Chicago Hip-Hop Scene (Paris, Manhattan, Atlanta: mover, house, purchase)

[saadrajabali]

I've noticed that after the rise of the South, and even before that, Chicago hip-hop has always been overshadowed by New York, Los Angeles, or Atlanta one time or another until Kanye West stepped into the scene recently. Common of course is a living legend of Chicago. The best thing about Chicago Hip Hop is that it is fairly clean and is socially active...and it involves jazzy beats....Chicago hip hop seems to have it all, then why doesn't it get the exposure it deserves?

[reppin_the_847]

Many factors bro. Some of it has to do with the fact that especially earlier on and even to this day, most of the large music labels haven't been located in Chicago. They're mainly located in New York & Los Angeles (and Atlanta when it comes to hip hop). There's a lot of talent in Chicago, and a lot of talent that came out of Chicago, but a lot of these artists had to leave town & network like a motherf***er to make it big. The city has a rich musical history. I mean, a lot of great jazz & blues legends came from Chicago. Legendary rock acts such as Billy Corgan and his band, the Smashing Pumpkins came out of Chicago. Ask any one that really followed the history of hip hop and you'll find that the Chicago area was largely a consumer market. We would purchase records from rappers that came out of New York or L.A., but we'd hardly be networking with each other to put out our own well financed hip hop empire (oh yeah, keep in mind that historically a lot of rap labels traditionally were financed by illegal means such as drug money). I'll tell you that the main reason that rap is doing well in the south is because the southern rap artists network a lot better and support each other. They do this even better than the New York rappers! New York's asset though is that a lot of the corporate record labels (the gigantic parent companies such as Universal, Sony Music, BMG, Atlantic Records, etc.), have their main offices in Manhattan. But believe me, if a formerly unknown Young Joc out of Atlanta is out in the clubs selling trunkloads of CD's all on his own, then pretty soon you'll see P-Diddy on hop on a private jet from NYC to Atlanta and quickly sign the guy. P-Diddy will sign your ass if he knows that you can sell records and make money for his record label. And Diddy indeed signed Young Joc to Bad Boy South. If Young Joc had come from Chicago instead of Atlanta, he would've had a tougher time creating that initial marketing buzz for himself. In the south a lot of the DJ's at the strip clubs also help to create that initial buzz for rap artists down there. Diddy always hits up the strip clubs in Atlanta whenever he's down there prospecting for the next big rap artist.


Going back to Chicago, we did have a lot of classic hip hop elements back in the day like New York had. I mean, we had the graffiti being sprayed on our CTA trains just like the kids in New York used to do to their MTA subway trains. We had kids breakdancing in Chicago just like they did in New York. And Chicago was the birthplace of house music. To most people house music may not seem to have much in common with hip hop, but in actuality it does share some things in common with early party-based hip hop (ie. Sugarhill Gang, Grandmaster Flash, etc.). In fact there was even a genre of music at one time known as Hip House. People might recall a Jungle Brothers (NY hip hop group) song that came out a long time ago "I'll House You", "It Takes Two" by Rob Base, "Pump Up The Jam" by Technotronic. House music fans also are aware of the fact that New York City ALSO was in on the house music scene, and still is today. Disco music was also popular in both cities. Even today the Euro / Trance / House music scene is big in both Chicago & New York City (we're both large cities with diverse international populations, so this is only natural). So musically Chicago & NYC have more in common than an outsider might think. We just never had the corporate backing or local support for local music (and local networking for our hip hop scene) like some of the other metropolitan areas in the United States.

Originally Posted by saadrajabali

I've noticed that after the rise of the South, and even before that, Chicago hip-hop has always been overshadowed by New York, Los Angeles, or Atlanta one time or another until Kanye West stepped into the scene recently. Common of course is a living legend of Chicago. The best thing about Chicago Hip Hop is that it is fairly clean and is socially active...and it involves jazzy beats....Chicago hip hop seems to have it all, then why doesn't it get the exposure it deserves?

[saadrajabali]

Yeah you're absolutely right. Alternative Hip Hop was born from House music. It's true that people do not support native rappers because they listen to what's on the radio, and stuff in the South is mainly on the radio because of hometown support. It's just sad to see all the talent waste away in Chicago. I've actually made it a goal to promote these artists in some way by working as a part time DJ or starting a small, basic, and independent record label so I can help get these kids off of the streets and into the studio...for free, if I can manage that. Plus it would be something I would REALLY enjoy doing and it would be considered as sort of a charity

[reppin_the_847]

That's pretty cool. I'm also really into music, and although it's not something I do as a career or anything, I'm into the scene (hip hop, house, etc.) as you can probably tell from my post on this thread. We should definitely stay in touch on this whole music tip. Let me know what your plans are.

