The come up An oral history of the rise of hip-hop

Jonathan P. D. Abrams, 1984-

Book - 2022

"The essential oral history of hip-hop, from its origins on the playgrounds of the Bronx to its reign as the most powerful force in pop culture-from the award-winning journalist behind All the Pieces Matter, the New York Times bestselling oral history of The Wire. The music that we would later know as hip-hop was born at a party in the Bronx in the summer of 1973. Now, fifty years later, it's the most popular genre in America and its electric impact on contemporary music is likened to that of jazz on the first half of the twentieth century. And yet, despite its tremendous influence, the voices of many of hip-hop's pioneers have never been thoroughly catalogued-and some are at risk of being lost forever. Now, in The Come Up, J...onathan Abrams offers the most comprehensive account so far of hip-hop's rise, told in the voices of the people who made it happen. Abrams traces how the genre grew out of the resourcefulness of an overlooked population amid the decay of the South Bronx, and from there how it overflowed into the other boroughs and then across the nation-from parks onto vinyl, below to the Mason-Dixon line, to the West Coast through gangster rap and G-funk, and then across generations. In more than 300 interviews conducted over three years, Abrams has captured the stories of the DJs, label executives, producers, and artists who both witnessed and made the history of hip-hop. He has on record Grandmaster Caz detailing hip-hop's infancy, Edward "Duke Bootee" Fletcher describing the origins of "The Message," DMC narrating his introduction of hip-hop to the mainstream, Ice Cube recounting N.W.A's breakthrough and breakup, Kool Moe Dee elaborating on his Grammys boycott, and many more key players. And he has conveyed with singular vividness the drive, the stakes, and the relentless creativity that ignited one of the greatest revolutions in modern music. The Come Up is an important contribution to the historical record and an exhilarating behind-the-scenes account of how hip-hop came to rule the world"--

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Subjects
Genres
oral histories (literary works)
Criticism, interpretation, etc
Interviews
Oral histories
Music criticism and reviews
Published
New York : Crown, an imprint of Random House 2022.
Language
English
Main Author
Jonathan P. D. Abrams, 1984- (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
xiv, 528 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 25 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9781984825131
  • Author's note
  • Lemonade from lemons: Bronx, New York 1973-1979
  • The right menu: New York City 1978-1981
  • What in the world is this?: Englewood, New Jersey; New York City 1979-1982
  • A real mix: New York City 1979-1983
  • Never been the same: New York City 1983-2000
  • Completely different nations: Los Angeles 1983-1986
  • Atoms smashing: Long Island, New York 1985-1992
  • A gumbo of magnificence: New York City 1979-1988
  • Reinventing the wheel: New York City and New Jersey 1986-1996
  • Like a blueberry: Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Compton, New York City 1985-1995
  • Like Coachella in the studio: New York City 1988-1994
  • Parental Advisory: Riverside, California; Miami 1984-2003
  • Certain pockets: Atlanta, Houston, Memphis, New Orleans 1982-1995
  • Out hustling: The Bay area 1983-2006
  • Pull quote: Beverly Hills 1992
  • A higher level of execution: Los Angeles 1992-1993
  • Raising the bar: New York City 1993-2003
  • The South got something to say: Atlanta, Houston, Memphis, New Orleans, Virginia 1995-present
  • That stuck with me: Oakland, Los Angeles, New York 1991-1997
  • The consciousness: The Midwest 1988-2010
  • Take it and flip it
  • The recognition that it deserves
  • Thank God because of hip-hop.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

New York Times reporter Abrams (Boys Among Men) charts hip-hop's explosive growth in this kaleidoscopic oral history. Among those interviewed are superstars DMC, both Ice T and Cube, Professor Griff, and impresario Russell Simmons, as well as less well-known producers, agents, and recording engineers. Their loose-limbed recollections cover five decades, from the genre's origins in 1970s Bronx street parties where DJs used multiple turntables to lay down beats--after hot-wiring lampposts to power their sound systems--through such watersheds as Public Enemy's innovations in political rap, N.W.A.'s popularization of militant gangsta rap, and the feud between West Coast and East Coast hip-hop labels that may have precipitated the murders of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. The grassroots ferment of hip-hop brewed social networks that elevated unknowns to stardom--"I went and picked him up and smoked a bunch of weed and he got on the mic and his voice sounded incredible," label exec Mike Ross recalls of discovering Tone Loc--along with tensions between art and commerce. ("That's the saddest state of hip-hop," muses pioneering gangsta rapper Schoolly D, "everything is about money.") This entertaining conversation will captivate hip-hop heads. Agent: Dan Greenberg, Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency. (Oct.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Firsthand accounts from more than 300 interviewees provide a vivid picture of how the sound of hip-hop changes with the times and regions in Abrams's (All the Pieces Matter) essential oral history of the genre. Each chapter presents a time capsule of specific locations, along with in-depth discussions about artists, producers and record labels that some interviewees feel heavily impacted the music, including Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, DJ Marley Marl, N.W.A., and various people at Def Jam Recordings. Most of the conversations have a laid-back, talking-among-friends vibe. Backstories on seminal songs and microbiographies of artists and DJs from the South and Midwest contribute to a reminiscent feel. One thing absent, however, is more information about women rappers. The book briefly mentions MC Lyte, Salt-N-Pepa, and Queen Latifah, among others, but rarely discusses them in more detail. As a whole, however, this oral history on the evolution of hip-hop during its first 50 years is a labor of love and respect. Includes a selected bibliography. VERDICT Recommended for music historians, hip-hop fans, and casual listeners who want to add to their playlists.--Anjelica Rufus-Barnes

