SYSK Selects: How Hip-hop Works

encombs as many different things. So give it a listen, and as always, if you've heard it once, you might find something new upon a second listen, and I hope you enjoy it. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from How Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryan, I'm on Mike one, he's on my three. Jerry's on the Wheels and Steel And this is the Stuff You Should Know the podcast. That's right. Terminator X is to our right. Yes,

that's you, Jerry. That's my favorite. DJ. Is it man? Unbelievable stuff? D J Hurricane was pretty great. Yeah, it was pretty great. True. Yeah, I mean if you go back and listen to Best Boys stuff, the stuff that he was doing. Yeah, it's like I grew up with it, so I took it for granted. But with many things as a grown up. Now I'm looking back and like that was pretty amazing. Yeah, I'm still gonna go with Terminator X, just like by fractions of a point though. Yeah,

I put them at the top. Yeah, not like cool hirc Hey, cool hirk Man. He's what they call the O G Chuck spoiler alert. Yeah we should say that. Um, we're fouring in a territory where we have little no business because we're pretty square, but we can still talk about hip hop. That's not true. I was. I was into the stuff at one point. I was into it too. I'm still square. Yeah, but I think we have business,

just as much business as we would any other music. Alright, fine, you know we're cool then, man, we're cool to cool? Is that cool? Okay, you don't have any business, so h we're talking about hip hop today. It has a very long tradition that dates all the way back to Africa, which, as we'll see, um, but then the modern incarnation is a little more recent. Still, it's kind of old it's

got some pretty surprising and interesting routes. But we should say, um, and this is something that I was always hung up on for a long time. And Catherine Near, who wrote this article um goes to too, points us out the difference between hip hop and rap. They're not the same thing. It's like the square and the rectangle thing. Yeah, exactly. So moving on, No, hip hop is more like a it's a cultural movement. It's more than just rap. Rap is a type of music that falls under the umbrella

of hip hop. So you can say that rap is part of hip hop, right, but hip hop is not necessarily wrapped like the square in the rectangle. They go hand in hand though, you know. Uh yeah, And you know, I was trying to find out who coined, uh, the term hip hop, and it's one of those things where there's a bunch of people that that kind of get

credit for it. Yeah, everyone from I mean, some people say Keith Cowboy Wiggins from Grandmaster Flash, he was definitely the one, and then other people say, no, it was DJ Hollywood or love Bug Star Ski and other people say what about sugar Hill Gang or HERK. So I don't know if it's been pinpointed, but it was used in print in for the first time in the Village Voice, although it was surely used in the late seventies and uh,

you know on the street. Yeah, because herk was I mean, he coined a lot of terms like That's one of the interesting things about this is like we can trace it back pretty confidently and find like actual origins of this what's become this global international cultural phenomenon. We have seen the birth of a new music for in our lifetimes, which is pretty cool. We have and that's the only one. No, that's not true. What about like electronica? Uh yeah, I

guess so. But you could also say that that well sort of the same as like synthesizer from like the seventies, right, yeah, but that was like used in rock and roll. I don't know, maybe that counts. I think it counts, you do, sure, electronica hip hop, um E d M. That's electronica, right, I think so, Yeah, electronic dance music. So yeah, but I would say, yeah, I would say that qualifies. Even still, it doesn't diminish the birth of hip hop, No, of

course not. I mean there's two that's better than one, right, that's right. So Chuck. When you're talking hip hop and you talk to a cultural historian about hip hop and say what is hip hop? They're pretty much going to give you four aspects that combined make up the cultural movement of hip hop? Right. Yeah. And Catherine who wrote this, uh, is a his historical cultural historists historian UM, and I can't remember her her graduate degree, but it has something

to do with this very closely. I just can't remember exactly what it was in. So that's why when you read this, you're like, man, Catherine really got into this article for sure. You know it's pretty broad and there's a lot of info here. Yeah, so we should get to it the four things. And it started out it's just like graffiti, break dancing, MCing, dejaying, and rapping. These days you might see it portrayed more as visual arts. Graffiti included in that, but film and other graphic arts,

written and spoken word UM. So not just rapping and m seeing, but performance poetry. Uh. Physical movement UM, which is not just breakdancing, but a lot of dance styles, including my favorite crumping. Crumping is pretty cool. It's unbelievable. Somebody going nuts. It's awesome, and so like herkey jerky yet controlled and I just I could never in my wildest dreams do it, So I think that's why it

appeals to me. But that's yeah, that's the fact that it's not controller, doesn't appear controls what differentiates it from the Herky Jerky Dancer from Mr. Show, remember, Yeah. And then the final one is a style, which is of course fashion and you know, just the hip hop style in general, everything from clothing to to bling and you know,

the lifestyle all right. Like we said, the history of of hip hop, especially the music um can be traced all the way back to Africa, and we would trace the modern birth of it to the South Bronx, the South South Bronx. But leading up to that, you would join the slave ships coming into the West Indies as they were called back then, and these slaves who were captured and transported to the New World, making air quotes um, brought with them this tradition called greati is um a long,

