Hip-Hop Producers (Essay)

Just about any genre of music has its share of producers who are as famous (or almost as famous) as the artists themselves. That is true in rock, country, jazz and R&B, and it is also true in rap. From Sylvia Robinson to Russell Simmons to Sean "Puffy" Combs, rap has had its share of famous producers over the years. This essay takes a look at some of hip-hop's most important studio wizards -- people who have been as important to hip-hop as Bob Ezrin and Jimmy Iovine are to rock, Orrin Keepnews is to jazz and Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff are to Philadelphia soul.

During hip-hop's old school era of 1976-1982 -- old school as in pre-Run-D.M.C. -- the most important producer was Sylvia Robinson of Sugar Hill Records (not to be confused with a folk label that has the same name). Robinson (b. Mar. 6, 1936) was a vocalist herself and had a resume long before her involvement with early hip-hop; in the '50s, she was half of the male/female R&B duo Mickey & Sylvia (best known for their hit "Love Is Strange"). And in the early '70s, Robinson recorded as a solo artist and favored a sensuous, sexy approach to northern soul; her biggest solo hit during that period was "Pillow Talk," although the single "Sweet Stuff" also enjoyed some radio airplay. In those days, Robinson was both a producer/A&R person (she worked with the Moments and other soulsters) and a vocalist. But by the late '70s, Robinson was putting most of the energy into A&R and producing. At Sugar Hill Records, she became one of the first people to document rap. The Sugarhill Gang's 1979 smash "Rappers Delight" put Sugar Hill Records on the map, and the company soon acquired a reputation for being the Motown or Stax of old school hip-hop. In fact, their roster was a who's-who of pre-Run-D.M.C. rappers -- a roster that included Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, the Sequence (rap's first all-female group), Lady B (the first female rapper to record as a solo artist), the Funky Four Plus One, Spoonie Gee, Super Wolf and, of course, the Sugarhill Gang. Robinson worked with every one of those artists, and she would have been quite capable of working with Kurtis Blow if given the chance. But that famous old school rapper never recorded for Sugar Hill; instead, he signed with Polygram in 1979 and became the first rapper to record for a major label.

When Blow recorded his self-titled debut album in 1980, he was being managed by Russell Simmons (the older brother of Run-D.M.C.'s Joseph "Run" Simmons). That year, Russell Simmons had a fledgling company called Rush Productions. But several years later, Rush would be a lot more than just a small business. When hip-hop's old school era ended and the second wave rappers (Run-D.M.C., L.L Cool J, etc.) took over around 1983-1985, Simmons built a hip-hop empire -- not only as a producer and the head of Rush Productions, but also, as the co-founder of Def Jam Records. The list of artists Simmons worked with in the '80s (as a producer, manager or A&R person) included, among many others, Run-D.M.C., LL Cool J, Public Enemy, Davy D and the Beastie Boys.

The person Simmons co-founded Def Jam with in 1984 was Rick Rubin, who is important as both a rap producer and a rock producer. For several years, Simmons and Rubin were quite a team. But in the late '80s, they parted company due to creative differences. Rubin shared Simmons' love of hip-hop; as a producer, he worked with Run-D.M.C., L.L. Cool J, Public Enemy and the Beasties. But he also wanted to produce a lot of rock, whereas Simmons wanted to make hip-hop his main focus. So when Simmons and Rubin parted company and Simmons assumed full control of Def Jam, Rubin founded his own label Def American. At Def American, Rubin continued to produce rappers (including the Geto Boys and Sir Mix-A-Lot), but he also signed everyone from the Black Crowes to Danzig to the infamous death metal/thrash band Slayer.

While Def Jam is Simmons' baby, Cold Chillin' Records was the home of Marlon Williams, aka Marley Marl -- one of the top rap producers of the late '80s and early '90s. At Cold Chillin', the Queens, NY native fashioned a distinctive East Coast sound that combined drum machines with extensive sampling; Marl, in fact, did a lot to popularize the use of James Brown samples. All of the New Yorkers on the Cold Chillin' roster (who included Big Daddy Kane, Kool G. Rap, Roxanne Shanté, Biz Markie and MC Shan) had the Marley Marl sound, which influenced DJ Mark the 45 King, Audio Two, the King of Chill and other East Coast rap producers of that period.

