Live data from Hacker News

Hip hop historians who are racing to preserve its story

wired.com

51–60 of 128 posts

Re: Hip hop historians who are racing to preserve its story

#51
post #29

I've thought about this quite a bit. I'm a big fan of the record label Bear Family, a German label that specializes in releasing boxsets from R&B/Rock&Roll/Country artists from the 20's-70's. Want to hear every song The Carter Family ever recorded in their original incarnation? They have a 12 CD boxset for you! They generally do this be acquiring the original master tapes from the labels, which often include a lot of…

> A lot of these tracks were also recorded over unlicensed beats/samples

That's the killer, right there. For example, the Beastie Boys album Paul's Boutique probably could not be released today as it samples an incredible number of other artists.[0]

[0]https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7kI8XoDoiHcrG0aGmtvq1g

Re: Hip hop historians who are racing to preserve its story

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Shopify said this is allowed per its developer TOS. Without any kind of legislation saying otherwise, these companies can put whatever the fuck they want in the TOS, which is the cheat code that allowed tech companies to extract obscene profits while completely skipping on customer support costs and legal liability. But this could always come to an end if there's political will to legislate. In my home country a new…

Perhaps companies who are effected need to class action this behavior, since there's clear economic damages that can result. The spectre of a multi-billion dollar lawsuit is probably going to be much more effective at encouraging "fair" behavior on these platforms than any sort of legislation could ever be. If legislation says 30 days, then 30 days it shall be. But if a court rules whatever is reasonable amount of ti…

Many global jurisdictions don't have the class action lawsuit framework system, it's mostly the US/Anglo countries that do.

That's why the law baseline is important. It's how warranties must be 2 years across all EU.

Re: Hip hop historians who are racing to preserve its story

#53
post #46

I don’t know the original source, but it is the intro to one of the tracks on The Prodigy’s 1998 mixtape ‘the dirtchamber sessions’ “Do you remember the days, When Kool Herc played, With a following of bands? If you don’t, well then you won’t (That’s right!) Real hip hop, my man”

D.ST. The Home of Hip Hop

https://genius.com/Dst-derek-showard-the-home-of-hip-hop-lyr...

Re: Hip hop historians who are racing to preserve its story

#54
I think what's equally as important as the archiving is the aggregating of the information. It's one thing to have a story, or piece of content documented somewhere, but at the end of the day, people still need ways to find it.

I think that's where social, discussion based platforms come in. I'm a huge hip-hop fan and have been running a page dedicated to giving people a space to discuss and share all things hip-hop.

https://sociables.com/community/TheJive/board/trending

Re: Hip hop historians who are racing to preserve its story

#55
post #29

I've thought about this quite a bit. I'm a big fan of the record label Bear Family, a German label that specializes in releasing boxsets from R&B/Rock&Roll/Country artists from the 20's-70's. Want to hear every song The Carter Family ever recorded in their original incarnation? They have a 12 CD boxset for you! They generally do this be acquiring the original master tapes from the labels, which often include a lot of…

> A lot of these tracks were also recorded over unlicensed beats/samples That's the killer, right there. For example, the Beastie Boys album Paul's Boutique probably could not be released today as it samples an incredible number of other artists.[0] [0] https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7kI8XoDoiHcrG0aGmtvq1g

A lot of hip hop still has unlicensed samples in it but the slices just keep getting smaller and less recognizable. And believe it or not a lot of the samples in Paul’s Boutique were licensed. I do agree with you though that (maybe until recently as I think the price of sampling is softening somewhat with sites like tracklib) Paul’s Boutique would be expensive to release today. Then there are stories like the Mark Ronson song ooh wee that he owns -25% of[0] because the boney m string riff took 100% of the publishing and Dennis Coffey drums took another 25%. So he theoretically lost money each play. Public enemy’s it takes a nation of millions to hold us back is another album that would lose money to make today.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ooh_Wee_(song)

Re: Hip hop historians who are racing to preserve its story

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which in the context of this thread / OP is proof that the history must not only be preserved, but must be promoted, honored, etc. I could of year ago I work at an agency and one of the new dev starter and said something about being into hip hop. I mentioned Rakim and the reply was, "Who?" Don't get me wrong, I respect Nas, Eminem, etc. (i.e., all the lyrical magicians) but they stand on the shoulders of The R.

Not knowing Rakim would be fighting talk round my way. A friend asked me a while ago to give him a list of the top ten (or fifteen) hip hop tracks that are important to me or the development of hip hop. I wasn't sure whether to include Last Poets as one of the first "rap" groups or whether Gil Scott-Heron should be considered the jazz ancestor. However, I then got stuck around the Tribe Called Quest and Busta Rhymes…

If I had to pick one ATCQ track that satisfies the condition, I'd pick "Jazz (We've Got)" which has a couple of samples from "Green Dolphin Street" plus the drums from "Don't Change Your Love".

Re: Hip hop historians who are racing to preserve its story

#57

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I believe when it all became known about what Afrika Bambaataa had been up to the whole foundations of hip hop as a credible art form fell away, and it has been in decline ever since. Maybe the offshoots are more commercially popular than ever but that serious audience seems to have given up on the core product.

Afrika Bambaataa undeniably played a significant role in the early days of hip hop, but his sound hasn't influenced the genre for over three decades. If we start discrediting half a century of art based on the actions of a single individual, we'll be left with very little. Should we consider techno and all its offshoots invalid because of Derrick May's sexual assaults? Write off rock as art because Jerry Lee Lewis married his 13-year-old cousin? Invalidate punk because Sid Vicious killed his gf? No serious fan of hip hop stopped listening because of this.

Re: Hip hop historians who are racing to preserve its story

#59

Rap is like a set-up, a lot of games A lot of suckers with colorful names I’m so-and-so, I’m this, I’m that Huh, but they all just wick-wick-wack

Kris Parker on Hacker News. The planets have aligned.

You might get a kick out of this: https://www.youtube.com/@djkennyparker/videos

Re: Hip hop historians who are racing to preserve its story

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not knowing Rakim would be fighting talk round my way. A friend asked me a while ago to give him a list of the top ten (or fifteen) hip hop tracks that are important to me or the development of hip hop. I wasn't sure whether to include Last Poets as one of the first "rap" groups or whether Gil Scott-Heron should be considered the jazz ancestor. However, I then got stuck around the Tribe Called Quest and Busta Rhymes…

If I had to pick one ATCQ track that satisfies the condition, I'd pick "Jazz (We've Got)" which has a couple of samples from "Green Dolphin Street" plus the drums from "Don't Change Your Love".

I was more thinking of choosing between Check The Rhime (Grover Washington Jr. and a sublime use of Minnie Ripperton) as it's got such a kicking beat or Scenario (Brother Jack McDuff and a bit of Hendrix) due to its influence and being such a stand-out introduction to Busta Rhymes.

Or Award Tour (Charles Earland, Weldon Irvine) or maybe just cheat and go for Excursions and Buggin Out (what a way to start an album).

Post reply on HN