which was a form of like familial storytelling. It was an oral tradition yea very frequently set to drums, yeah, and there was also very frequently dancing, yeah, and a lot of that dancing as you showed me. Um very much resembles dancing that you see today hip hop style dance,

not very much like absolutely yeah, you know. Right, so you've got um this presence of this what's now an African American um I guess style or um cultural identity, right, that's evolved out of Africa, and music and movement and drum rhythms are a big part of it, right Yeah, and uh of course Colin response uh in church was a big part of it, um as well as you know, gospel and calypso and salsa and of course jazz and

the blues. It's all rolled up as influences that eventually made its way to Jamaica to solders who are American soldier station there in World War two. Yeah. So we made our way from Africa to the West Indies, um, up to America and then there was that boom that birth of like jazz and all that that made it then down back to Jamaica part of what we're the

West Indies. Yeah. It's it's an weird little circle. Um. So when it gets taken back to the world to Jamaican World War two, there was something going on there in the Caribbean that was pretty cool and really the birth of what hip hop and rap would become. They had DJs there who had these big portable sound systems, and they would go play block parties and house parties and street parties, and UM started a tradition called toasting,

which was sort of like early rap. It was um kind of like the freestyle stuff in eight Mile, like a lot of times they were trying to one up other DJs or cut down other DJs, and UM it was included over the music. And uh, have you have you ever listened to a reggae show today, like reggae fire on all media, so like you know how like they'll just turn on the music for a second, he'll say something, they'll turn the music back up, and they'll turn it down again, and I think that's toasting. Yeah.

I listened to some of it too, like the early eighties toasting, Am I right? Um? Yeah? Okay uh. And that that led to two different types of new reggae music, which is talk over and dub talkovers kind of what we were just talking about, the toasting over music, and then dub just you know, changed the song musically with like echo and massive amounts of bass or trouble, reverb

stuff like that. Yeah, it was like what would you'd call now, like a remix of a song, but it usually followed certain lines, like a lot of echo, always a lot more bass than the original version, and they would throw that on the B sides of the record, so you'd have the regular version and the dub version, right right, So all this is going on in Jamaica and in the sixties, UM there was a kid named Clive Campbell who lived in Jamaica and grew up around this,

hosting UM street parties, portable sound systems, talk over yeah dub you know, basically changing and altering music to make it sound cooler with a heavier baseline. UM and this kid, Clive Campbell, he moved to the Bronx in nineteen sixty seven and he eventually became somebody known as Cool Hirk, who was the DJ who most people say was the originator of hip hop. That's right, that's cool with the

k d J cool Hirk. He's a legend. He oh yeah, yes, okay, So cool Hirk also, by the way, started the tradition of naming yourself as someone else. Oh yeah, you know, he wasn't Clive he's d J cool Hirk and that became, of course a tradition in rapping hip hop. It did, as we'll see. Uh so he had a big gig early on his sister. I've heard various things from birthday party to back to school party, and um he was well known as a tagger, like graffiti tagger, which we'll

get to in a minute. How that plays the role. So people just showed up on mass to see who this famous tagger was. Like with DJ cool Hirk is going to be there, let's go check it out. So it was like a lot of folks there. Yeah, they came for the tagging and stayed for the DJ though, because they what they found at that time when we're

talking the seventies right then, maybe the mid to late seventies. Um, if you went to a party and the DJ was there, the DJ just played a record and then ended and you know, maybe if they were good, it was like the the next one came on right before the first one ended, and it was again if you'll listen to the How Disco Works episode, this is where you know this all came out of, Like was this block party

right here? Basically this is the birth of just not just disco or not just hip hop at disco too. And um, so they went. They saw that he was doing some pretty cool stuff. He had to turn tables and a microphone and um he uh. He saw that when people were dancing, they would just kind of stand around. Then when like a really good part of the song and come up with lots of great beats or whatever,

they dance. And he figured out along the way, and I think he figured out before this block party happened, um, that if you just take two versions of the same record, you can keep that one part going over and over again and just switch back and forth between the records playing that same part and people will dance all the time. So when all those people turn out for a sister's party to see that graffiti tagger HERK, they came up against this djaying and that was that. Yeah, it was.

It's called a break beat, and it's typically like a drum break and that's what the DJ is doing if you don't know anything about it. When they have the little headphones up to their ears, is there queuing up the spot on the second record so they can cross fade or toggle in the early ages right over to that next one without missing a beat, right, and like you said, the dance party would just keep going on and on. This is insane. Yeah, they were like, is

this record ever gonna end? No? But cool Hirk also did something else too that would give rise to this, right. He was big into toasting, that's right, So he started doing the talk over. Uh. Evidently the djaying became a little too complicated, because I mean this was It's much easier nowadays with your your eye devices to fake all this stuff. But back then they were like pioneering electronics and like figuring this stuff out. And in fact, Grandmaster