Marley Marl was known for a very raw, hard-edged, rugged type of sound, while fellow New York producer Hank Shocklee (who was part of the Bomb Squad) is famous for the dissonant, abrasive, noisy sounds that he helped Public Enemy bring to life in the late '80s. But out on the West Coast, Andre Young, aka Dr. Dre (b. February 18, 1965), envisioned something totally different. Dre's style of producing, which came to be called G-funk, was much sleeker and smoother than what one expected from Marley Marl, DJ Mark the 45 King or Shocklee. The Los Angeles-based Dre (not to be confused with New York's Doctor Dre, as in Doctor Dre & Ed Lover) started out as a member of the World Class Wreckin' Cru in the early '80s, but it was during his years with N.W.A (1987-1991) that he came to be recognized as a studio genius. During his N.W.A years, Dre not only produced N.W.A -- he also worked with Dallas rapper the D.O.C., L.A. gangsta rappers Above the Law, female pop-rap group JJ Fad and urban contemporary singer Michel'le. And Dre became even more famous as a producer when, in 1992, he launched his solo career with The Chronic. That album was amazingly influential; thanks to Dre, countless hip-hoppers embraced the G-funk sound (especially on the West Coast) and went for a combination of clean grooves and dirty lyrics. Whether Dre was working with Eminem, Snoop Doggy Dogg or the late Eazy-E, his production style has always been distinctive and recognizable.

One of the many people The Chronic influenced was New Orleans gangsta rapper/producer Master P, a major player in the Dirty South school of rap (which became popular in the '90s and was still going strong in the early 2000s). Not all Dirty South is gangsta rap, but gangsta rap has been the main focus of Master P and his No Limit label. Not only did Dre influence the lyrics of Master P's No Limit artists -- who have included Ghetto Commission, Silkk the Shocker, Fiend, the Gambino Family, Soulja Slim and C-Murder -- he also influenced Master P's production style.

The '90s also saw the rise of two major producers who had one foot in rap and the other in R&B: the New York-based Sean "Puffy" Combs, aka Puff Daddy or P-Diddy, and Timbaland. Puff Daddy (b. Nov. 4, 1970) heads Bad Boy Entertainment, and that company has been both a hip-hop outfit and an urban contemporary outfit. In the '90s, Bad Boy (which is both a label and a production company) was known for the Notorious B.I.G., but it was also known for R&B singer Faith Evans. Puff Daddy's work has often underscored the way R&B and rap became seriously joined at the hip in the '90s; all of the urban singers he has produced (who range from Evans to Mary J. Blige to Total) have been greatly influenced by hip-hop.

Similarly, Virginia native Tim Mosley, aka Timbaland, became known for both hip-hop and hip-hop-drenched R&B in the late '90s. Timbaland (b. March 10, 1971) is famous for his work with Jay-Z, Nas and other major rap stars, but he is just as famous for working with urban singers like Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott, Total, K-Ci & JoJo (of Jodeci fame) and the late Aaliyah. Timbaland (who heads the Beat Club label) has extensive Dirty South credits; Ludacris, Petey Pablo, Bubba Sparxxx, Shade Sheist and Pastor Troy are among the many southern rappers he has produced. But Timbaland is just as likely to work with someone from another part of the U.S., such as L.A.'s Snoop Doggy Dogg, New York's Jay-Z or Chicago's Da Brat.

Of course, Dre was producing hip-hop-drenched R&B before either Puff Daddy or Timbaland. In 1990, Dre's work with Michel'le showed listeners the possibilities of a hip-hop-minded style of neo-soul -- and that album came two years before Mary J. Blige's first album, What's the 411?. But rap has been Dre's primary focus, whereas Timbaland (like Puff Daddy) is as much of an R&B producer as he is a rap producer. And in the late '90s and early 2000s, it was impossible to listen to urban radio without coming across something that Timbaland produced.

There is no telling where hip-hop production styles will go in the future; in hip-hop, trends can come and go quickly. With R&B and rap having formed such a close alliance in the '90s, it's quite possible that there will be a lot more producers like Timbaland and Puff Daddy -- that is, studio wizards who are both rap-friendly and R&B-friendly. Here's what we can say for certain: from the late '70s to early 2000s, hip-hop has been a very lucrative field for a lot of producers.

by Alex Henderson

Gangsta Rap (Essay)

Ever since some gang-related violence occurred at a Run-D.M.C. concert in Long Beach, CA in 1986, rap music has been controversial; hip-hop had its detractors in the '80s and still has plenty of them in the 21st century. And no form of rap has been more controversial than gangsta rap, which has been attacked by everyone from Tipper Gore to conservative talk show host Bill O'Reilly. Why have so many people been critical of gangsta rap, including some of hip-hop's non-gangsta MCs? It all comes down to the first-person format; instead of rhyming in the third person about the problems of the inner city, gangsta rappers rhyme in the first person about the lives of thugs, felons, gang members, pimps and crack dealers. Gangsta rappers portray the thugs they're rapping about, which is a lot different from what Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five (one of rap's earliest groups) did on their 1982 classic "The Message." That gem found Flash and his New York colleagues rapping in the third person about the oppressive conditions of the inner-city ghetto, but they didn't actually portray criminals -- gangsta rappers, however, give listeners the perspective of a gangbanger, a drug dealer or someone who is serving hard time for armed robbery. And for that reason, gangsta rap has often been accused of glorifying -- or even promoting -- crime and violence. But many gangsta rappers have countered that portrayal should not be confused with advocacy; in other words, the fact that Ice-T, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre have portrayed thugs on record doesn't mean that they're encouraging listeners to live the thug life. Ice-T would argue that when he gave first-person accounts of thug life on "6'N the Mornin'" and "Colors," it was comparable to Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro portraying hoodlums in Casino and Goodfellas -- that he wasn't promoting thuggery any more than director Martin Scorsese's modern film-noir.

