Powerful song from Lupe Fiasco that pays tribute to Jonylah Watkins the 6 month old killed by bullets the other day in Chicago..This is a heartfelt beautiful song.. Nothing more needs to be said.. Listen to the words and let us all end violence in our community. Shout out to Lupe for doing the song.. Shout out to NBA star Derrick Rose for paying for the funeral..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nsd0PXu3ZQM
Grandmaster Flash‘s Definition Of Hip Hop
As one of the pioneers of who was known for his ability to mix music I mixed anything from Billy Squire to Michael Jackson to Thin Lizzy to Sly And The Family Stone to Glen Miller to Tschochosky..
When I laid this foundation down.. the key was we could take almost anything musically just as long as it had a beat to it.. so that the rhymer who flowed over the top of it could syncopated.. For anybody to say that whatever they’re doing in Florida is not hip hop..or whatever they’re saying in LA is not hip hop.. Who are these people to say that?.. There were songs that Bambaataa played that to this day I still don’t know.. They were so funky.. Some of the ones I got the privilege to know..I was surprised…You take a song like ‘Apache‘ for example which was considered to be one of the hip hop main themes..Those were a bunch of white guys.. The Incredible Bongo Rock Band were white guys.. There was one person there who was Black.. He was King Erickson who was a percussionist…
For anybody to say ‘this is not hip hop’ or ‘that is not hip hop’ is wrong. That is not the way the formula was laid down.. It was for the people who were going to continue this to take anything…by all means necessary and string it along…
September 1996
Afrika Bambaataa’s Definition Of Hip Hop?
Hip Hop means the whole culture of the movement.. when you talk about rap..Rap is part of the hip hop culture..The emceeing..The djaying is part of the hip hop culture. The dressing the languages are all part of the hip hop culture.The break dancing the b-boys, b-girls ..how you act, walk, look, talk are all part of hip hop culture.. and the music is colorless.. Hip Hop music is made from Black, brown, yellow, red, white.. whatever music that gives you the grunt.. that funk.. that groove or that beat.. It’s all part of hip hop….
Are artist from the West Coast and Miami
considered Hip Hop?
Too Short, E-40 all the brothers and sisters that are making that hip hop and coming from the funk part of it are all hip hoppers.. The Electro Funk which is that Planet Rock sound which is now considered the Miami Bass sound is also hip hop.. The GoGo sound that you hear from Washington DC is also hip hop.. New Jack Swing that Teddy Riley is R&B and hip hop mixed together…So hip hop has progressed into different sounds and different avenues.. People also have to recognize from hip hop music..inparticular the electro funk came House music and Freestyle music with a lot of our Pueto Rican hip hoppers…
The freestyle music really comes from Planet Rock..If you look at all the freestyle records its based upon Planet Rock.. If you look at all the Miami Bass records it’s based upon Planet Rock.. It’s all based upon electro funk… which came from hip hop music…
Hip Hop has experimented with a lot of different styles of music and there’s a lot of people who have brought different changes over time with hip hop.. which have brought out all these funky records which everybody just started jumpin’ on like a catch phrase.. For example when ‘Planet Rock’ came out you had all of the electro funk records.. When you had Doug E Fresh with the show and ‘La Di Da Di’.. a lot of rappers went that way…When Eric B came out with ‘I Know U Got Soul’… all the way up to Run DMC and Wu-Tang. All these people brought changes within hip hop music… Unfortunately today a lot of the people who created hip hop..meaning the Black and Latinos do not control it no more…
Afrika Bambaataa
Sept 23 1996
Davey D's Hip Hop Corner 