Flash was like the real guy. Well he was invent at the cross Fader and like he was really into electronics and figuring that junk out. Right. So, because it got more and more technical, it wasn't just playing a song and then like kind of turning down the volume for a second talking over and turning the volume back up. Um, if you wanted to toast. It was tough to kind of balance those two things. So cool Hirk and listed the aid of Cokelar Rock and Clark Kent to come

toast for him. The Herculoids, Yeah, that's who they became, and they inadvertently established drapping. Yeah, Cookle Rock is generally regarded as the first rapper that's so cool. Man. DJing got too technically involved, so they had to get somebody else to toast and that became rapping. That is so cool that like you can trace it back to that instance. Yeah, and they they started freestyle dancing too, and they're known

as the first b boys, which is another term. I think that Herk coined the boys and be Girls, which are breakdancwers. Um. So things start really kind of exploding from here with it. On the DJ scene, UM Africa Bambata, who like you point out, was not born with that name. He named himself Kevin Donovan. Yeah, same with Um Grandmaster Flash. His parents did not name him Grandmaster. His name was Joseph Sadler. Uh. They were early on UM in the scene.

Bimbado was actually a former gang member, and so he saw the bad effects, the ill effects of gangs and decided to form the Zulu Nation, which is like an aware and scroup to steer kids in a more positive direction in life. And that was sort of the foundation of hip hop early on, was positivity and silliness. Yeah, doing the right thing talking about food you like to eat, or in contrast, talking about having a bad experience during a meal at another friend's house. Yeah, was that a

song my bad Meal? I can't remember which song it was. It might have been like like the extended version of records to like, but one of those really early songs. Um like they talked about going to your friend's house and then mom can't cook because sweet, and then yeah, super and and it was all very positive to uh So, Grandmaster Flash was a key um innovator because, like I said, he was really into electronics, built the first cross vader Um.

He is the first one that started punch phrasing, which is it's usually like a horn blast and just inserting a very short quick bit of another song over a song. Right, it's not. It's using two records, but not necessarily the same record, two version to the same record, but you're still working them together. That's like modern d jaye, that's right. And it's used to just like punctuate something, um scratching. He did not invent. That was Grand Wizard Theodore supposedly.

And the story goes there is that he's in his bedroom playing a record and his mom comes in, like turn that stuff off and you know, he stops it with his hand. Then he's like, wait a minute, that sounded kind of cool and just started doing it and uh then grand Master Flash like, you know, really perfected it. That's awesome. As a mom came into his room to tell us the story. I love it UM and beat Box, which is not UM the Fat Boys stuff, right, No,

but they're you know, they're pretty good at it. Nothing that's beatboxing. Oh yeah, he created the beatbox was just hooking a drum machine up to your turntables and just going to town. Yeah, and I think that would help UM segue from one song to another to create just like a seamless effect. Alright, So this is all going on in the in the early eighties. Then they started act These were just like parties at first. Then they actually started recording hip hop music, got played on the radio.

Mr Magic's Rap Attack premier in New York City the first hip hop show, and then uh MC started kind of coming to the forefront more. It's like, you know,

the leader of the band instead of the DJ. Yeah, you remember the huge confusion that DJ jer Z Jeff and the Fresh Prince ran into every Yeah, they named it like their second album, like I'm I'm the rapper, He's the DJ, yeah, because everybody thought the Fresh Prince was DJ jer Z Jeff, because they were caught in this transition where it's like, wait, I thought the DJ

was supposed to be the frontman of a group. But yeah, it was was like no, no, no, no, yeah, so they named they named an album to clear things up. Do you remember that? I don't remember that. He's the perfect example of those early sweet songs though, because his were all about you know, I'm hanging out with my

buddies in we're playing some games, you know. Although there's one about an extended uh, an extended story about a traffic accident that leads to a court case and he's sure that it's not his fault, but the lady's fault was like he was a double parked or something. No, no, she hit m okay about a fenderbinder. Yes, that's as dark as he got until the millennium. Yeah, I'm just kidding. Um, So now we're in the nineteen eighties, Um, things start

kind of crossing over. Of course with Blondie's Rapture, which we all knew and loved, right and the classes, Magnificent Seven, which is very much hip hoppy in tone, and some genuine stars start to kind of pop up on the scene like Run, DMC, fab five, Freddy Hello, cool j Yeah,

Beastie Boys. We already mentioned the sugar Hill Gang, right, I don't think we did we dude, we have to mention the sugar Hill of course, they had the first hit rap record ever, Rappers Delight, and it was really say think in maybe the same year as Raptat came out, and it was like that put rap on the map. Yeah, and people are like, what is this music? And chuck. Those who listened again to the Disco podcast will note that they made that record using the sheks good times.

That's right. It all happened together. Yeah, sampling too. I think we cover that in Yeah boy. This is really all coming together and man it is all right. So the industry is changing a little bit at the time as well. Sugar Hill Records closes, Deaf Jam pops up. Women all of a sudden are in the mix with Salt and Pepper and uh MC light yeah, Queen Latifa of course. Um. They paved the way for people like Lauren Hill. I think just filed for bankruptcy. Did she?

