east-west, bridge the gap

as we continue with the excerpt from tamara’s book, “country fried soul: adventures in dirty south hip-hop”, selecting the appropriate soundtrack gets a little less obvious. while much of today’s music is framed by “planet rock”’s genetic blueprint, it gets trickier to find the sound that shares the lineage but also announces the arrival of a mutant spawn. devin the dude’s “zeldar”, a herb-fortified sci-fi rap, from 2002’s “just tryin’ ta live” (rap-a-lot) is kin in spirit if not exactly in groove. “mad” mike banks, aka underground resistance, also claims kraftwerk and yellow magic orchestra as close relatives. but as tracks like “soulpower” attest, he’s more like bambaataa’s cyborg twin from detroit. wagon christ, aka luke vibert, is a huge hip-hop fan who also beckons the ghost in the machine. his mix of japanese techno ninja ken ishii’s signature tune “extra” (1995, r&s) swerves from one beat to the next like jackie chan’s drunken master, but somehow hits all the marks and delivers a groove that straddles the past and the future.

****************

I was taking a quick break and enjoying a television special called Hip-Hop Honors on the cable network VH1, when it struck me that Afrika Bambaataa was someone curiously absent from their narrative of hip-hop’s beginnings in the Bronx. If they did mention him, I mighta been off getting a snack and missed it in the blink of an eye.

It was conducted in New York City in 1994 by one of my best friends in sound [edited]. More than 10 years have passed since their conversation took place, yet it’s both an eye-opening look at some important hip-hop lineage and frighteningly relevant to the current time and space of the world.

q: How did you get started as a DJ and producer?

Afrika Bambaataa: I got started from being in a street gang called The Black Spades, by being at parties where one of our members was a very known DJ in the Bronx at the time. His name was Kool DJ Dee and he used to do a lot of the disco stuff that was happening at the time in the early ‘70s. We used to follow him all around and keep protection for him. And at that time, that’s when you had Kool DJ Dee and some [mobile disco DJs] from Brooklyn operating big sound systems. Then came who we call the ‘Father of Hip-Hop,’ Kool DJ Herc, who came from the shores of Jamaica and brought what was happening with the reggae and just mixed it with all of what was happening in America. And he came out with his big [sound] system but the type of sound he was getting had these big beats, funky beats. Breakbeats. And so myself came after him, and Grandmaster Flash, who came after him, and we started playing this sound of music which didn’t have a title to it yet. But later on we named the thing hip-hop, which would stand for the whole culture of breakdancing, the music that we playing, the style of dressing, the culture, your way of life. And from the ‘70s on, it became the birth of hip-hop culture.

And myself, who was so knowledgeable in music and had a big entourage of music, became known as the "Master of Records" because I could bring records from anywhere in the world and make your butt dance. But it was the disco, funk, soul, African, jazz, reggae, go-go, big beats, commercials, silly TV themes. Anything that bugged you out or made you dance or just caught you by surprise, I would play it at a party . . . Dance music is any music that makes you get up and move, whether it’s from any category. Even rock music, if it makes you swing and do some type of freestyle with your body, then it’s dance music. Everybody’s got all these misconceptions and want to categorize everything and take it out of context, so you gotta understand that dance music is all music, whether it’s world music, funk, calypso, salsa, reggae, polka, country and western. Whatever makes your body move and makes your inner self feel free and you just let yourself go is dance music.

q: you were really pioneering a lot of musical forms, not just hip-hop. you brought out the "planet rock" sound, inspired by the stuff you heard from kraftwerk, and then you went further out there later on by doing techno records in europe and djng for house and breakbeat events. what do you think put you on a different path than some of the early hip-hop pioneers?

Bambaataa: Because I’m a worldly person in mind and in heart, and I’m a person who travels the world a lot. And I’m a person who gets out in the streets of every country or town or city that I venture in and meet the people. And I hear all the different sounds of things they like. They call me the "Godfather of Hip-Hop" — I’m hip-hop and more. So I can get into reggae, funk, soul, jazz, rock, oldies but goodies, the ‘40s swing sounds. You can hear classical music — everybody watch cartoons and Bugs Bunny and all that where they play little classical type records that make it funny for [a character] to get beat up. So you hear all these different sounds, you hear commercials, the little clichés and stuff they have for McDonalds and all the other different things in commercials. And [I’m] always watching and listening and absorbing all these different sounds.

It’s always interesting to mix music together from different backgrounds. Like you might take an Arabic singer and mix it with a Chinese flute and drums of Africa with a beat of hip-hop from here and then speed it up with something and add synth on top of it and bring it to a techno or jungle sound. Sampling gave you that freedom where you could take a James Brown and put him there with a Rolling Stones horns and add in something that George Clinton is saying and put it with a classical person playing string or a country singer just going, "Uh!" It’s interesting to make something new out of old tunes or different songs. I believe it’s strongly helped the art of music making.

q: tell me a little bit about the making of "planet rock." how did you decide to do that record the way that you did it?

Bambaataa: At the time, when I was heavy into Kraftwerk and Yellow Magic Orchestra, I was looking around saying, "Shoot, who’s a black electronic group out here?" So I was looking all over the place checking. I knew of Sun Ra, with his astral type of jazz, but I said, "Yeah, but it’s not really heavy dance to certain beats."

From then on, the electro funk was ruling for the early ‘80s . . . then there were some different problems. A lot of people was getting ripped off and arguments and all that with the companies. You know, we had to stop doing it, and switch through to become Afrika Bambaataa and the Family and I started doing records with like James Brown and other groups and other entertainers. And then came the Miami bass sound, which took our sound and just went crazy with it.

q: what do you think about the miami bass sound?

Bambaataa: I love it. I thank all them for keeping it going and am thankful to them. Some of them made they millions and stuff and some of them stole it and shoulda gave some credit where credit’s due, but I understand ‘cause I’m a DJ too. A DJ first. And when you really want something you wanna get it to make the crowd move.

I love Tag Team and I’m crazy about 95 South. And 69 Boyz, that’s my group there. And Luke and a lot of the funky stuff he did. And I’m the one that’s pushing a lot of that music back again on [NY radio station] Hot 97, because a lotta people in New York, they think, "Oh that’s that down South, Miami style." I say, "No, that’s a New York sound. It started here first." How quickly many forget or the new generation of people forget. So that starts from here and the funk and a lot of other styles came from New York that’s now in other parts of the country. And we got to play it all, ‘cause it’s still hip-hop.

q: your music has evolved into miami bass and other types of hip-hop, but also forms like techno. is there any part of the development that you’re not particularly keen on?

Bambaataa: I’m not keen on anybody to just keep talking, "Killing, killing, bitch, bitch, shit" all on the record. It’s fun for certain records and certain parties, but I’m not with disrespecting women and using derogatory words and stuff . . .

If you don’t say nothing to wake up people’s minds, and you’re just talking about foolishness, then you’re doing a big harm to a lot of your listeners. And sometimes people don’t really hear messages in the music anyway, they just hear the groove. But at the same time, they might sit back, saying, "Yo, what was he saying in that record?" He might check out what you were saying after a while. And when they start singing the words, [they think] "Oh! He’s droppin’ something!"

q: i there anything else you’d like to add?

I’d like to tell a lotta the brothers and sisters throughout the Planet Earth and to the universal aliens of funk throughout the other planets that y’all can shake a leg and shake your bodies and get up and dance, but it’s also about the mind. And like brother George Clinton, my uncle, says, "Think: It’s not illegal yet." You better hurry up and start thinking, because soon it’s gonna be illegal to think.

Posted by cellpharmer at March 14, 2005 09:24 PM