Thoughts on Charlie Chase and Cyprus Hill

Ahhh... I've finally made a connection between my first experiences with hip hop and the early roots of the genre. It was 1994. I was 13 and had no idea what real music was about. Up until this point I was listening to a burnt out old tape of Phil Collins (No Jacket Required) and the Miami Vice soundtrack. I was young but still knew that a lot was going on social and politically in the US. We were dealing the aftermath of the first Gulf War, and the LA riots. This particular summer saw the death of Curt Cobain and the OJ murder trial was beginning to take shape. All of these things set the tone for one of my most formative experiences, the discovery of real music.

My sister was a little older than I was and had her fingers on the pulse of the music scene. She exposed me to Nirvana, Beck, and the Pixies for the first time that summer. I was also exposed to a little hip hop group called Cyprus Hill.

Now up until this point the only thing white america knew about hip hop was how evil and destructive it was to our youth. Tipper Gore was all over the air waves several years prior telling us how bands like 2Live Crew were destroying our youth. Other groups like Public Enemy and other early rappers were making a break from hip hop to hard core rap. Their reputation only solidified that image in the minds of my parents.

My parents knew about the 'evils' of rap and forbid us from listening to any of it. So 'white music', Beck, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam could be listened to freely. But we knew that Cyprus Hill had to be played at night, with the head phones on, always watching our bedroom door with our fingers on the stop button just in case mom or dad came calling after hours.

I didn't understand it at the time, but the disdain my parents had for this new breed of hip hop wasn't new in the eyes of the artists, especially the chicanos and other latin hip hop artists. Just as 'white music' is by white musicians for white people, so to was early hip hop seen as a blacks only affair. Although some of the first graffiti artist and hip hop party goers were latin, to be a DJ you had to be black. Or so the stereotype went...

Now, a new comer breaks onto the scene of hip hop in the form Charlie Chase. A skinny, mustached Puerto Rican kid with slicked back hair trying to make a name for himself in the arena hip hop dominated by black men. Charlie's first DJing gigs were successful due, in part, as Juan Flores describes in "Puerto Rocks", to him being in the back in the DJ booth, behind the MCs. As his popularity grew, he was able to take the stage, but the crowds weren't able to accept that the skills they heard on the turntable were that of a latino. Some were even shocked to learn that some of the fresh breaks they were dancing to were cuts from salsa music, incorporated into mix by Chase.

Charlie Chase went on to break ground for other latino's in the hip hop world. As the second wave of b-boys carried with them a substantial number of Puerto Ricans, latino's began to gain acceptance in the hip hop world. Around this time Charlie Chase began to make it big with his band 'The Cold Crush Brothers'. They were signed and toured Japan for a while, spreading hip hop across the globe.

Although this was the beginning of latin rap in America, the scene really took off as the latin population in LA began to experiment with their own brand of calo-rap. California, as Ragan Kelly explains in "Hip Hop Chicano", has a rich history of latino musical innovation. This was due, in part, to the huge latino population in southern California. In fact, the latino population is so overwhelming in the area that, since the 1940's, latino trends in California have been followed by blacks and whites alike. From dances like Hully Gully and the Corrido Rock, to low riders, latino culture took center stage. So its no surprise that this area embraced the budding latino hip hop scene and added to it some of its most famous artists: Mellow Man Ace, Kid Frost and yes Cyprus Hill.

Is interesting to me to see how blacks in the Bronx used hip hop as a racial identifier to separate themselves from what they might have perceived as the oppressive white culture. Then, within this hip hop culture, they suppressed another group, abet not very long, the latinos from taking an active role in shaping hip hop music. This is a reminder to all of us that, although races of people might use their culture for self identification, as Charlie Chase put it "to me, rap is color blind, that's that!"

What is Hip Hop? A musing on where Hip Hop was and where its been from an outsiders perspective.

As the first blog on the subject of hip hop, I thought it would be good to define what I think hip hop is and where its been.

What is hip hop?

Never really stopped to think about it. Its music right? Something that sounds like rap but without the gangsta themes. Its urban music that samples other music, changes the beat and lyrics around a bit and tries to pass itself off as something new.

Well, come to find out, its more than that. A lot more.

We can't just keep hip hop relegated to the music can we? Its more than that. Its a collection of art that spans music, painting, dance and partying? Yes, it seems it was all done to kick the boredom that was the Bronx NY in the 1970's. Music that was perfected to keep the party hopping, dance moves that would impress anyone, and graffiti just because it looks cool.

I'll get to the dancing and painting in another post. Today I'll just drop some thoughts on the music.

What I've learned so far about the history of hip hop goes something like this:

The first practitioners were trying to make some money throwing parties and needed to out perform the other guys in the neighborhood. The partiers love the bass, so buy a huge sound system. Turn down the treble, jack up the bass. But what about the music itself? How about just listening to that one part of the song that everyone wants to hear? We'll call it the 'break'. Heck why not put it on a loop and listen to it over and over? Now, that sounds good and all, but what about the words? A song this catchy needs some lyrics to round it out. Something with its own cadence, and tight rhymes that'll complement the beat. We can call that rapping. Wait a second... did we just invent a new genre of music?

By only using the best parts of the music, they created something that was more to the point. It was the first time anyone had thought of doing anything like that with music. And I would argue that it wasn't just a beginning of a new genre of music. It was a new way to look at music

Now lets talk about how those ideas changed the face of modern music. Forget hip hop and rap for a second. What about techno music? Same themes; more bass, breaks put on a loop and lots of record scratching. Modern pop music? Think about how much Brittney Spears or Kesha use beat sampling and lyrical motifs similar to rapping. Modern rock? Forget about it! Limp Bizkit, Disturbed, Slipknot and almost everyone else in the genre use bass, rapping, and sampling.

The ideas introduced by hip hop have evolved and permeated almost all modern music, but hip hop itself has managed to stick around and stay relevant. We hear hip hop music on the radio. We also hear it in commercials, in movies and on television. Next time you see a TV commercial listen to the background music and tell me what you hear.

Does this mean that hip hop has sold out? Not really. We still have Common, Snoop, RZA and others that keep the art of hip hop alive. But what 'selling out' does say is that its become such a mainstream art form that its almost universally accepted. So much so, people want hip hops musical motifs attached to their products.

Well thats all I can think of saying right now. I might go back to the books and the stereo and see if I'm inspired to blog about other things hip hop. For now I'll leave with a few things that I find interesting and hope you'll check out.

Banksy. One of the best graffiti artists in the world today. This is a link to his website, but you'd do yourself a favor to google his name as well.

The reverse graffiti project. When graffiti isn't vandalism.

This video explanes the history of the worlds most important 6 second drum loop