Like any style of music that has generated gold and platinum sales, gangsta rap has been saturated with clone artists -- people who reasoned that the easiest way to sell a lot of CDs was to emulate N.W.A or the late 2Pac Shakur instead of developing something original. And in the hands of the clones, gangsta rap can seem like cheap exploitation and an endless stream of sexist, violent clichés. But the most compelling gangsta rappers -- including Ice-T, N.W.A, Shakur, Schoolly D, Ice Cube, Dr. Dre and the Geto Boys -- weren't about shock value for the sake of shock value. The best gangsta rap has served as an audio-documentary on the problems of the inner city; at its best, gangsta rap is film-noir with a beat.

Gangsta rap got started around 1986, when the seminal Ice-T wrote a disturbing tune called "6'N the Mornin'". Rapping in the first person, Ice-T took his audience on a guided tour through the world of a Los Angeles criminal. It wasn't the first time that a rapper examined the darker side of urban life; when Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five recorded "The Message" in 1982 and "New York, New York" in 1983, they painted a very troubling and depressing picture of the inner city. And there were many other East Coast MCs who, in the early to mid-'80s, rapped about social problems, including Run-D.M.C. and Kurtis Blow. But they never rapped about thug life in the first person -- if anything, they were complaining about the criminals who were making New York a dangerous place to live. "6'N the Mornin'," however, found the L.A.-based Ice-T portraying the sort of felon Flash and Run-D.M.C. were trying to avoid in their songs. And the first-person approach was effective on subsequent Ice-T offerings like "Drama," "Pain," "Colors" and "The Hunted Child," all of which were vehemently criticized by those who thought that he was glorifying crime and violence. But Ice-T often countered that his lyrics were being taken out of context -- that if you listened closely, his lyrics were actually anti-crime. In fact, there were no happy endings for the pimps, players and gangbangers in Ice-T's songs; they usually ended up dead or incarcerated, much like the thugs that James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson often portrayed in the '30s and '40s. In a subliminal way, Ice-T was telling his fans that crime doesn't pay; "The Hunted Child" and "Drama" paint as unattractive a picture of crime as Cagney's characters did in White Heat and Public Enemy (1931).

Although gangsta rap was dominated by the West Coast in the '80s, one of the early gangsta rappers was Philadelphia's Schoolly D. Lyrically, Schoolly wasn't as violent or as graphic as his West Coast counterparts; however, some of the first-person rhymes that he came out with around 1985-87 were more thuggish than anything else that the East Coast had to offer at the time. "PSK What Does It Mean?," "Saturday Night" and other singles that Schoolly provided during that period weren't as bloody as N.W.A or the Geto Boys, but they were still ahead of their time and deserve to be recognized as gangsta rap classics.

If gangsta rap's detractors found Ice-T and Schoolly D troubling, they were even more shocked when they heard N.W.A's influential Straight Outta Compton. Released in late 1988, that album turned out to be even more violent than Ice-T's work. N.W.A's members (Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren, DJ Yella and the late Eazy-E) covered a lot of the same ground as Ice-T -- gang violence, drive-by shootings, drug dealing, etc. -- and the L.A.-based rappers didn't think twice about being as inflammatory as possible. One of the songs on Straight Outta Compton, "Fuck tha Police", inspired the FBI to write an angry letter to Priority Records. But Straight Outta Compton, for all its graphic violence, was far from an example of cheap exploitation -- it was really a cry for help, and the album told people all over the world just how dangerous life in Compton, CA and South-Central L.A. could be.

Other noteworthy gangsta rappers from the late '80s and early '90s ranged from the Houston-based Geto Boys to L.A.'s Cypress Hill, who brought some of the Chicano/Mexican-American influence to gangsta rap. Cypress Hill wasn't the first rap group with a Latino influence, but they were the first major group that brought a Latino perspective to West Coast gangsta rap. Meanwhile, the L.A.-based Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. has demonstrated that Samoan-Americans can be a part of gangsta rap.

As influential as N.W.A turned out to be, the group only lasted about four years. In 1991, N.W.A broke up, and Dr. Dre launched his solo career with 1992's The Chronic (which was among the best selling gangsta rap albums of all time and put the distinctive Snoop Dogg on the map). Ice Cube, meanwhile, had been recording solo albums since 1990, when he left N.W.A and had a falling out with Dr. Dre and Eazy-E (who died of AIDS-related causes in 1995). Cube's solo output has always been extremely sociopolitical; if anyone has bridged the gap between the militant black nationalism of Public Enemy and the thuggery of gangsta rap, it's Ice Cube.

