![]() ![]() I Write The Songs – Barry ManilowĪt first glance, this crooning, orchestral ballad seems like the last place you’d look to find hip hop history. The simple percussion patterns and fast tempo made this a popular choice for early breakdancers to show off their moves and for the original emcees to say their rhymes over. This 1973 instrumental release was one of the first breaks that DJ Kool Herc and his contemporaries extended at their initial hop hop parties. The “HEE!” and “everybody get up” lines were perfect to match the energy and anticipation in the room in the moments before Fantastic hit the stage. The beginning of this raucous disco standard was the break that Grand Wizzard Theodore chose to kick off the Fantastic Romantic Five’s routine at the July 3rd, 1981 Battle at Harlem World. In hip hop, the most important instrument is the mind, and each of these songs was chosen to highlight that."īelow, Mael muses on each of the songs in this playlist and offers behind-the-scenes information on music that helped define the origins of hip hop. When music is made by using the best of other music and whatever resources are available, creativity is the only key. Even though they are extremely diverse in genre, instrumentation, and tempo, they are a great representation of a simple fact-hip hop was and remains a genre that defies a single definition. All of these songs are directly related to the era covered in Harlem World. Among the genre’s originators, however, hip hop remained a strictly live medium. Hip hop was still growing up in the summer of 1981, even though some artists had broken through into the mainstream music industry. "They were playing in my headphones as I wrote the manuscript. "When reading my book, I hear these songs as I flip the pages," Mael said. Mael curated a playlist of songs, linked below, to listen to while you read the book. The show drew hundreds of fans to settle a question that still dominates hip hop circles: Who's the best? In Harlem World, journalist Jonathan Mael chronicles this fateful night of hip hop rivalry and shares a new look at how Harlem helped ignite a musical revolution. In New York's Harlem World Club, the Fantastic Romantic Five and the Cold Crush Brothers competed, with an unprecedented $1,000-and their reputations-on the line in a highly anticipated rap battle. July 3, 1981, was a pivotal night for the future of America's newest art form: hip hop. ![]()
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