The Rap Attack: African Jive to New York Hip Hop (1985) by David Toop & Rap Graffiti LP

Przedmowa Rap Attack:

Rapping is a word that has been a part of Afro-American vocabulary for a long time. With the coming of a new black American popular music called Rap in 1979, people all over the world began to be aware of it, thinking of it as a description of rhythmic talking over a funk beat. The first so-called rap records were in fact the tip of an iceberg, under the surface was a movement called hip hop, a Bronx-based subculture, and beneath that was a vast expanse of sources reaching back to West Africa. The praise singing, social satires and boasting of savannah Griots that appeared to reincarnate in groups with names like Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, Afrika Bambaataa and Cosmic Force, The Treacherous Three and The Funky Four Plus One More, had all been present in black music over the last 80 years. Where once they were relegated to the sidelines of language studies, the service industries of music like radio, or aspects of blues and soul lyricism, they were now centre stage and in the charts.

For listeners who aren't diehard fans, rap trends to be the same as blues, reggae or jazz - it's boring, it's repetitive. The pop cover version are more intelligent. It's also seen as a self-contained phenomenon which will probably go away before too long. How self-contained is a record like 'Ya Mama by the group called Wuf Ticket? A pretty average release, musically speaking, it was a direct reference to black street slang and word battles like dozens, singifying, gaming and woofing. As such, it connected back to blues, R&B and soul releases from earlier periods like Speckled Red's - The Dirty Dozens, Luther Ingram's - Puttin' Game Down and Bo Diddley's - Say Man, even rap poetry/music like Melvin Van Peebles's - The Dozens or comedy routines like Richard Pryor's - I Spy Cops.

Althrogh it is impossible to interconnect all the different strands and influences which have contributed to development of hip hop and do justice to all of them, I have tried to convey the depth of tradition that has led to records like Planet Rock, The Message, The Crown and many other leaders of Rap Attack. Each chapter deserves its own book and I hope will one get it.


A1 B-Side – Une Sale Histoire
A2 Fab 5 Freddy – Change The Beat
A3 Phase 2 – The Roxy
A4 Grandmixer D. ST.* & Infinity Rappers, The – Grandmixer (Cuts It Up)
B1 B-Side, Grandmixer D. ST., Phase 2 & Smurfs, The – Krush Groove
B2 Smurfs, The – Smurf For What It's Worth
B3 Futura 2000 – The Escapades Of Futura 2000


David Toop... Brytyjski muzyk (w latach 70. i 80. członek rockowej kapeli "The Flying Lizards") i publicysta, między innymi autor serii książek poświęconej kulturze Hip Hop "Rap Attack" oraz pisarz na łamach muzycznego czasopisma "The Wire".