I think so she fell on rough time since you yeah, man, the Fuji said that one album. There there's quite a few rap groups that had like one classic album and then that was it. Yeah, like Black Star and uh Fuji's and um I was trying to think those one more. But you know, usually they would break up like they did and become their own independent artists. That's how that happens. Yeah, like Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg or n w A

and Dr Dre. Yeah, or um Retain Clan Goody Mob of course, yeah, c Low that's why s game that you should know why A definitely should know Jo Clark. Um, so where are we? Oh yeah? Public Enemy comes on the scene with like the Black Nationalism movement, um MTV gets on it because it spreads from the East coast to the West coast. Yeah, yo, MTV raps came out

and I remember being so happy that that happened. I remember being that age and thinking like where are the rap videos, like come on, and they'll be waiting for them to do this, and they finally did, and then after that it was like, okay, you can start playing these through the day and then they finally did about a year later, apparently according to this article, Yeah, after you it was like exclusively on your MTV graps like which was like a half hour an hour, and that

was it. And I think they started making it more than just once a week. But then finally it's just like, forget it. We'll just put we'll put wrap on alongside of def Leppard, Right, I don't think the world will end or we'll put Run DMC in the same video as Aerosmart. Yeah, And I wonder if that helped pave the way to just kind of like break the cell walls between these genres on MTV. You know, yeah, I think for sure. Yeah, it knocked down some walls. Run

DMC Super Pioneers knocked down walls, remember the video. Yeah, they kicked walls down. They kicked balls down literally, metaphorically and figuratively. Wait, I messed that up big time, literally and metaphorically, right, I said metaphorically and figuratively and literally. Three. So we are are now progressing onto a gangster rap

um in w a of course and iced tea. Um. Snoop Doggy Dog at first, yes, now Snoop Lion, Yeah, then Snoop Dogg in between the Dirty Dirty d o G. You c So was it what I mean, was it n w A? Were they the first gangster rap um? She mentioned someone called school e D who haven't heard of So I don't know if school D was, but I've never heard of stuff. Yeah, but I mean for sure end w A was the first one to ever like take gangster rap and turn it into a hit.

Nice guys with attitudes. Yeah, and then they were um they were another group that like broke up into like just really successful spinoff recordings. Easy's debut album is arguably one of the best ever made. Yeah, Dr Dree he had a pretty successful career. Well the Chronic was my soundtrack for like about eighteen months ago. And then you know, Snoop Doggs was awesome too, and he discovered him. Ice Cube had a great career to mc ran DJ poo like,

like the whole group was just awesome. Yeah. They just had a show at the Fox like two nights ago. What um ll cool j de La Soul, Public Enemy, ice Cube, uh and like one or two other acts. Did I not hear about this local j put it together? I don't know. It was supposed to be pretty good. The reviews are in the a j C today. Yeah, I'll bet it was good. Yeah, it's like a seven hour show. Yeah. Well I don't think they each played that long, but I think it's like three and a

half hours. It's pretty cool. Um. So, gangster rapp, like we said, that was ushered in and the original intent of hip hop started to get lost at this point. Oh yeah in a big way. Eating eating food that you liked and talking about it. Cheer he has for breakfast. Ye uh yeah, that was like, you're a pretty pretty on the outs as far as hip hop was concerned. When nw A came along and started talking about gangster rap, right, well not they were side by side there for a while, right,

and then gangster wrap one out because people are cynical. Uh, and of course they gang violence and drug dealing and poverty and misogyny hallmarks of of gangster rap. Yeah, which is still very much around today. Um. Even though what's interesting it's like gangster rap was a sub genre of hip hop that eventually came over and took over and became hip hop, and then now that's broken up into

other sub genres, but the source materials typically the same. Yeah, and I think another difference to just thinking about it is gangster rap back then was very much like I'm poor, and now it seems to be more like I'm rich, you know, but I'm still like hail from the ghetto. So I've got cred and I'm still very violent and i carry a gun and I'm not afraid use it. That kind of stuff. Yeah, But like n W and those guys, they never talked about being having money ever

because they didn't write. They were there early in their careers. They were just poor guys, right, and they were being kept down and they were upset about it. That's right to say the least. So alongside it, though, you did have some great bands, um like a tribe called Quest and Day, Las Soul and Far Side who either had a positive message or were just like Far Side just having a good time. Yeah. Well they're from California. Yeah, I love those guys. They had a great Their first

album was Killer Bizarre Ride to the Far Side. Oh yeah that was good. Yeah, totally. Uh Wu Tang came around, and of course they launched the careers of like a dozen guys that seemed like yeah they were I mean, they were kind of a hybrid like they would talk about violence and misogyny and all that as well, but they also it wasn't all it was about like there was there was some pretty smart guys involved in Wu Tang Clan. Oh, yeah for sure. Tupac. Yeah, she mentioned

to have Warrengy and Sir mix a Lot. I wasn't so into them. Sir mix a Lot was awesome. He was like kind of a throwback, like after the transition had been made, Sir mix a Lot was still like talking about butts and buttermilk biscuits and all that, you know what I'm saying, Like he never and he wore like floor length mink coats and stuff like that. That butt some buttermilk biscuits. In the name of your wrath, Alborith, I've got like an accordion on the cover. H cameras