Originally Posted by saadrajabali

Yeah you're absolutely right. Alternative Hip Hop was born from House music. It's true that people do not support native rappers because they listen to what's on the radio, and stuff in the South is mainly on the radio because of hometown support. It's just sad to see all the talent waste away in Chicago. I've actually made it a goal to promote these artists in some way by working as a part time DJ or starting a small, basic, and independent record label so I can help get these kids off of the streets and into the studio...for free, if I can manage that. Plus it would be something I would REALLY enjoy doing and it would be considered as sort of a charity

[saadrajabali]

Originally Posted by reppin_the_847

That's pretty cool. I'm also really into music, and although it's not something I do as a career or anything, I'm into the scene (hip hop, house, etc.) as you can probably tell from my post on this thread. We should definitely stay in touch on this whole music tip. Let me know what your plans are.

WHY I SURE WILL THANKS

[Drover]

847, I'd be interested in your take on how the House scene took off and was really built upon in Manchester in the 80s/early 90's. I'm really not a big fan of House, but I was a fan of certain aspects of the "Madchester" scene that emerged. It was especially interesting to see how the scene in Manchester morphed from more-or-less straight-up House in bands like 808 State and NewFAD (aka New Fast Automatic Daffodils) to a mainstreamed sound courtesy of New Order... and then the scene took a really strange twist when elements of the House scene were blended with 60s-psychedelia by the likes of Happy Mondays, until you eventually had a full-blown neo-psychedelic movement with the likes of The Charlatans (aka Charlatans UK here in the Sates) and The Stone Roses who practically sounded like The Monkees or The Zombies set to a modern dance beat. The Charlatans even opened for The Who at a few gigs in the UK this year. Talk about a strange direction for House music to go in...

[mdz]

I am shocked, shocked I tell you to find anyone else mentioning the New Fads on this board. Good stuff.

For the 2 or 3 people in the world that also still love the Manchester sound, check out "24 Hour Party People"--fun movie about the rise, crash and burn of that scene.

[Drover]

24HPP was a great flick. I love its blend of documentary, fiction/exaggeration, sometimes 1st-person, sometimes 3rd-person approach. What really hit home though is how a completely inept businessman with odd taste in culture become the biggest mover and shaker in British pop culture in the 80s, and how this one man singlehandedly transformed the entire culture of Manchester, for better and for worse -- the "worse" in particular being the rise of the gang culture that is still plaguing Manchester to this day.

[saadrajabali]

So are Common's or Kanye West's new records getting any spins on the local Chicago radios or are they still spinning that Southern crap rap?

[reppin_the_847]

Oh man. Europe basically took house music and electronica in general, and RAN with it. I need to learn more about the Manchester influence in particular because I don't personally know too much about it. As far as Europe in general goes though, LOL, their influence on the genre is immense. The entire music culture there is way more DJ-based and less artist / star based than in the United States. The DJ's there ARE superstars (think of names such as Paul Oakenfold, Tiesto, Armand Van Helden). I was in France one time with my family and many of the radio stations in Paris, and even in small towns such as Lourdes (a Catholic pilgrimage town towards the southern end of France) had a lot of techno/house radio stations similar to our Energy 92.7 (or B96 when they play those dance mixes) at nights in Chicago. UK, Germany, etc. .... basically all the European nations have contributed to house music & electronica as we know it today. Techno actually started in Detroit, and House music started in Chicago....and yes Europe then took things to the next level. Actually......to take things back in time and really dig deeper, techno really did originate from a German band known as "Kraftwerk". These musical geniuses put out a record known as the "Trans-Europe Express". The record has influenced many artists in various musical genre's throughout the years. Check out the Wikipedia links on it:

Trans-Europe Express Wikipedia entry: Trans-Europe Express (album - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Kraftwerk's Wikipedia entry: Kraftwerk - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

YouTube video:
YouTube - kraftwerk - trans europe express

Originally Posted by Drover

847, I'd be interested in your take on how the House scene took off and was really built upon in Manchester in the 80s/early 90's. I'm really not a big fan of House, but I was a fan of certain aspects of the "Madchester" scene that emerged. It was especially interesting to see how the scene in Manchester morphed from more-or-less straight-up House in bands like 808 State and NewFAD (aka New Fast Automatic Daffodils) to a mainstreamed sound courtesy of New Order... and then the scene took a really strange twist when elements of the House scene were blended with 60s-psychedelia by the likes of Happy Mondays, until you eventually had a full-blown neo-psychedelic movement with the likes of The Charlatans (aka Charlatans UK here in the Sates) and The Stone Roses who practically sounded like The Monkees or The Zombies set to a modern dance beat. The Charlatans even opened for The Who at a few gigs in the UK this year. Talk about a strange direction for House music to go in...