Most gangsta rappers have distanced themselves from the thug life that they rhyme about; a tragic exception was the late 2Pac Shakur, who was all too familiar with the urban horrors that he describes on albums like 1995's compelling Me Against the World. There was plenty of violence on Shakur's recordings, but there was also plenty of remorse -- Shakur, at times, expressed regret over having lived the thug life, and yet, he seemed addicted to it. The rapper had numerous run-ins with the law in the early to mid-'90s, and he made his share of enemies in the hip-hop world. Shakur was only 25 when, in September 1996, an unknown gunman shot him four times in Las Vegas; on September 13, 1996 (six days after the attack), Shakur's bullet wounds ended his life. And only six months later, Shakur's East Coast rival the Notorious B.I.G. was also murdered by gunfire. There was speculation that whoever murdered the Notorious B.I.G. did so to avenge Shakur's death, but nothing has ever been proven.

If gangsta rap hadn't received enough negative publicity in the late '80s and early '90s, it received even more when Shakur was killed in 1996. Nonetheless, gangsta rap continued to be incredibly popular and was still going strong when the 21st Century arrived. In 2001 and 2002, gangsta rap's critics weren't any less vocal than they had been 13 and 14 years earlier -- if anything, they had become even more vocal. And even some of gangsta rap's defenders had grown tired of all the predictable artists who kept jumping on the gangsta bandwagon. But despite all those things, the best gangsta albums -- gems like Shakur's Me Against the World, Ice-T's Power and N.W.A's Straight Outta Compton -- continue to hold up well and offer riveting descriptions of the tragic side of urban life.

by Alex Henderson

Female Rap (Essay)

Historically, rap has been a very male-dominated idiom -- much more so than R&B, country or dance-pop. That is true in the United States; it is true in Europe and Latin America, where women don't play nearly as prominent a role in rap as they do in Latin pop (a field that has given us countless female superstars). Nonetheless, female rappers have made some important and valuable contributions to hip-hop, which would have been a lot poorer without Queen Latifah, Salt-N-Pepa, MC Lyte or, more recently, Eve. From rap's old school era (roughly 1976-1982, give or take a year) to the early 2000s, the same pattern has prevailed when it comes to gender: male rappers outnumber female rappers, but talented female rappers will inevitably break through commercially. Every hip-hop era has been male-dominated but has also had some important female rap stars -- and they range from Queen Latifah, MC Lyte and Salt-N-Pepa in the '80s to Foxy Brown, Nonchalant, Da Brat and Lil' Kim in the '90s and Eve in the early 2000s.

From the beginning, hip-hop had a lot of testosterone; it has often functioned as a form of musical sportsmanship. The old school rappers who were active in Harlem or the South Bronx in the late '70s could be an extremely competitive bunch; microphone battles were quite common back then, and rappers spent a lot of time articulating why they thought they were the best and why "sucker MCs" (rival rappers) were inferior. Machismo was always a big part of hip-hop; talk show host Bill Maher (who had everyone from Chuck D to Snoop Doggy Dogg to Lil' Kim on his Politically Incorrect show when it was on ABC in the late '90s and early 2000s) has often said he loves the fact that rap is the one form of American music in which a male point of view is celebrated instead of marginalized. That said, hip-hop hasn't necessarily excluded a feminist perspective either -- the female rappers who have succeeded in their field have had a reputation for being assertive, take-charge women. No one could ever accuse MC Lyte, Roxanne Shanté, Queen Latifah or Foxy Brown of projecting a wimpy image or coming across as shrinking violets; if anything, the fact that hip-hop (hardcore rap more than pop-rap) tends to be so competition-minded forces female participants to have more of a feminist outlook.

The first example of a female rapper recording as a solo artist came in 1980, when the Philadelphia-based Lady B recorded her single "To the Beat, Y'all" for Sugar Hill Records. After that, Lady B didn't make rapping her main focus; she ultimately made her mark as a radio DJ in Philly. Nonetheless, she is a historically important figure, as are the members of the Sequence -- an early female rap group that also recorded for Sugar Hill Records in the early '80s and was quite popular during hip-hop's old school era. Another noteworthy female MC from that period was Sha Rock, who was part of a mostly male group called the Funky Four Plus One.

Unfortunately, the female rappers who were popular during rap's old school era were unable to maintain their commercial success when hip-hop's second wave (Run-D.M.C. , LL Cool J, Whodini, the Fat Boys, among others) took over around 1983-84. In rap, the turnover can be mind-blowing -- hip-hop has always had an "out with the old, in with the new" attitude, and MCs who stay on top as long as L.L. Cool J are the exception instead of the rule. By the mid-'80s, Sha Rock and the Sequence were considered old school, and there were plenty of younger hip-hop women to take their place (if you want to look at it that way). Roxanne Shanté, the Real Roxanne (a Puerto Rican MC), MC Lyte, Salt-N-Pepa (who were originally known as Super Nature), Queen Latifah, Antoinette, Sparky-D, Ice Cream Tee, Monie Love, Sweet Cookie and Pebblee-Poo are among the female rappers who emerged in the mid- to late '80s. And that list of artists underscores the fact that female rappers are as diverse a bunch as male rappers. While Shanté and MC Lyte are essentially hardcore rappers and are famous for their battle rhymes, Salt-N-Pepa have had more of a pop-rap focus -- the group has had no problem appealing to urban contemporary and dance-pop audiences.

