still Tippin’” featuring the three most prominent Swisha House alumni, Mike Jones, Slim Thug, and Paul Wall, quickly garnered national attention. In 2006, Jones, Slim Thug, and Wall each released national debut albums, including Who is Mike Jones?, Already Platinum, and The People’s Champ, which have all been certified platinum. Currently, Texas continues to produce a number of young rap artists who blend a variety of regional styles to help contribute to the ongoing evolution of this genre.
Joseph A. Orbock
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