One was really big in my life too. I was a big fan of kras One. He was crazy on productions and then um both Gang Star and Black Star. I was a big fan of Yeah at the time,

I like Gangster too. I like DJ Hurricane, but um DJ Premier's that he's the gangster DJ really yeah hit him and Guru that was gang Star, but and it was like, and I like Guru, but the two of them together it was always weird to me, Like it was so yeah, I was never like really even though I really I think Gang Stars co to the Streets it's one of the best rap albums ever made. It's just like they were each doing their own things side

by side. It didn't mesh and create something together, but it was like two really talented people doing something amazing at once. I haven't pulled that one out in a while. It's it's a good one. Um, Like you said, more sub genres like combining wrap with hard rock music and metal music, body Count, Nice Tease, a little band, Yeah

I saw them, did you Yeah, Lollapalooza yahah think. And then things spread down South of course, with two live Crew and groups like Outcast and Ludicrous and Timberland and Goody Mob very much like Atlanta based Dirty South two Luckru was Florida, I think. But yeah, yeah, the dirty side. Well, then you have like New Orleans Bounce, and I think that's where like Crumping came from, too. Is the South right, I think? So I'm not sure though, do you know? Okay?

I asked, um, things are changing back these days. I think with um regards to the gangster thing that's still around, but there are other acts out there that Um. Darryl McDaniels of Run DMC said that, you know, it's kind of coming back around because he's like this, some of this music is great to listen to in the club, but he's like, what are you gonna do the rest of the day, Like we need this to be all day music. And like Kanye West, I was a big fan of his early on, not so much now. Um

and uh, who's like a drake He's pretty good. Yeah, you listen to that now. I haven't listened to any new hip hop in a long time. Knnie get the College drop Out from two thousand four. It's unbelievable. That's the first one. Yeah, that was amazing. We'll check it out. So that's a little bit on music. I guess we should talk about graffiti some. Well. Yeah, a lot of

people say graffiti is its own thing. It's not a part of the four you know pillars of hip hop, and people who are in the hip hops they shut up. It is too and uh, most people agree that graffiti is pretty much inextractable. Extractable from hip hop, but you graffiti came first. Yeah, that's true modern graffiti tagging UM, which is another word for it um. And if you're into that kind of thing, you should check out our surprisingly interesting episode on how aerosol cans work. That's right.

UM started in the sixties. Uh. And you can actually trace this back to its point of origin pretty much too, to a guy named um Demetrius. Right, what was his tag? Tak t a k I not Turk two? No? But was that based on him? You think it was inspired by that? Yeah, I got you. And it was a little Greek kid named Demetrius who in the sixties started UM. Well, he was a messenger. He worked for a messenger service, and he had a marker and he put that together

with his nickname Taki and the street. They lived on West Street, which is way up there, and he started leaving his tag all over the city. Ye. And the New York Times wrote an article that you can actually get on his website. It's like scanned in there. It's kind of cool to read from nineteen seventy one called Takie spawns pen Pals and uh, it was the first you know, it was people like, this guy's writing his name on things, but it's not really his name, and

there's numbers. Yeah, it's so funny thing about now, because tagging is just so ubiquitous, you know. Well he got he also got kind of good at making it look a little pretty. It wasn't just you know, but he didn't write any cursive or anything like that, and he developed what became a tag like it was the same thing every time after a while. Um, and cool Hirk

actually became a tagger yea. And from that sort of emulating tak and that was how people came to new No cool hurt before he was a DJ, that's right. And of course it just it of all beyond tagging, as everybody on the planet knows. Um, it became an art form of two itself, building murals, entire trains, very colorful,

uh sort of three dimensional aspects. It's it's you know, I feel like you don't he spent too much time trying to describe it, because if you don't know what graffiti looks like, then just go outside, unless you like live in Kansas and they don't do that kind of stuff there. Um, it got a little reputable in the seventies when Patty Astor actually featured graffiti in the fund gallery, her art gallery. And now it's a common thing, you know, Yeah,

graffiti galleries all the time. And those those hip hop historians who say, yes, graffiti is part of hip hop, point to um the convergence between hip hop and graffiti and say that it's centered around a tagger named Hayes who's got a pretty awesome website Eric has. It's like this kind of throwback to well, it's like a timeline of like hip hopping graffiti. Like if you go through

his stuff, it's pretty neat. He did to check your head font Yeah, and he he was also I guess into photography too, because some of the album covers he did either he did the fonts for him or or whatever. But he did Public Enemy, he did um Young MC. Yeah he did uh Tone Lookes albums Like. So he's doing all these on covers and he's a tagger. So from that point on, people are like, Okay, well this is part of hip hop. Now, I don't care what you did. You see you up in the Air the

Clooney movie. Yeah, remember I was like, hey, how it ended? You're like, that's the name of the movie. Remember that. But remember the Young MC when he did the corporate party. M he did bust a move. No, I don't remember that. They crashed the corporate party and he was like the entertainment for the night. But that was in up in the air. I thought that was an episode of Scrubs or The Office. No, I was in up in there, and it really just sort of like nailed that whole.

