peace
I got a few questions because I'm only a casual hip hop fan but I've always been curious about it's very early days,
1. Is the style of rapping accurate to the time period?
2. How big of a deal would Eziekal's mixed heritage be in late 1970's New York?
3. The Pentecostal Latinos? I thought most Hispanics were Catholic, is this common?
4. Is Dizzee realistic wouldn't he be subject to beat downs for being gay (or suspected of being gay) around black and Hispanic kids in 1970s New York?
1. Yup
Here's an example of one of the many crews we grew up listening to.
My man from the upper W Side in Manhattan used to tell me abt seeing these kats doing live jams when he was younger even though we weren't as old these kids were plus we weren't in the heart of it like these characters were and what they represented
Take everything u see and hear in even though it was a little later when it came around, developed & drew us up
2. & 3. Just abt everything Black folk were doing so we're Puerto Rican folk were just with a touch of sazon.
The Bx was the Bx.
The West Indian families were buying homes and property though, a touch more than those who were there already.
It all depended on what type of family structure you had even now which was a very good point displayed in the show.
PrinceWhipperWhip, DJ CharlieChase, Peso and a whole bunch of other kats were those 1st generation True School PR/Boriqua cornerstone legends of that 1st generation.
4. Dizzee never said he was gay exclusively.
He was what I call on some artsy shit like a few writers as well as dancers.
Some even say Flash was on it like that but who knows.
Meeting some of them 1st gen writers, running around in a few of them circles yrs later and understanding the influence of that disco Era shit in the time pd, some suppressed their natural tendencies of who they really were. Others may have been curious and intrigued by the freedom and expression, experimenting with what was a good fit for them. Add on some intoxicants, a little push from bi chicks who saw it in them and encouraged tbem to be free & express how they really felt like that chick in the club may have turned some of them out.
Remeber, that whole post war, peace free love hippy, be yourself or whatever u wanna be, get high, try this, 60s wave still was influential and in the air.
It seemed Dizzee represented an unspoken sensitivity and expressed himself artistically mostly seeking and searching for others that did and felt the same on some kindred spirit shit where some of them dudes were gay, bi, curious or just wanted to be down with a tribe of their own and connect with like minds.
I'm glad that didn't go all the way there in the scene possibly giving these young kids still trying to figure themselves out with raging hormones, possible lack of structure in their homes and communities the wrong impression just to do some shit that they see everyone else may be doing.
When the hip hop movement came to downtown lounge and club scene where they were free to do whatever gay shit certain parts of that community embraced and still does, some of that was bound to happen.
During that whole Bambaataa shit, some people who were there claim a lot of kats in that true and back in the day genre as well as today were on that gay, bi and curious shit too but just superseding it from the public eye but everyone going to them spots weren't with the shit.
Partying in clubs downtown and intrigued by the dance and the music yet being influenced by my parents who loved the soul and disco music as well as them both being from the Bx, I'd always see that shit going on but never paid it much attn as I was there for the music. The super flamboyant gay shit downtown was as much part of the scene as the grimey stick up kids, stick up artist and killers Uptown in them jams who watched the drug pushing hustlers and runners do their thing while they plotted on em.
Watered down stick up artist shit
I see what they were trying to express but they also covered diff pds like the 80s and 90s, in order to make their point i.e. a gay mofo could be in some speedos wearing a carnival outfit jumping around like he was born with mafuggin fallopian tubes super over the top but there was no vogueing per se until much later.
House and club music evolved from disco but it wasn't poppin then.
A lot of bboy kids and those who embraced the dance hardbody switched over to House in the late 80s and 90s when clubs didn't want that bboy 'played out' acrobatic type expression in their clubs in the late 80s.
Crazy Leggs talks abt that in the documentary TheFreshestKids.
I loved how that jam and battle showed that the motivating factor of that true hip hop, from nothing but scratching old soul records in the middle of the slums and abandoned buildimgs, was to make them fly girlie dance, shake their asses then move the hard rock original bboys to wanting to dance and battle instead of gang fight like they were just a moment b4 that Era
This music is from that direct time pd
moments unless u were from their respective blocks and got to witness them in their first incarnation performing this like how SadatX wrote in a rhyme dedicated to Caz a few yrs back
@ your comments on them shits ahaha.