When it came to female rappers, the term pop-rap could mean different things in the '80s. Salt-N-Pepa and Oaktown's 3.5.7 (who were MC Hammer protégées from Oakland, CA) had crossover appeal, but they weren't bubblegum -- certainly not the way that J.J. Fad and L'Trimm (two female pop-rap groups of the late '80s/early '90s) could be bubblegum. The Miami-based L'Trimm (best known for their 1988 hit "Cars with the Boom") never received any respect from rap purists, who disliked their cutesy, girlish image and their frivolous lyrics. But L'Trimm's work should be enjoyed for what it is: goofy, silly, frivolous, escapist fun. Comparing L'Trimm to MC Lyte or the Real Roxanne would be like comparing Poison to Slayer -- L'Trimm didn't pretend to be hardcore rap any more than Poison pretended to be death metal.

The early '90s saw the rise of a variety of female rappers, who ranged from Ice Cube associate Yo-Yo to the militantly sociopolitical (and downright controversial) Sista Souljah to some very sexually explicit groups: Chicago's HWA (Hoes with Attitude) and L.A.'s Bytches With Problems (BWP). Both of those groups came out with their first albums in 1990, which was six years before the release of Lil' Kim's debut solo album, Hard Core. Like HWA and BWP before her, Kim has never been the least bit shy about having X-rated lyrics. Kim commands a large following, but she also has her detractors; some feminists have argued that her willingness to exploit sex promotes the objectification of women. But if anyone is being objectified on Kim's albums, it's men. Kim has always projected a take-charge image on her albums -- if anything, Kim's releases have portrayed her as the dominatrix and men as the submissives who do her bidding. On the song "Not Tonight," for example, Kim bluntly states that she expects any man she is intimate with to perform oral sex on her -- and that men who cannot pleasure her in that way shouldn't even bother wasting her time.

The list of other female rappers who started recording in the '90s is a long one. It's a list that includes, among many others, Nonchalant, Da Brat, Mia X, Foxy Brown, Bahamadia, LeShaun, the Conscious Daughters, Shorty No Mas, Heather B, Overweight Pooch, Tam Tam and Queen Mother Rage. Gangsta rap was very male-dominated in the '90s -- like rap in general -- but it did give us Sh'killa, a Bay Area rapper who set out to be the female equivalent of Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg or Warren G. Sh'killa's Gangstrez from da Bay (released by Priority in 1995) was right out of the Dre/Snoop/Death Row Records school of West Coast G-funk.

The majority of female rappers have been black -- at least in the United States. But some white female rappers have recorded albums over the years, and they have ranged from L.A.'s aggressive, in-your-face Tairrie B (who was very much a hardcore rapper) to pop-rapper Icy Blu (who Irving Azoff's Giant Records envisioned as a female version of Vanilla Ice). In 1990, Tairrie went after the hip-hop world with her debut album, The Power of a Woman, which didn't sell. And subsequently, she shifted her focus from hardcore rap to rap-metal and alternative rock as a vocalist for the band Manhole (more recently known as Tura Satana).

When the 21st Century arrived, rap wasn't showing any signs of becoming less male-dominated -- the high level of testosterone that rap had in the late '70s and early '80s wasn't any weaker in 2000, 2001 or 2002. But if women were still a minority in rap, they were a commercially viable minority; Lil' Kim and Foxy Brown (just to give two examples) continued to command sizable followings, and the early 2000s were a great time for the Philadelphia-based Eve (whose first album came out in 1999). Again, every hip-hop era has had some major female stars, and there is no reason to believe that the future will be any different.

by Alex Henderson

European Rap (Essay)

"Representing the 'hood" is a term that one frequently hears in hip-hop circles. Historically, rappers have been obsessed with telling you where they're from and why they're proud to be from a particular area. That's why Run-D.M.C. described themselves as "kings from Queens" (as in the Queens borough of New York City), and it's why N.W.A called their second album, Straight Outta Compton (as in Compton, CA, the tough Los Angeles ghetto that N.W.A was from). It's also why hip-hoppers from Long Island, NY affectionately call that area "Strong Island" and why many southern MCs refer to their region as the Dirty South (not dirty as in physically unclean -- dirty as in having explicit lyrics). From Master P in New Orleans to the Roots in Philadelphia, rappers all over the United States have been representing the 'hood and doing so in a very loud, vocal way -- they want to make sure that listeners know exactly where they're from.

