First rapper
 

Does anyone know who the first real rapper was? i think Vanilla Ice
might have been the first white rapper.

I think MC Hammer might have been the first black rapper.

Gil Scott Heron.

I think you may have something there. Just listen to The Revolution will not be Televised.

I still say it was MC Hammer.

http://www.eurweb.com/wp-content/upl...age_907127.jpg

Not a bad suggestion. I feel that.

Not sure if you are jesting here mate..........

After all this time you can't tell? That makes me a little sad.

Do you really envision me as the sort of person who would think the first rapper came out in the late 80s?

ah yes guys thanks a bunch i will check that out

I have been working a lot recently :)

I'll let it go. This time. :D

I still say Bob Dylan made the world's first rap song.

And before Gil-Scott Heron, what about the Last Poets?

Check: King Tim III "Personality Jock"
Can't post vids :( Ima noob.

What song would that be?

I assume he's talking about "Subterranean Homesick Blues".

I never thought about it like that. He is essentially rapping in the song, but was he the first to use that kind of vocal style?

I doubt it. I'm sure you could find examples of beat poets, jazz singers and blues singers doing similar things earlier if you looked into it a bit.

I think it was Sugarhill Gang. I heard them late 70s when I was in elementary school. Their song was Rapper's Delight

That's an obvious choice if we're talking first hip hop record... But the question is who was the first rapper.

I think the reality of the answer to this question is there is no first. Rapping, like most things in music, is something that evolved its way into being, not something that sprang into existence fully formed.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_xhyihk9EYF...%27+Rodney.jpg
First white rapper.

Denny Blazin Hazen was ONE of the first lyrical MCs to bless the mic.

Wow, I think I've found a new favorite rapper.

There's definitely rapping going on here.

That song is by New Edition not The Jackson 5. And it's from 1983, four years after the first hit rap single was put out by The Sugarhill Gang.

Great Kent State sweatshirt...

Man, are you serious? This changes everything.

Pants?

Yeah, I was talking about Subterranean Homesick Blues. It's Dylan raging at the establishment with rapidfire delivery and a relatively intricate rhyming scheme. That's hip hop as fuck.

If you can find me something pre-dating Subterranean Homesick Blues that's as hip hop in delivery and aesthetic as Dylan's track, then I'll change my idea of what the world's first rap song was.

I agree with you though. Take those lyrics and delivery over a Nas beat and I bet it wouldn't seem odd at all.

interesting
 

i'm going to have to research that!

While checking out a little Louis Jordan earlier today, I stumbled across this track "Beware, Brother, Beware" and it immediately made me think of this thread. This song is from the 1940s and both the vocal style and the subject matter are amazingly hip hop to me. Check it out:

second commercial(and a few):



Some reason 50s commercials are chalked full of sections of hip hop.

^ That's because rapping is catchy, it's great for advertisement

Sweet, nice find. This is the earliest hip hop I've heard.

I still wouldn't call it hip hop. Bearing in mind that rapping is the vocal style and hip hop is the musical backdrop in most definitions. But yeah, it's rapping.

I don't think I've ever heard anyone use the term "hip hop" that way actually. It generally refers either to the culture or the genre or both. But for argument's sake let's say it does refer to the backing music, what would the defining characteristics of it even be? People rap over pretty much everything and it's still hip hop.

I actually agree with Conan on that....but hip hop can also refer to the culture as well..

you can't rap over anything and still call it hip hop...it's not....you are just rapping over some random...whatever the backing music is....is what you would consider the song with rap.....take for example nu-metal isn't considered hip hop is it? Some bands rap in nu-metal but it's not called hip hop because of the backing music.

And yet Jay-Z records an album with a nu-metal band like Linkin Park and it's still considered hip hop, Madlib raps over jazz and it's hip hop, MC Dälek raps of droning noisescapes and it's hip hop, Immortal Technique raps over Henry Mancini and it's hip hop. So what exactly are the defining characteristics of hip hop music?

see those examples that you provided I wouldn't consider them to be hip hop
Everything you said is just Rapping over the genres that they have chosen.

......hip hop imo is more about the beats and at times can be very simplistic actually i can't even describe it properly but I just wouldn't consider any of those examples of yours hip hop