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

An uneven oral history of the early development of a vital musical genre. Readers may expect more from a writer with the resume of Abrams, a well-known New York Times reporter and author of Boys Among Men, a compelling book about top-flight basketball players going from high school straight to the NBA, and All the Pieces Matter, an insightful oral history of The Wire. His latest has an intriguing premise: the germination and proliferation of hip-hop and how rappers became globally recognized superstars. While Abrams obviously couldn't talk to his hero, the late Tupac Shakur, so many of the artists that he cites as essential--from DJ Kool Herc, who is credited as the pioneer of the musical style, to Rakim and Public Enemy's Chuck D, all mentioned throughout the book--are still around and offering interviews. Not having any input from them--not to mention Jay-Z, Queen Latifah, Nas, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, and numerous other significant figures and groups--is problematic. (Much of the information about DLS and ATCQ comes from the author's interviews with the Jungle Brothers, who influenced both collectives, and Muhammad Islam, the security manager for ATCQ.) What makes the omissions more glaring is that when Abrams does have interviews with the artists involved, the narrative is an entertaining treat for fans--e.g., Ice-T talking about one of his earliest singles or Ice Cube talking about how he decided to move forward with N.W.A.'s most controversial songs. As Abrams writes about the incendiary "Fuck Tha Police," though it "provoked consternation among police supporters, the song was a cathartic expression of protest for many people whose lives had been touched by negative encounters with law enforcement." Unfortunately, these kinds of insightful segments are few and far between in this sprawling text, which skids abruptly to a stop with a few random thoughts about the meaning of hip-hop. A great concept receives a middling treatment. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Lemonade from Lemons Bronx, New York 1973-­1979 Clive Campbell migrated as a child with his family from Jamaica to the United States in the late 1960s, leaving one country roiled by political instability for another. In Kingston, Campbell had become infatuated with the reggae and dub music that blared from giant portable sound systems, and DJs who toasted or talked over instrumental tracks. Campbell arrived in the Bronx during the reign of feel-­good disco music, which intersected with the civil rights era and the dire financial straits of a New York City that was facing a declining population and labor unrest. Campbell involved himself in the city's emerging graffiti scene--­which had arrived after originating in Philadelphia--­and assumed the tag name Kool Herc. On August 11, 1973, Campbell hosted a back-­to-­school fundraising party for his sister, Cindy, at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the West Bronx--­and he is widely credited with birthing hip-­hop on that day. By then, the teenaged Campbell had assembled his own massive sound system, along with an eclectic record collection that included selections from James Brown and the Incredible Bongo Band. At the party, before an appreciative audience of neighborhood teenagers, DJ Kool Herc performed his "Merry-­Go-­Round" technique of isolating and prolonging the breakbeat sections of songs (the drum patterns used in interludes--­breaks--­between sections of melody) by switching between two record players. DJ Kool Herc became a folk hero in the Bronx as his parties attracted larger and larger crowds. He hosted popular block parties and created Kool Herc & the Herculoids with Clark Kent. Acrobatic dancers known as b-­boys, b-­girls, and breakers (the media eventually labeled them as breakdancers, a term still in wide circulation today) flocked to DJ Kool Herc's parties to compete in dance circles--­no longer having to wait out lengthy songs for a brief moment to get down. DJ Kool Herc enlisted the help of his friend Coke La Rock, regarded as hip-­hop's first MC, as La Rock adapted toasting by shouting out the names of friends and encouraging partygoers to dance. In time, Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash joined DJ Kool Herc as Bronx DJs who forged groundbreaking contributions and laid the foundation for hip-­hop to flourish, spread, and evolve. DJ Charlie Chase (Cold Crush Brothers): The Bronx [in the late 1960s and '70s] was the epicenter for poverty, the epicenter for kids who were full of energy, who didn't know what to do with it, didn't have a lot of activities, didn't have role models. MC Debbie D (artist): The backdrop to the South Bronx is poverty-­stricken--­crime, gangs, slumlords, abandoned buildings everywhere. So they had coined the Bronx "The Bronx Is Burning." And they wasn't putting money into safe havens for young people. So, with the music outside, you went to a jam, there's a thousand kids standing there. We ain't got nothing else to do. Easy A.D. (Cold Crush Brothers): We were creating something that took up our time and made us feel good and brought us together. You have to imagine walking out your house every day and seeing abandoned cars burnt up, empty buildings, and you're going to elementary school. Michael Holman (journalist): A lot of young people are going downtown to see major live acts like [Patti] LaBelle, James Brown, Funkadelic, as well as going to the