Like the Verizon is gonna do a party and we're gonna hire a rapper. They get Young MC. It was pretty good. Yeah. Are we to dancing it? I think we are. We've covered We've covered the music, we've covered graffiti. Yeah, now we're onto dancing. Okay, Well, break dancing obviously is most synonymous with hip hop, but um, all kinds of other dancing, popping and locking, boogaloo, grinding down, rocking, Harlem shake, yeah,

which an original thing, right. Yeah. There's a video from like two thousand six or something that this guy did I can't remember who it was, um, but he's like the Harlem Shake is the real one. And if you see this and then you see like all the the YouTube viral videos that that we're going on recently. You just see how far off everybody was from the actual Harlem Shake. People in Harlem are actually getting mad, like what are you doing? Like this isn't do you even

know what the Harlem Shake looks like. It was almost like YouTube turned into the Bluth Family and everybody was doing the Chicken dance, even though none of them have ever seen a chicken. But for you know what I'm saying, Yeah, yeah, that's what a lot of people were doing with the Harlem shade. Gotcha. Um, But breakdancing is what we're going

to concentrate on because it's pretty cool. Um headspins back spins about that video you said, the windmill, Oh yeah, just get on YouTube and look at breakdance nineteen forties and that's it. That dude is breakdancing. Yeah, and it's clearly the nineteen forties. Yeah, I've tried. I was like, am I being tricked? Here? Is this some fake? Like pretty authentic? I think it's authentic. But that was full

on breakdancing. Yeah, Like at first I was like, oh, that's sort of breakdancing, and then he got on the floor and I was like, that's totally breakdance. So it's been around he does the worm. Yeah, he sort of did the worm. And he was doing that doing like windmills and stuff. Well not quite a windmill, but close to a windmill. By the way. I was obsessed with trying to learn that in my ute, and uh never came close. Obviously, I too was a breaker in my youth.

Uh see, I wasn't problem, Oh I was. I took breakdancing lesson. I made it on the front page of the Peach section, which was the entertainment section of Toledo Blade. I was breakdancing and like attraction my mom made me by hand. Man, do you have a copy of that? I don't know where it is. It might be out there somewhere. Um. I had a break in Ohio t shirt. I wasn't as into the French foreign legion cat. Yeah, yeah, I had the whole man. I was a breaker, even

though I sucked at it. I was a breaker. Could you do the window? No, That's what I'm saying. I saw every day. That's like really impressive still to me today, I could never do that. I get headaches from doing headspins and just fall over me. But it was fun. The suicide too, Did you already do that? No, that's a pretty cool move. That's the one where the guy basically she says backflip, but I've most often seen it

as a front flip. You'd come in and you just flip and land on your back, And the whole point is to make it look painful, like the more the harder it is, and the more people go, oh, it's like the most more successful suicide. That's when you know you've got the crowd in the palm in your hand exactly. You don't stop then, no way, that's no, you can't stop breaking you know. Um. You took me to the World Breakdance Championships a couple of years ago. Like the

world was awesome. It was that Relapse Theater, the old one on FOURT Street. I was in Atlanta, Yeah, and they had it here in this little theater and like people from all over the world who were like the best at breakdancing, we're just there like in breakoffs and stuff. We just stood around for like eight hours and watched like the best breakdancing you can possibly imagine. That's right there.

It was very awesome. So not surprisingly, I think you even said earlier breakdancing came from West Africa, as well, a lot of the key elements, um this herky jerky all over body movement, UM interaction with the floor like not with your just your feet obviously, UM, pantomime and improvisation all came from West Africa and migrated on the slave ships kind joined up with some uh Caucasian dancing like the Lindy Hop and the Charleston Well, a lot

of those grew out of African American dancing walk, which is an African American thing that actually, um like terribly you should be this blog post I wrote on it. What's the origin of the term cake walk? You'll never use it again, but the the idea of people lining up and watching other people dancing and then taking turns and all that that comes from the cake walk, So like people waiting to like jump in and all that.

And it was in that Breakdancing nineteen forties video you said people just kind of standing, somebody else would come in and and put somebody else to the side and they were taken over. Like that comes from the cake walk. It's then later became the soul train, yeah, which is some of the best footage like ever. So yes, you can put any halfway decent song to like a soul

train lineup, and it's just brilliant. After that, the other thing that influenced too was um uh came from the Caribbean as well in South America in the form of and I even saw a video on how to pronounce this. It's Brazilian martial art. Uh. Capaccia, cap you capaira. I don't think that's right, that's what he said. Are you sure, dude? It was a video on how to pronounce the word. But I'm sure I didn't do it quite right, but

yours is definitely wrong. Um. But martial arts as a whole, like kung fu was really big in that community, and so like Bruce Lee and all these guys like tried to like emulate those dance moves. Yeah, that's why you see so much like fake fighting in breakdancing, because they're all really just kind of good kids. They spend all their time practicing dance moves, and so like all the fighting is all just like hey, I'm getting in your face. Oh no, I'm getting in your face now, and oh

no you're not. And it's that's it. That's as far as it goes, good clean, fun. Yeah, I'm gonna outdance you Yeah, and like there's probably no other part of the hip hop culture that more carries on the original tradition of like just you know, I don't mean any real harm or anything like that. Where was having a good time and like this is all this is what's cool. Yeah.