But the 'hood doesn't necessarily have to be in the United States or anywhere else in North America. Rap is huge in most parts of the world, and there are hip-hop scenes in places that range from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Tokyo, Japan to Johannesburg, South Africa. There are rappers in Mozambique; there are rappers in the Philippines and different parts of India (where numerous Indian pop singers have incorporated hip-hop elements). The main focus of this essay, however, is European rap, and that could be anything from an Irish MC in Dublin to a German rapper in Munich (which the English-language section of a German hip-hop website calls "Muthaphukkin' Money Makin' Munich"). When a European rapper talks about life in the 'hood, he/she could be talking about Venice, Italy -- or perhaps the 'hood could be in Stockholm, Sweden or Barcelona, Spain. From Scandinavia to Portugal, hip-hop has been huge in Europe since the '80s.

In terms of European geography, this essay does not take a purist approach and classifies British, Scottish and Irish rap as part of the European hip-hop spectrum. Technically, the British Isles are not right on the European continent; one couldn't drive a car from London to Vienna or from Dublin to Geneva (unless the car could also function as a submarine -- and those kind of cars only exist in sci-fi movies). Nonetheless, the countries of the British Isles (England, Ireland and Scotland) are essentially part of the greater European community, and Americans tend to think of them as European countries -- if your ancestors were from Ireland but you were born and raised in New Jersey, you're considered a Euro-American. And if you're busting a rhyme on the streets of Manchester, Dublin or Glasgow, you're as much a part of European rap as someone from Paris, Copenhagen or Berlin.

For the most part, European rap has received very little attention in the U.S. -- and the language barrier has been a definite factor. To a hip-hop head from West Philly, East Oakland or South-Central L.A., it might sound strange to hear Germany's Die Fantastischen Vier rapping in German, Italy's Articolo 31 rapping in Italian or France's MC Solaar rapping in French. But it isn't considered strange in Europe, where all of those artists are well known and have sold a lot of CDs. Europeans, for the most part, tend to be a lot more multilingual than Americans; it isn't uncommon for someone to graduate from a European high school speaking several languages fluently (including English). Consequently, European hip-hop heads are used to hearing MCs flowing in different languages -- they speak enough English to understand most or all of Jay-Z's lyrics, but they're also quite comfortable hearing MC Solaar getting busy in French. Solaar (a jazz-influenced alternative rapper along the lines of De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest and the Jungle Brothers) is not only a major rap star in France; he's also sold a ton of CDs in other European countries. Solaar isn't nearly as well known in the U.S., but like other major European rappers, he has demonstrated that an MC can be a superstar by catering to the European market.

The fact that Europeans tend to be more multilingual than Americans not only explains why European rap fans are willing to hear rapping in different languages -- it also explains why some rappers from countries where English isn't the official language have been able to rap in English exclusively (including Denmark's Bootfunk and Sweden's ADL). Again, becoming multilingual is encouraged in many of Europe's public school systems, and fluency in English is a goal of many European kids -- they want to be able to understand the dialogue in a Martin Scorsese movie, the lyrics of a Lil' Kim tune or the material on CNN's website. In terms of language, European MCs generally feel that different options are available; a Dutch rapper might feel perfectly comfortable flowing in English, or he/she might prefer to rap in Dutch. Hip-hop fans in Holland (where the popular rappers have ranged from DTF and 24K to the Osdorp Posse) are open to hearing local artists rapping in either Dutch or English -- for that matter, Dutch rap fans are open to hearing rapping in French, German, Italian or Spanish. MC Solaar and Die Fantastischen Vier (whose name is German for the Fantastic Five) have sold plenty of CDs in the Netherlands.

Because English is the primary language of the British Isles, it stands to reason that British, Irish and Scottish MCs have a greater chance of reaching the American market than someone who raps in Dutch, German, French or Italian exclusively. And on rare occasions, British rappers have enjoyed exposure in the U.S. -- Monie Love, who reached her commercial peak in the late '80s and early '90s, is the British MC who has enjoyed the greatest commercial success in North America. Other noteworthy British hip-hoppers have ranged from the London Posse, Derek B and the Demon Boyz to the Wee Papa Girls and the Cookie Crew (two female pop-rap groups that have been described as a U.K. equivalent of Salt-N-Pepa). Linguists who take a close look at the hip-hop trends of the British Isles will hear the English language used in many different ways; British rap has, in some cases, sounded like a mixture of Cockney and African-American slang, whereas Irish and Scottish rappers have often combined a brogue with African-American slang. In fact, one can hear the parallels between House of Pain (the Irish-American rap group that made Everlast famous) and Scaryéire, a hardcore rap group from Ireland. Scaryéire is an intriguing example of multiculturalism -- the Irish rappers love African-American culture, but instead of trying to sound exactly like black MCs from the U.S., they combine African-American and Irish/Celtic influences. Instead of rapping about growing up in the projects of North Philly -- something they haven't experienced -- Scaryéire's members are wise enough to rap about something they do have first-hand knowledge of: life in Ireland. Scaryéire has represented the 'hood, which is also what rappers have done in Italy (where noteworthy hip-hoppers have ranged from Nuovi Briganti to the militantly sociopolitical 99 Posse). Italian hip-hop heads will tell you that MCs from different parts of Italy rap with different accents -- in Palermo, for example, one might encounter MCs with a Sicilian/Southern Italian way of rapping, whereas MCs from Milan have more of a Northern Italian flow. And there's a similar situation in Spain, where a rapper from Barcelona is likely to have a different accent from a Madrid-based rapper. It should be noted that Spanish-language rapping in Spain sounds a lot different from Spanish-language rapping in Latin America; similarly, Portuguese-language rapping in Portugal sounds a lot different from Portuguese-language rapping in Brazil (the only Latin American country where Spanish isn't the official language).

