Look I am from Brooklyn, moved to L.A. then to the Bronx, all I can say is that the Bronx is on some different type shit, especially when it comes to Blacks and Puerto Ricans, for one you can't tell who's black and who's from PR just by looking at them. Some look blacker than me, and some look white and others can't even speak Spanish. But the few years staying there they rarely brought up race, at the time it was more about the crew you were down with. Now in my real home Brooklyn, we were all black and at that time the 5%ers were running things.
But this is how shit really went down, rap came out of the Bronx while in Bklyn we were more into roller rinks and DJing, no so much rapping. But when Brooklyn went to the parties, we were the ones tearing up shit. To me this is where the real divide came, because us Brooklyn cats were about robbing, looking fly, and smashing pussy, so while the PR kats from the Bronx started break dancing and doing all that goofy shit, the boys from Brooklyn were fucking their women and robbing kats. After a while rap was divided into two camps, uptown and Brooklyn street rap, the uptown shit started getting fruitier and weirder, but they had the labels and money to back them up, meanwhile, in Brooklyn, the rap was street, broke, and just about partying.
As time went by, the Spanish people created their own music, they called it freestyle, you know that Lisa Lisa shit but it was singing with a hint of HIP HOP it was more B-boy music, while Brooklyn started making money in the studio. But when Run DMC came out they had that Brooklyn swag, style, and sound while Flash and those uptown boys started making electronic wack music to keep up with the soft B-Boys.
Soon after Rakim and Kane started popping off, even KRS who was from uptown had that Brooklyn sound to it.
As far as influence, Brooklyn was influenced more by James Brown, Bob James, and underground disco, the reason why Brooklyn was able to stick to the classics as opposed to going techno was because they wasn't worried about getting sued becasue their music was street and in the street there were no rules, as opposed to Sugar Hill, Epic and the early lables being forced to make generic beats for their uptown rappers. So even though the Bronx had an early advantage, the Brooklyn sound took over, becuase it better reflected what was going on in the streets. But after Rakim and Kane uptown music died off, even the newer acts like KRS one and Slick Rick, had that Brooklyn street vibe to it. As far as free style music, I really think that shit morphed into Reageton but don't hold me to it, I could be wrong.
Here is a sample of how the sound changed..
Early HIP HOP records
Uptown music started getting electronic
The birth of Freestyle music or Electronic dance music
(this is where Madonna branched out from)
Early Brooklyn rap
(where Run DMC branched out from)
(Don't know if they are from brooklyn but this is how early Bklyn music sounded like)
(where Whodini got their swagg from)
Brooklyn sound starts to dominate
(even though they were from Harlem they still had that Brooklyn street sound)
Meanwhile, in the Bronx, they were rocking corny gay shit like
By the end of the 80's the Brooklyn sound won the rap music sound and today modern rap all has its roots in the Brooklyn sound.
Another thing I failed to mention, back then Brooklyn rap went toe to toe against reggae music, and to an extent house, but instead of competing they merged the sound and after this came Biggie, Wu and Pac and it was a wrap!
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