Hip Hop History Part 3: 1989 to 1991

Part 1 can be found here.
Part 2 can be found here.

We’re really just going along with the steady growth of the musical form here. But things are beginning to split into a few recognizable branches.

• There is mainstream rap, now epitomized by an MC with or without an accompanying DJ. The content is generally self-referential, but the lyrical complexity is steadily increasing.
• “Gangster rap” steps into the spotlight, led by N.W.A. (and a host of imitators), but 2LiveCrew is probably a better exemplar, lacking all of the political nuance of N.W.A. and doubling down on the misogyny and violence. Note the term “Gangster rap” is problematic on its own, but it is in such widespread use that we’ll retain it, albeit in quotations.
• Alternative or underground rap develops fully, led by The Native Tongues (a collection of performers initially brought together by Afrika Bambaataa, and including the Jungle Brothers, De La Soul, Monie Love, A Tribe Called Quest, Black Sheep, and Queen Latifah). Be careful with this one–the tendency is to just call everything that is neither of the prior two categories, alternative. It’s lazy. Useful. But, lazy.

Me, Myself & I by De La Soul (1989). This album broke the mold for hip hop at the time: it was intelligent, intricate in its self-referentiality, playful in its structure and sampling, and stronger in its lyrical content than it was given credit for at the time, 3 Feet High and Rising confirmed there were many ways to approach this rap game.

Fight the Power by Public Enemy (1989). This is, personally, among my least favorite PE songs: it lacks the shocking urgency of their earlier work, and isn’t as coherent as a song. However, it was so impactful that it would be shocking to exclude it, or even to relegate it to DeepCuts. The theme song from Spike Lee‘s Do The Right Thing, the song opened up a debate about the role of systems of authority within minority communities that certainly continues to resonate. It was also highly controversial, much discussed and much scrutinized (for its comments on Elvis and John Wayne as much as those on the police).

Wild Thing by Tone Lōc (1989). Tone Lōc is worth noting as a counter-argument (along with Digital Underground) against the notion of West Coast hip hop as a monolithic, singular thing. Both Wild Thing and Funky Cold Medina were massive commercial hits, and his voice and delivery remain uniquely compelling. There’s not much beyond the party, but there is that.

Ladies First by Queen Latifah & Monie Love (1989). We’ll hear more from both of these artists later, but this song from Queen Latifah’s debut album, All Hail the Queen, was important both for its feminist party anthem quality and for introducing the world to the rapid-fire delivery of the UK born Monie Love.

Sound of Science by Beastie Boys (1989). Most would insist that Paul’s Boutique, Beastie Boys’s masterpiece of a second album, should be represented by a more popular song, like Hey Ladies. And they would not be wrong. But Sound of Science represents what really earned this album respect: it wasn’t the yelling of anthems, it was the sophistication of sampling and the general DJ work. The term turntablism was not in currency at this point (and wouldn’t be for another five years or so), but this is one of the albums that led to the music that led to that phenomenon.

If De La Soul and the Jungle Brothers opened the door for the Native Tongues, A Tribe Called Quest‘s People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm (1990) blew it off its hinges. From the effortless interplay between Q-Tip and Phife Dawg to Shaheed Ali Muhammed‘s propulsive, jazzy beats, this album remains a masterpiece. Picking a single track is challenging, but at the end of the day, while Bonita Applebaum charted slightly higher, we’ll go with Can I Kick It?

The Humpty Dance by Digital Underground (1990). It’s a novelty song, essentially, structured around one of Shock-G‘s many alter egos, Humpty Hump (most of DU is actually a single MC). In some ways, that’s a shame, as Digital Underground had a short run as one of the funkiest, most creative, most intriguing hip hop acts around. They were also the first group to feature a fellow young rapper from Oakland named Tupac Shakur, who you may have heard of.

Mama Said Knock You Out by LL Cool J (1990). You always miss something on this kind of project, and it was a pretty significant oversight to leave LL Cool J out of Part 2 entirely. Mea maxima culpa. He had been around the scene from the very early days–even as a “tween,”–and really created the model for a commercially successful solo rapper, both in style and substance. I Need Love was a crossover hit in 1987 (the fact it was later successfully covered by Irish rock crooner Luka Bloom is not exactly a credit from a hip hop perspective), and really belongs with the other tunes of that year. Mama Said Knock You Out was a massively successful song, and his biggest hit in the early days of hip hop.

Tom’s Diner by Suzanne Vega & DNA (1990). There is so much cool historical detail here … deep breath … Suzanne Vega’s original version of Tom’s Diner, released in 1989, was the song used to test the compression capability of .mp3 files when the format was first invented: the notion was that, if a voice as rich and warm as Vega’s could be compressed without noticeably losing audio quality, anything could. As such, Vega was referred to briefly as the “mother of the .mp3,” which is just kind of cool. Good enough. But then came the British dance duo DNA, who took a beat from the hugely influential British dance collective Soul II Soul‘s Keep on Moving (Don’t Stop) and a creative remix of the song’s non-verbal chorus, and created something new and wonderful … that nobody outside of some German dance halls should have heard. But, when they caught wind of it, instead of the usual response of threatening legal action, Vega’s record label, A&M, instead bought the remix, released it, and spawned a global megahit. Do do do do da do do do …

The Choice is Yours by Black Sheep (1991). Black Sheep served as the uninhibited id of the Native Tongues. Lively, humorous, and unabashed, the ebullient nature of The Choice is Yours proved enduring, to the point where it is often hailed as a “best song of the year.” As far as party jams go, sure.