Although much of this essay has focused on Western Europe, hip-hop has been getting bigger and bigger in Eastern Europe. Back in the '80s -- when Eastern Europe was still dominated by Soviet-style communist regimes -- hip-hop was very underground in places like the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) and Hungary. Rap, like rock, was especially frowned upon in Albania and Romania, both of which had brutally repressive, totally xenophobic Stalinist regimes. But after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in the late '80s and early '90s, it became a lot easier to obtain rap CDs in that part of the world. Rappers from former communist countries have ranged from Poland's BZiK to the Czech Republic's Rapmasters.

Whether or not European rap artists will make inroads in the U.S. remains to be seen; obviously, Europeans who rap in English have a better shot than those who don't (although British, Irish and Scottish rappers have tended to do much better in Europe than in North America). But then, plenty of European MCs have been selling a ton of CDs with little or no help from the U.S. market -- and that trend will likely continue for some time to come.

by Alex Henderson

Electro (Essay)

Before the rise of gangsta rap in the late '80s -- before N.W.A, Ice-T, Ice Cube and the late Eazy-E became international stars -- many Los Angeles rappers were known for a very different type of sound. Some have called that sound electro-hop, which is certainly as good a term as any. Electro-hop (or simply electro) was rap, but it wasn't hardcore rap and didn't appeal to rap purists any more than Shania Twain or Faith Hill appeal to country purists. Electro-hop was electronic pop-rap for the dance floor, and even though rap purists were vehemently critical of it (especially on the East Coast), the high-tech style did enjoy a small cult following on the West Coast in the '80s.

L.A.'s best known electro-hop artists included, among others, the Egyptian Lover, the Arabian Prince, the Unknown DJ, the World Class Wreckin' Cru and Uncle Jam's Army (whose name was inspired by Funkadelic's 1979 album Uncle Jam Wants You). Pop-rappers the L.A. Dream Team also made some contributions to electro-hop, although not everything they recorded was in that vein. All of those artists came along in the early to mid-'80s, a time when hip-hop was still dominated by the East Coast -- mostly New York, although Philadelphia was developing an increasingly healthy rap scene. Electro-hop didn't get much respect on the East Coast, where b-boys and rap purists liked to poke fun at the style. Some East Coast MCs called it "jheri curl music," a disparaging reference to the jheri curl hairstyle that was popular on the West Coast at the time. But as much as electro-hop was ridiculed in New York, Boston and Philly, the style was actually based on one of the hottest East Coast rap records of 1982: Afrika Bambaataa's "Planet Rock," which sampled Kraftwerk's 1977 hit "Trans-Europe Express". The same East Coast b-boys who dissed electro-hop had nothing but kind words for Bambaataa, who was among the masters of early New York hip-hop -- when one is talking about the history of old school rap in Harlem and the South Bronx, Bambaataa's name should be mentioned alongside Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, Kurtis Blow, the Treacherous Three, Grandmaster Caz and Kool DJ Herc. Bambaataa was the among the true heavyweights of early East Coast rap, and his futuristic "Planet Rock" single sounds like the blueprint for so much of the West Coast electro-hop of the early to mid-'80s. In fact, you could say that artists like the Egyptian Lover, the Unknown DJ, the World Class Wreckin' Cru and the Arabian Prince were downright obsessed with "Planet Rock."

Electro-hop also owed a huge creative debt to Kraftwerk, the seminal German group that wrote the book on what is now called electronica. Without question, Kraftwerk were way ahead of their time; the innovators were into synthesizers and drum machines at a time when those things were still considered novelties in rock and R&B circles. The electronic pop and dance music that Kraftwerk started providing in the early '70s not only helped pave the way for electro-hop -- Kraftwerk also had a major impact on everything from techno to house music to trance. And Bambaataa knew exactly what he was doing when he sampled Kraftwerk's "Trans-Europe Express" on "Planet Rock."

Outside of Southern California, there were various hip-hop heads who had a "Planet Rock"-minded approach in the early to mid-'80s -- artists like Newcleus (best known for their 1984 hit "Jam On It") and the Boston-based Jonzun Crew. But people who were really into hip-hop in those days could tell Newcleus or the Jonzun Crew from West Coast artists like the Egyptian Lover and the Arabian Prince.

