Adventure in Old-School Hip Hop.

CONCEPT

During the month of Lumas (June 23 - July 22), I began an exploration of Hip Hop. I had three goals:

#1. To listen to a broad spectrum Old School Hip Hop (pre-1985).
#2. To listen to a broad spectrum from the Golden Age (1985-1993).
#3. To take in all four elements (DJing, MCing, B-Boying, and graffiti).

This was, perhaps, over-ambitious, but the divides between the goals are somewhat hazy and arbitrary, so I erred on the side of definition. As it was I wish I would have deemphazied some of #1 (Kurtis Blow and the Sugar Hill Gang) in favor of some of #2 (Big Daddy Kane, etc.). I only dabbled in #3, but I've got some prior knowledge of all three, and anyway, I'm living in the birthplace of all these things. When my pocketbook got low, I made it up by listening to some Beastie Boys I already had.

Hopefully I'll make this up at a later date.

Here's, then, what I took in:

• Afrika Bambaataa, Planet Rock


• Beastie Boys, Licensed to Ill


• Beastie Boys, Paul's Boutique


• Beastie Boys, Check Your Head


• Beastie Boys, Ill Communication


• Beastie Boys, Hello Nasty


• Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Adventures on the Wheels of Steel: The Best Of


• Kurtis Blow, The Best Of


• Kurtis Blow Presents the History of Hip Hop, vol. 2


• Kurtis Blow Presents the History of Hip Hop, vol. 3


• LL Cool J, All World: The Best Of


• LL Cool J, Mama Said Knock You Out


• Public Enemy, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back


• Run DMC, Greatest Hits


• Sugar Hill Gang, The Best Of

My favorites of the early old school, besides Grandmaster Flash and Bambaataa, which are obvious, were the Sequence and the Funky Four + One More. But Public Enemy was the greatest discovery in this round.

END OF POST.