Then then the break dancing aspect of it. Yeah, agreed and crumping today, I used to see the same thing, Like it's battling each other to see who's the best. It's kind of fun to watch. Um. In the eighties, it was like break dancing became a across the board commodity big time again. I had a Breaking Ohio T shirt that my mom purchased for me. Yeah, probably like pennies or something. Yeah. Um, the movie Wild Style, which is the first hip hop movie, UM led to Style Wars,

Breaking of course, Breaking two Electric Boogaloo. I got that soundtrack in my Easter basket one year Beat Street. I was a little too old, I guess for Breaking maybe so or now. I was just I was listening to the Almond Brothers and stuff. That was the deal. I clearly remember my Tooler sisters having a conversation while we were all watching Break in two and they agreed that the girl was really more of a flash dancer than a breakdancer. I'll never forget that. Well, the other one

went flashdance, had a little uh breaking style. Everything had to burger King commercials. Apparently Wrangler had a line of jeans ready to go in nineteen eighty four called rapid Transit, starting with the W like a Wrangler that didn't get off the ground. The moonwalk, of course, which was not invented by Michael Jackson. No, but he was good at it. Well, yeah, he was great at it. Um. The the guy I could find was in nineteen fifty five, Bill Bailey at

a showtime at the Apollo Show. It's on YouTube, is it? Is it as good as Michael Jackson's Can anybody top Michael Jackson's moonwalk? It's not as good, but he clearly moonwalks. It's not like, well this is a version. I mean he moonwalks off the stage in nineteen fifties. Well, okay, so moonwalking goes back to the fifties. They say, uh,

and they being I think cool Herker Africa Boombada. One of the two said that they think break dancing finds its origins and a James Brown dance to get on the good Foot from that song, yeah, which is from the from I believe the sixties. It's based on that and backsliding is what they the originators callman walking by the way. Um. So, like we said, it's commodity, it's a video games, it's clothing lines. They start selling you know, gear and kneepads and special mats to use. You know,

when all you needed was a refrigerator box. Exactly what was that for it for? Or slicker or whatever. So you're not like doing a um like a headspin on gravel. Yeah, that was a dumb question actually, But like I said, I wasn't into it. Things started to die down in the eighties though, but it came back big time in the nineties. It did, like the latest nineties and it's still around like it never really went away. Yeah, and that led to crumping, like we said, which is my

favorite thing to watch on the internet right now. Did you see the crump off on Venice Beach that one? I did see that one. That was pretty great. That was good. It's just not well, it looks just so out of control, but it's it's not. That's what makes it so great to me. I think Crumpin is pretty great. I think we can all agree. So are we onto fashion? I think we are a pillar four. Well, let's talk

about it. Comfy clothes is really how it started. Yeah, if you have ever seen the TV show What's Happening remember rerun? Yes, he was dressing pretty hip hop at the time, suspenders. He wore a beret, but it could have very easily been a kanga hat. I think he wore a converse, you know, comfy shoes, adid this is really the brand though, or was it was? UM? But at the time that was super hip hop. Yeah, just loose, comfortable clothing with a T shirt underneath that you could

break dance to. Um. She even contends that the comfort level of the sneakers was why they left them untied early on, just to be even looser in the shoes and not have like your shoes tight. I don't know about that though. Apparently out west it was military inspired and boots were a little more popular on the West Coast? Is that where public enemies from? Are they West Coast? Um? They're New York right? Yeah? I mean Chuck de lives in Atlanta now and has for a while I would

like to meet Chuck d too. But they were not Um, Chuck b meet Chuck Dyah. Yeah, but they they weren't from Atlanta obviously, where it was Republican me from I don't know, I guess New York. But they weren't one of those that they didn't talk about where they were from. They weren't like they were. They were worldwide exactly. Uh. And then run DMC of course brought in the cool black jeans and black leather and they had the movie Tougher Than Leather. Was that a movie? Yeah? I never

saw that. I'm sure you did. I didn't, didn't know. And one of the few movies I've ever walked out on in my life was Disorder at least the Fat Boys. Yeah, I was in sixth grade and I was like, this is unwatchable. Well, everyone was trying to tap into that thing crush Groove thing. Yeah you've seen that one. Oh yeah, Crush Groove was pretty good. None of these Age well by the way, Oh no, I haven't seen any of one,

the Long Team, even the good one Stone Age well. Um, and then the Adidas of course with run DMC, and they also ushered in the the kan goals in earnest in the big rope gold chains and lots of them, and who else did she credit with that? Oh? Um, Curtis Blow. That's right, Curtis Blow. We got to the bottom of that one. Uh. And along with the black nationalism and the sort of remember our roots back to Africa came a big clothing boom. I remember very well

