Starting off the week with a new episode of your favorite podcast, Hip-Hop Made, Femi Redwood is hitting you with the last episode on the birth of Hip-Hop series.
LISTEN NOW: The Birth of Hip-Hop: Part 3 - Hip-Hop Made
Closing out how Hip-Hop was born, Femi continues her conversation with a plethora of notable names in the game of Hip-Hop like MTV Yo!’s Ed Lover, Run DMC’s Darryl McDaniels and Rap City’s Big Tigger to talk about many of Hip-Hop’s firsts as well as the events and movements from the 80s that impact Hip-Hop today.
Taking things back to 1981, Redwood shares that to “many people a rapper is not an MC unless they can hold their own going bar for bar in a freestyle battle.” While most battles were all about who could get the crowd the most hype, things changed that year with the birth of battle rap.
Kool Moe Dee, a member of the Treacherous Three, changed the focus of battle rap at a nightclub club known as Harlem World, as he battled Busy Bee Staski, another well known MC.
While Ed Lover wasn’t there that night, he did hear a tape and described it as “the most disrespectful thing [he’d] ever heard.”
But where did the term Hip-Hop come from? Hip-Hop historian Rich Nice explained it as this: “The beginning of the term Hip-Hop, Lovebug Startski and Keef Cowboy and part of the conversation is, they had a friend that was leaving for the services,” mocking the historical military marching song and mirroring the “left-left-left-right-left” cadence they came up with hip-hop-hip and it eventually took off.
The term became recognized in 1982 when the Village Voice published an article using Hip-Hop, this was “the first time Hip-Hop was used in a major media publication.”
Yet, it was in 1981 that an MC would perform on national television on Saturday Night Live. The group was Funky Four Plus One and a part of this group was one of the first female MCs– Sha-Rock, only 19 at the time she was considered the “mother of the mic.”
Keeping with the theme of firsts, McDaniels spoke on the formation of the rap group, Run DMC and being one of the first rap groups to secure an endorsement deal with a major brand.
After performing their legendary song, “My Adidas,” an Adidas executive realized the potential and Run DMC secured a $1 million deal. “We fought so hard to get any kind of recognition from big corporations back then. There is no artist-sneaker deal without Run DMC,” Big Tigger said, recalling this monumental event.
But it wasn’t always peaches and cream when it came to Hip-Hop. There was a struggle trying to get Hip-Hop recognized in mainstream media, especially in award shows like the GRAMMYs.
For several years, there was no rap category at the GRAMMYs even though it had proven to be a well-deserved, recognized category.
It wasn’t until 1989, that the GRAMMYs made a rap category, but would not televise that portion of the award ceremony. This year, Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff won the award but did not accept the award because they wouldn’t give it to them on television. Many other artists went on to boycott the award show like LL Cool J and Salt-N-Pepa.
You can listen to the full episode of Hip-Hop Made above, and go to audacy.com/hiphopmade for more from our 50th anniversary of Hip-Hop celebration.
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