| TigerLikesTail |
08-07-2018 10:15 PM |
Coke La Rock
Afika Bambaata, Kool Herc, and Grandmaster Flash, are three legends of hip-hop. They are looked as the founding fathers. Kool Herc, is the only one out of the three that gives credit to his Jamaican roots for his early development of break spinning. "Hip-hop….the whole chemistry of that came from Jamaica…..In Jamaica all you needed was a drum and a bass. So what I did was go right to the ‘yoke’. I cut off all the anticipation and just played the beats. I’d find out where the break in the record was and prolonged it and people would love it. So I was giving them their own taste and beat percussion wise….cause my music is all about heavy bass."
One Jamaican artist that probably influenced Kool Herc was Osbourne Ruddock, also know as King Tubby. He was the chief pioneer of dubbing. King Tubby put the focus and center of the reshuffling process, on bass and rhythm, obviously this is where Herc learned his skills. "In Jamaica there is an acute awareness of the riddum as the inner message of the music and a distinct value placed on it." There was no longer a focus on vocals. Herc use to take a record called "BongoRock", which just featured bongos and congas and length and extend each song. This record would later be called "B-beats" and become the first background beats for the dance parties in the Bronx.
Dubbing, thus enable a person to toast. The rhythm and the bass could still be in the background, and a person could just rhyme off the beat. "What is remarkable about vocal/dubs is the way the arrangement constantly changes texture under the lyrics, plunging and climaxing with echo trails, creating different moods that underscore the singer."
DJs in Jamaica were originally around to promote albums and hype up songs. U-Roy was the first to "toast" over King Tubby’s dubbings. "But what separates U.Roy from the rest is the fact that he gave reggae this live jivin dimension which is so electrifying…" Roy boasted phrases fitting in with the words of the song. He used a call and response style, to get the crowd hyped up. "His rhythmic sense and distinctive voice, with it’s gravelly exclamations of "Wow" and "Yeah" have been much imitated, but international success has been elusive for U-Roy."
Originally called emceeing, rapping draws roots from toasting. In the United States, Coke La Rock is credited with boasting crowds; he worked with Kool Herc. "La Rock didn’t rap as we’d recognize it now but was more in the style of the Jamaican sound system toasters or black radio announcers hyping a record. Still, several of his pet party motivating slogans ("Ya rock and ya don’t stop!" "Rock on my mellow!" "To the beat y’all!") would become rap staples. Some old schoolers assert that La Rock was the first hip hop rapper."
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