To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic

209 Pages·2007·1 MB·English

by  William Jelani Cobb

TO THE BREAK OF DAWN

WILLIAM JELANI COBB
TO THE BREAK OF D AWN
A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic
a

New York University Press • New York and London
For Don-Dee & Deb:The Best Man & Woman
new y ork university press
New York and London
www.nyupress.org
© 2007 by New York University
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cobb, William Jelani.
To the break of dawn : a freestyle on the hip hop aesthetic / William Jelani Cobb.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN–13: 978–0–8147–1670–0 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN–10: 0–8147–1670–9 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Hip-hop. I. Title.
ML3918.R37C63 2006
782.421649—dc22 2006029844
New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper,
and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.
Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In spite of and because of marginal status ,a powerful,indigenous
vernacular tradition has survived,not unbroken,but unbowed,a
magnet,a focused energy,something with its own logic,rules and
integrity connecting current developments to the past. An articu-
late,syncretizing force our artists have drawn upon, a force sus-
taining both individual talent and tradition.
—John Edgar Wideman
You criticize our methods
Of how we make records
You said it wasn’t art
So now we’re gonna rip you apart
—Stetsasonic,“Talking All That Jazz”

Contents
Microphone Check: An Intro 1
1 The Roots 13
2 The Score 41
3 Word of Mouth 77
4 Asphalt Chronicles: Hip Hop and the Storytelling Tradition 107
5 Seven MCs 139
Conclusion 167
Shout Outs 171
Notes 175
Index 183
About the Author 200

vii

Microphone Check
An Intro
NEW YORK,CIRCA 1986
That was us: the sweat-baptized, blue-light basement apostles of the
breakbeat. We, the b-boy delegates of our five-borough universe, eyes
hidden beneath baseball caps pulled low, uniformed in ?Guess, Kangol,
and Adidas Olympic Team training gear. Our ranks cued waaayback to
the subway lines that had delivered us to this place: Union Square, the
nightspot deriving its name from the section of Manhattan whereit was
located. If you came from around our way, South Queens, specifically,
then you gathered your tribe at 163rd Street and Hillside Ave and took
the E to Lexington. Then you caught the downtown #6 to 14th Street,
which delivered you to the far end of the Square.
At the front you encountered Muscle D, a brother swollen to a rip-
pled abstraction, barely contained by his nylon tees and capable of lit-
erally moving the crowd. Down below was a consecrated dance-floor,
the theater for our repertoire of movements: the Wop, the Rambo, the
Fila, the Biz, the Prep. The true disciple could tell you that Rakim was
there, the headlining act on the opening night at Union Square. That
disciple would know that Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince were to be the
second act. Or that Biz-Markie rolled up in that spot on the reg, self-ad-
vertising with the boldfaced B-I-Z emblazoned on his cap—as if he was
worried you would mistake him for Kool Moe Dee. You would remem-
ber the smell of it, if you had ever been there, the blunt-heavy air mixed
with sweat, leather, Polo cologne, and some other indefinable ele-
ment—a calibrated cool, perhaps—that we were so filled with that it
must have seeped from our pores into the atmosphere also.
This is my romantic memory of the distant past. But the charitable
will indulge my personal mythologizing for a moment.
1