Mind Playing Tricks on Me by Geto Boys (1991). One of the proofs of the development of hip hop as an art form was the relative explosion of genres and micro-genres in the early 90s. Southern rap–led by Atlanta and Houston, with notable contributions from Memphis and New Orleans–emerged and fractured into things like “Dirty South” and, later, the largely Houston driven movement towards “Chopped & Screwed.” All of that can be traced back to the outrageous, surreal, hard driving and often problematic songs of Houston’s Geto Boys. This was by far their biggest hit.

Set Adrift on Memory Bliss by P.M. Dawn (1991). And now for something completely different … whatever P.M. Dawn were, they were clearly rooted in hip hop, and pointed the way towards an alternate future.

Bouge de La by MC Solaar (1991). Quite arbitrarily, this cut marks the true birth of international hip hop (but see the info on London Posse below), with one of the earliest and most successful French MCs producing a song that was both popular and signaled the possibility of the emergence of non-American hip hop traditions that were more than purely derivative. MC Solaar–born in Senegal–would be a significant figure in France for several decades. (Note that the only version on Spotify is a meh live version. The much better, very smooth, studio version is on the album Qui sème le vent récolte le tempo if you want to track it down.)

Summertime by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince (1991). We end with 1991’s feel good hit by Will Smith (still better known for his TV show at this point). 1991 marked an explosion in the diversity of hip hop; it also marked a point where a strain of pure commercialism emerges, which is both a credit to the music and a complication of the analysis of it as an art form. We’ll discuss that more in part 4.

The Spotify playlist is here: http://bit.ly/hiphophspva-3

DeepCuts

The entire DeepCuts playlist can be found here: http://bit.ly/hiphophspva-deep. This playlist will be added to as each installment is published, and may even include cuts from future installments (consider them free previews of goodness yet to come).

“Songs” appear in quotation marks, Albums in italics without quotations, and Artists in bold.

She isn’t well remembered now, but if you ask who the first dominant female MC was, the answer is probably the British import (and Native Tongues member) Monie Love, whose 1990 album Down to Earth spawned 2 hits (It’s A Shame and Monie in the Middle) and several other notable cuts (Just Don’t Give A Damn and Pups Licking Bone are included here for their innovative bass lines and rhythmic variety).

Boogie Down Productions rolled along with 1990’s Edutainment. “Love’s Gonna Get ‘Cha (Material Love)” was probably the most notable cut, but it also included perhaps the most cogent snippets of the overlap between hip hop and Afrocentrism: see “Exhibit E” for an example.

Tupac Shakur (known at this point as 2Pac) will be represented on the primary lists as befits such a dominant figure in the history of hip hop, but his first single was 1991’s Brenda’s Got A Baby, which signaled his ability to address social issues in his artistry.

It wasn’t just P.M. Dawn taking alternative hip hop in new directions in 1991. Check out both Canadian group Dream Warriors‘ “Wash Your Face In My Sink” and “Do Not Feed the Alligators” and Del The Funky Homosapien‘s (trivia: Del is Ice Cube‘s cousin)  “Mistadobalina” or “Sunny Meadowz” for more.

There had been some hip hop songs in the UK before this, but London Posse‘s 1990 album Gangster Chronicles really marks the beginning of the vibrant hip hop scene in Britain. London Posse was a supergroup of sorts, a gathering of the best of London’s emerging MCs; more importantly, they were (mostly) rapping about life in England and specifically in London and (mostly) doing so in their natural accents. Also of note are Prophets of the City, the first hip hop group to emerge in South Africa.

#Notable Cuts: 1989

“Say No Go” and “Buddy” by De La Soul; “Cha Cha Cha” by MC Lyte; “Funky Cold Medina” and “Cheeba Cheeba” by Tone Lōc; “It’s Funky Enough” by The D.O.C. (The D.O.C. probably deserves more of a mention: a hugely influential force in early “Gangster rap,” he wrote much of the N.W.A. catalog and had many hits of his own before nearly dying in a car crash in which he suffered significant damage to his larynx, essentially derailing his career for many years); “Just A Friend” by Biz Markie.

#Notable Cuts: 1990

People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm by A Tribe Called Quest (look, just go listen to the whole thing OK? If you insist on cuts, let’s go with “Bonita Applebaum,” “Ham ‘n’ Eggs,” “Push It Along,” and “I Left My Wallet in El Segundo”); “Expression” by Salt-N-Pepa; “Live Like The Other Half Do” by London Posse; “Doowatchyoulike,” “Hip Hop Doll,” and “Underwater Rimes (Remix)” by Digital Underground; “Flavor of the Month” by Black Sheep; “Welcome to the Terrordome” and “911 Is A Joke” by Public Enemy; “Dallah Flet” by Prophets of the City.

#Notable Cuts: 1991

“O.P.P” by Naughty By Nature; “Let’s Talk About Sex” by Salt-N-Pepa; “No Nose Job” by Digital Underground; “Can’t Truss It” by Public Enemy; “Juice (Know the Ledge)” by Eric B. & Rakim; “Excursions” by A Tribe Called Quest.

{Continue on to Part 4}