

While the large turnout of their peers ensured Cindy would start the school year donning the latest fashions, the siblings had done something infinitely more important, Cindy and Herc sparked a movement. Herc’s pal, Bronx native Coke La Rock, intermittently shouted out friends and quick rhymes over the records’ instrumental breaks to hype up the crowd. Cindy hand wrote invitations on index cards and charged a modest admission fee (25 cents for ladies, 50 cents for "fellas") she asked her 18-year-old brother Clive to play the music.Ĭlive, better known as DJ Kool Herc, set up his turntables, mixer, amplifiers and towering speaker boxes, which blared a mix of funk and soul records. 11, 1973, high school student Cindy Campbell threw a party in the recreation room of her family’s Bronx apartment building to earn money for new back-to-school clothes. The following albums took the genre into warp speed, pushing its creative limitations to where it is today. This late ‘80s era encapsulates the genre's most consequential releases, ones that paved the way for rap to be where it is now. Their work and that of many others ushered in the beginning of hip-hop's golden age, as seen by numerous breakthrough albums in the later part of the decade 1988 in particular, was a historically fruitful year. We’d be remiss not to cite just a handful of the many adventurous artists whose careers began in the '80s: EPMD, LL Cool J, Ultramagnetic MCs, Ice-T, Jungle Brothers and more. Artists at his helm include Biz Markie, Roxanne Shanté, Kool G Rap, and Big Daddy Kane - all of which were innovators in their own right. He pioneered methods of drum programming and sampling, all of which began as early as 1983 when he was slowly piecing together the collective. For one, Marley Marl, of the Juice Crew, was an innovator who preceded Wu-Tang as a super producer who surrounded himself with a motley crew of MCs, each with distinct approaches and personalities. Graffiti was once viewed as vandalism was now on walls and podiums at art galleries, praised as “street art.” Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" seemed light years ago, and there was a palpable sense of maturation and explosion of ideas in the music.Ī colorful cast of new artists pushed boundaries of the time. And while there was a sense of underlying exploitation, it catapulted hip-hop culture nationally and worldwide.
Films like as Breakin’ and Beat Street used hip-hop as a dramatic vehicle. ’s bloated collab with Aerosmith, brought posters into teenagers’ bedrooms and cross promotional ideas to the forefront. For better or worse, hip-hop began to lodge itself into the mainstream during this decade. Seldom was it deemed legitimate in the ‘70s but the ‘80s came with it a realization: that big business and big money could be squeezed from the culture. Hip-hop’s four elements (rap, DJjing, breakdancing and graffiti) grew independently and exponentially in form and acknowledgment in the ‘80s. Debuts from the likes of MC Lyte, De La Soul, Slick Rick and others kickstarted not only legendary careers, but a wave of innovations that undeniably led to rap’s commercial takeover in the ‘90s. Diss tracks, party anthems, socially minded material and gangsta rap all had a place in this era, defined by groups and solo efforts that strove to differentiate themselves from one another. No.The handful of rap songs released in the 1970s opened doors for the onslaught of creative variation that marked rap albums of the 1980s. The Rolling Stone list is based on the results of a survey conducted on numerous notable hip hop musicians and journalists, who were all asked to select their favourite hip hop songs. Rolling Stone's 50 Greatest Hip Hop Songs of All Time Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version " I'll Be There For You/You're All I Need to Get By" Non-album single (later remixed on Long Live the Kane)ĭarrell "Digga" Branch, Eminem, Luis Resto Individual lists 's 100 Greatest Rap Songs Įd Fletcher, Clifton "Jiggs" Chase, Sylvia Robinson

" The Message" - Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five

2.2 Rolling Stone's 50 Greatest Hip Hop Songs of All Time.