Not every rapper who was active in Los Angeles in the early to mid-'80s wanted to record electro-hop. In fact, there were some L.A.-based rappers who totally rejected it and preferred a more hardcore approach -- people who identified with the East Coast b-boy sounds of Run-D.M.C., the Fat Boys and L.L. Cool J instead of the electro-hop of the World Class Wreckin' Cru and Uncle Jam's Army. One of them was Toddy Lee, a talented but underexposed MC who is best known for his 1985 gem "Batter Ram" (a sociopolitical song that dealt with the drug epidemic in South-Central L.A. and the Los Angeles Police Department's use of the controversial battering ram). "Batter Ram" had nothing to do with electro-hop -- it was straight-up hardcore rap, and the song demonstrated that L.A. rap could be as gritty and hard-hitting as New York or Philly rap. Another important L.A. rapper from that period was King Tee, who like Toddy Tee, didn't receive the national fame he deserved but is still a historically important figure.

However, L.A.'s most important hardcore rapper of the early to mid-'80s was Ice-T, who wrote the book on West Coast gangsta rap when he recorded "6'N the Mornin'" in 1986. Even before he embraced gangsta rap, he was a hardcore rapper -- Ice-T had a straight-up b-boy outlook as early as 1983, when he provided his first single, "The Coldest Rap". Although he didn't become nationally famous until 1987, Ice enjoyed a small West Coast following in the early to mid-'80s -- a time when hardcore rap was, as he put it, "real underground" in Southern California. You might say that Ice was on a mission in those days; he was determined to see Los Angeles become known as a bastion of hardcore rap, and eventually, he got his wish.

L.A.'s electro-hop era unofficially started coming to an end when Sire/Warner Bros. released Ice's debut album, Rhyme Pays, in 1987. Arguably, that album put the first nail in electro-hop's coffin. A major triumph for gangsta rap, Rhyme Pays made Ice a major name in rap and showed the hip-hop world that hardcore rap could, in fact, come from the West Coast. Thanks to Ice, more A&R people started to become comfortable with the idea of hardcore rap coming from California -- they started taking a closer look at West Coast rap and realized that not all of it was electro-hop. And if A&R people needed additional examples of hardcore rap coming from L.A., N.W.A gave it to them with N.W.A and the Posse in 1987 and Straight Outta Compton in 1988. The more popular Ice-T and N.W.A became, the more A&R people realized that gangsta rap could be a lot more profitable than electro-hop.

Not that Ice-T or N.W.A's first albums killed electro-hop immediately; female pop-rap trio J.J. Fad had an electro-hop hit in early 1988 with "Supersonic." Electro-hop continued to be recorded after the rise of gangsta rap in 1987 and 1988, but it became a lot less plentiful by the early '90s. Ironically, one of the people whose name became synonymous with gangsta rap had been an important figure in electro-hop: Dr. Dre. In his pre-N.W.A days, Dre was a member of producer Alonzo Williams' World Class Wreckin' Cru; Dre started out as an electro-hopper, not a gangsta rapper. But Dre grew tired of the electro-hop sound, and he reinvented himself in a major way when he became part of N.W.A along with Ice Cube, MC Ren, DJ Yella and the late Eazy-E. Dre was a cult figure during his years with the World Class Wreckin' Cru; he became a superstar after joining N.W.A.

N.W.A's first lineup also included the Arabian Prince, who Dre knew from the World Class Wreckin' Cru. Before N.W.A, the Arabian Prince focused on electro-hop and was both a solo artist and a member of the Wreckin' Cru. He was also down with Uncle Jam's Army, a collective of electro-hop-oriented DJs, producers and rappers that held huge dance parties in L.A. in the early to mid-'80s. In 1988, the Arabian Prince left N.W.A to concentrate on his solo career, and his post-N.W.A recordings of the '90s were gangsta rap -- in the '90s, electro-hop was a thing of the past for the Arabian Prince.

When hip-hop historians look back on the history of West Coast rap, electro-hop isn't the first thing that comes to mind. They think of N.W.A's Straight Outta Compton and Ice-T's innovative crime rhymes. They think of L.A.-based gangsta rappers like Above the Law, Cypress Hill, Compton's Most Wanted and DJ Quik, and they of artists who recorded for Delicious Vinyl Records (including Young MC and Tone-Loc). They think of Warren G's G-funk, and of course, they think of Dre's first solo album, The Chronic, and artists who recorded for Death Row Records in the '90s (including the distinctive Snoop Dogg and the late 2Pac Shakur). But they don't give much thought to electro-hop, especially if hardcore rap is their preference. Nonetheless, the electro-hop scene was an interesting footnote in the pre-gangsta rap, pre-Straight Outta Compton era of West Coast rap.

by Alex Henderson