famous discos, wearing their best clothes, doing the latest dances, and leaving those young punks and all the troubles in the neighborhood behind. What's left behind is an audience of younger people, teenagers who can do all the dances--­hell, sometimes they're the originators and are the best dancers. Kurtis Blow (artist, producer): A big part of hip-­hop is breakdancing, b-­boying. The dance was around before hip-­hop, the actual dance style was developed from playing soul music and that playlist that [Kool Herc used]. Grandmaster Caz (Cold Crush Brothers): Herc was a mythical figure in the neighborhood. You heard about him before you saw him. Sadat X (artist, Brand Nubian): I remember Herc being this larger-­than-­life figure, just muscles, with the glasses on. Herc was the commander, putting people in place. MC Debbie D (artist): When Kool Herc comes out and he starts playing music and then other notable DJs get involved--­[Afrika] Bambaataa, [Grandmaster] Flash, L Brothers--­and they start playing their music. We're all going to the jams. Kurtis Blow (artist, producer): He played the music that we wanted to hear. There was a special playlist of b-­boy songs, breakdance songs--­ I can rename right now about ten of them: "Give It Up or Turnit a Loose" by James Brown, "Get Into Something" by the Isley Brothers, "Listen to Me" by Baby Huey, "Melting Pot" by Booker T. & the M.G.'s. You got "Scorpio" by Dennis Coffey and the Detroit Guitar Band. "Shaft in Africa." "Apache" by Michael Viner's Incredible Bongo Band. A couple more James Brown songs you can put in there like "Soul Power" and "Sex Machine" and "Escapism," "Make It Funky"--­songs like that. When you playing these songs, this is the time for the b-­boys to do their thing, to create circles of people around them. People were competing inside that circle, they were doing acrobatics and flips and twists and all kinds of routines, and going down to the floor doing the splits like James Brown, doing footwork, like the best dancers I've ever seen. So that was a typical Kool Herc party, and the music was incredible. And of course, he was on the microphone with an echo chamber, "Young ladies, don't hurt nobody-­body-­body. It's Kool Herc-Herc-­Herc. Herculoids-­loids-­loids. Going down to the last stop-­stop-­stop-­stop." It was mystical and magical at the same time. It was disco, but it was ghetto disco. Rahiem (Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five): It was his playlist that all of the other DJs who aspired to reach his level at the time in the Bronx played. That was Kool Herc's contribution to hip-hop, his playlist. What would become known as hip-­hop sprang from a foundation of DJs with powerful sound systems who operated around the same time as DJ Kool Herc in the early 1970s. Disco King Mario, who lived one floor above Paradise Gray, who would himself go on to help create X Clan, in the Bronxdale Houses projects, threw some of hip-­hop's earliest jams with his Chuck Chuck City crew. Disco King Mario and Afrika Bambaataa were both members of the Black Spades gang, and Mario lent equipment for some of Bambaataa's earliest sets. Pete DJ Jones, a transplant from North Carolina, was popular in Manhattan club circles. He was the first DJ who many, including Kurtis Blow, ever witnessed working two turntables and duplicate copies of the same record, which become the foundation for DJing, extending the breaks of funk and soul songs. Pete DJ Jones also served as a mentor to Grandmaster Flash. Brooklyn's Grandmaster Flowers is recognized as one of the earliest pioneers of hip-­hop for mixing funk and disco records in sequence and throwing massive block parties. Flowers even opened for James Brown at Yankee Stadium in 1969. They joined others, like Maboya and DJ Plummer, in laying a blueprint for hip-­hop to emerge, but never reaping the attention, adulation, or financial windfall that followed. Daddy-­O (artist, producer, Stetsasonic): I think sometimes people think that the first time that equipment came out and people plugged into the streetlamps, it was hip-­hop. That's not true. The first time you'd seen the sound systems, it was people playing disco: Grandmaster Flowers, my boy Pete DJ Jones. And it was the reggae guys that was playing all the Lone Ranger stuff, the Sly & Robbie stuff, Bob Marley and the Wailers. Those were the first sound systems you saw on the street, was disco and reggae sound systems. Paradise Gray (manager of the Latin Quarter, X Clan): I call my mother the Mother of Hip-­Hop, because my first crate of records came from my living room. She was the one that introduced me to George Clinton, James Brown, Maceo [Parker], Bootsy [Collins], Sly and the Family Stone. So, a bunch of the breakbeats. When I finally heard Herc and Flowers and Bam and all of these guys playing the breakbeats, I had a whole bunch of those records already. DJ Mister Cee (producer): That was the time when a lot of DJs was getting into the craft of DJing and buying them big kick-­ass speakers--­and I'm saying "kick-­ass" because there used to be a sticker on the speaker that said "Kick Ass." That was around that time that DJs would play outside and break into a lamppost. Nowadays, there's an outlet in there. Back then, we would break into the lamppost and splice the wires up and connect to an extension cord. That's how we would power up. Excerpted from The Come Up: An Oral History of the Rise of Hip-Hop by Jonathan Abrams All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.