From: madpit@athena.mit.edu (Douglas R. Pitters)
Subject: Re: Rap vs. Hip Hop
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 23:14:32 GMT

In article <12073.29ec3719@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu>, jwilson@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu writes:
|> In article <1992Apr15.065139.15756@athena.mit.edu>, madpit@athena.mit.edu (Douglas R. Pitters) writes:
|> > Hip-Hop is a specific genre of rap.
|> 
|> Well....I'd have to disagree with you here.  What about all them old school
|> shits like "Planet Rock" (112), Planet Patrol (115-124), the Egyptian Lover
|> (Fast, fast, fast!), the Jonzun Crew, I could go on and on.  That, to me, was
|> the beginning of the hip-hop movement.  I mean I heard "Grand Master Flash on
|> the Wheels of Steel" and I BUGGED!!  A lot of that stuff was instrumental, and
|> it was HYPED!  Maybe a little oversynthesized (but everything was then).  Then
|> again, I was pumpin' DEVO and the B-52's too.  I don't think I see hip-hop as
|> being a part of rap.  HH was ALWAYS there!!  Have you ever seen the movie
|> "Basket Case"?  Rap's like this huge ugly tumor, an offshoot of the movement. 
|> In a way, I'm happy that the mainstream media has taken "rap" and accepts it as
|> being "down".  Maybe they'll leave our shit alone.  There's always that danger
|> tho of it being taken and abused like so much "original" shit has been.  I'll
|> accept rap only in the D.O.C.'s terms; "..It's Rhythmic American Poetry..." 
|> Hip-hop is probably "smaller" than rap, in terms of what's being thrown at us
|> these days.  You could loosely call it a more exclusive type of rap music, for
|> us dyope connissuers(?), but h-h is the fundamental still.
|> 
|> ==DJ Phyz 	"...don't drink Sanka won't sink like a tanker knock the boots
|> 		 of a slim n' Casablanca den I tank `er..."
|> 
|>                                                 GP Maxwell, good to the drop!! 

	Believe it or not, I stand by my first arguments.  And Believe it
or not, We are actually saying the SAME thing :-) 

	Don't doubt for a second that I would sleep Afrika Bambatta, Grand
Master Flash, Sugar Hill Gang, etc.  But back then, they were the *only*
ones doing what they were doing (including all the ones you mentioned too)
We didn't have to differentiate, it was all the same thing.  We all called
it rap.  It was it's own form of music, so didn't need any specific names.

But then, as what happened with jazz, the wannabees rolled on the scene, and
started to reproduce, to the best (or worst) of their ability, the work
of the original rappers.  So, like jazz, the rap form became much more
underground, in the form known as hip-hop, very much like be-bop in the
jazz days.  It didn't feature disco breaks like the old rap did, but it
feature more samples, slower, more James Brownish beats.  I was only
10 or 11 at this time, so I can't give you good examples, but it was alot
different from what started out. I just remember that that was right about
the  time when DJ Red Alert starting boosting props from Mr. Magic of WBLS
(remember him?)

Anyway, now, every five and dime store has a rapper, and, just like you said
we like to use the term hip-hop to show seperatism from the mainstream world.

That's a bit arrogant, isn't it?

But hip-hop connosieurs have never been known for their humility.. :-)



 			doug nice


 			Again.  It is the legend.


PS.  To be a bit more controversial, I'd like to mention that I don't
call music produced by Public Enemy, Paris, Ice-T and/or Ice Cube
to be hip-hop. Neither do I call Kid 'N Play stuff hip-hop.  I call
the former rap, and the latter go-go style.  Then there's all this
BBD sounding stuff, like Wrecks-N-Effects, which I call New Jack.  it does
involve rap, but in the circles that I traveled in, it wasn't called hip-hop.