There is a very unique aspect of hip hop culture that is not shared by other genres of American born music. The pioneers of Hip Hop music, in most instances, particularly in regard to the Dee jays that unearthed the ‘breaks’, are still alive! Hip Hop, as a culture, is only about 40-45 years old.
Sometime in 2014, in a hip hop vinyl vault somewhere in NYC, Rock Steady Crew Dee Jay Rich Medina interviewed “Break Beat” Lou about the origins and idea behind the Ultimate Breaks & Beats (U.B.B.) LP series for the “Boiler Room”. Most hey day hip hop listeners, b-boys/b-girls, beat diggers, veteran hip hop producers, and vinyl Dee jays have some familiarity with the culture classically unique samples tracks that are contained and packaged as a double vinyl series. The LPs feature various artist releases that were used as the foundation sounds for the hip hop culture, park jams, block parties and most of the hip hop songs that were created from the late 80’s through the early 2000’s. The cover sleeve artwork was usually a variety of colorful so-called 'graffiti' pieces which brought some of the graphics and visual aspect of the culture back into the forefront. The U.B.B. series was patterned after the Super Disco Brake's LPs that came out around the late 70’s-early 80’s. “Break Beat” Lou also says that the UBB were a quasi-top 100 hip hop breaks for hip hoppers like the K-Tel top hits/best of LPs for billboard of the same era. On a whole, U.B.B. encompassed the 4 elements of hip hop culture in some form or fashion. It provided music for the Dee jays, beats for the emcees, breaks for the b-boys/b-girls and art for writers. Being that these were a double vinyl series, it allowed Dee jays the opportunity to hone their skills, as well as save themselves a lot of time and money in trying to find each of these breaks on their own. Aside from saving the Dee Jay time and money, it also saved them crate space by not having to cart around a lot of LPs for one break because the UBB series releases had these various breaks from different artists on one LP. As a matter of fact, “Break Beat” Lou who was about 9-10 years old during this time. He recalls seeing and hearing a lot of these breaks being played by Herc, Bam, Theodore, Charlie Chase and more. There is a very unique aspect of hip hop culture that is not shared by other genres of American born music. The pioneers of Hip Hop music, in most instances, particularly in regard to the Dee jays that unearthed the ‘breaks’, are still alive! Hip Hop, as a culture, is only about 40-45 years old. It’s not like jazz, a turn of the 19th century American music genre invention; or rock ‘n’ roll-a post blues fusion form of music that came about around the 1950’s. Hip Hoppers are blessed, in that we have the ability to go back and speak with the pioneers of our culture. It is our responsibility as members of the culture to learn, to tell it straight and pass on the knowledge for the younger generations without watering it down or mixing up the actual facts. While these pioneers are still around, we need to bring their stories to the forefront of the culture much like Rich Medina has done with “Break Beat” Lou in the video interview below. It is very disheartening to know that Hip Hop stands as the only form of American Music that does not support their pioneers & so-called old school artists as much as the other genres of music. I’m sure more people would turn out for a Rolling Stones concert than would hip hoppers for an EPMD or RUN DMC show. This is a sad reality that I hope eventually changes sooner if not immediately. Enjoy this historic video and be sure to learn more about hip hop culture & pass the knowledge on-HIP HOP! Peace This article was written by Ahmored Tieghur on 02/07/2016 for the Wandering eyes blog.
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