in high school. Um, African inspired clothing and the red, yellow and black and green huge. Yeah, everything that every everybody was wearing in the late eighties was super African inspired. Yeah, just bold prints and all that, Like everything cann play we're wearing. Yeah, remember that dance too where they like jumped through that they'd hold their foot. I could never do that. There's no way I could do it. Now. I would like hill myself in that way. But criss

cross of course, Um, we're backwards clothing. Yeah, one of those guys just died, I know, very sad. And then the basketball jersey. Um, really baggy baggy clothing started to become the norm through the nineties and that's still sort of the style today. Yeah. And supposedly that that comes from a like prison ware where you're not allowed to wear a belt Yeah, that's the where the seg came from. Yeah, that's the CNN is quoted as the sourcer, So take that with a grain of salt. Uh. And also with

the do rag supposedly is another prison wear thing. Yeah. And then just like with breakdancing, hip hop style became a pretty big business commodity to Yeah, like Russell Simmons started a fat farm, which is I think still around today. Right. Yeah, if you look at most any rap mgul now it'll say like producer, rapper, clothing designer, like they're too smart to maximize their brand. Yeah. It says here that jay Z sold rock Aware for two hundred four million bucks.

Everything that guy touches turns to gold, yeah, or platinum because platinum, Josh, is where the gold went. It kind of transformed transformed into platinum, right, It's like alchemy. Yeah, like shiny silvery platinum and diamond encrusted grills, bling grills very popular that started out as just like the one gold cap and then turned into like the girls that

you can get today are just unbelievable. And I don't think we could ever have a converse sation about hip hop fashion without mentioning wearing a huge clock as a pendant around a necklace, yeah, or wearing a stolen Mercedes hood ornament as a necklace. The Beast boys. I thought you were going to say the multi finger ring. Yeah you got that too. That was that was big because of uh and do the right thing, love and hate? Oh yeah, the two rings? Who was that? The guy

with the radio rachime? Yeah? Yeah, I saw that again the other day. Man, that movie just blows me away. Still, it's very powerful. I like his later work more. Yeah, he liked it when he got away from like inside man in it was a lot. I still like to do the right thing, but it's like him branching out, I hear you. Um. And also designer labels became a big thing, like a Tommy Hill figure and stuff like

that became really popular. Uh. And now, of course, you go anywhere on planet Earth and you're gonna see hip hop and pretty much any country you go to. Sure it is all over the world. Is a global product. And hey, squares and parents, it ain't going anywhere, so just get used to it. That's right. I think a lot of people thought it was a flash in the pan. I'm sure you know, like this rap won't be around long. Yeah, suckers. Yeah,

it's outlasted a lot of other stuff, agreed. So we got electronic music to do next, or we did that that dubstep article. Yeah, I don't know. Uh. If you want to learn more about hip hop, you can type those words into the search part how Stuff works dot com and it will bring up this extremely large article on it um and I think I said hip hop. So it's time for message and now listen to mail

Time Josh. Since we're talking about international things. Towards the end of that show, I'm gonna give a couple of international shouts because we like hearing from my listeners and foreign lands. So the first one is from France, and we actually asked that our Three Musketeers cast if we had French listeners. Hi, guys, I just wanted to drop you a few lines because I was just listening to your podcast and the the Musketeers. You were wondering if

there were any French up there listening to you. I am one of them. I've been listening to all of your podcasts from the beginning when even the podcast was not even the great pair of you. I am talking about your podcast to all my friends, and I feel that I know you well from all these hours spent with you. I always laugh when you make fun of the French and our accent. I do not always understand your US references, but love to hear about new things.

Take care from Paris and that's Julie. Thanks a lot, uh and then uh, Hi, guys, Josh, Chuck and Jerry. My name is Daniel. I live in Jerusalem, working at bakery in the city and love listening to you guys while I work. I want to share a funny little story. One day at work, my boss got mad at me and told me I can't have my headphones during work. And then I told him I was listening to a learning podcast and not music, so to prove I'm not distracted.

Is the boss like nurds ratchet or something like that, I guess so uh. To my surprise, he asked, what's the name of the podcast? Confused me a little bit, but I told him it was s Y s K and I was really shocked when he took out his own phone and showed me his iTunes library was packed with the stuff you should know. So you guys will help me get through long depressing shifts with your humor and knowledge. And that is from Daniel in Israel. Nice Daniel,

thank you for that. Daniel and Julie, Yeah from France. Thanks guys. We appreciate you listening over there and standing up to your boss and he's all like, hey, you can listen to music. They can listend the stuffer should Know and bake. We're like international ambassadors, basically agreed. Uh, if you want to tell us how we're ambassadors in some weird way, we want to know that. Okay, what's the problem. Just do it. You can tweet to us at s y s K podcast. You can go to

Facebook dot com. You can go to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com. I'm ready for this one to be done, and you can join us at our home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it How stuff works dot com