Contents
Proto-rap
Art forms such as spoken word jazz poetry and comedy records had an influence on the first rappers.
[25] Coke La Rock, often credited as hip-hop's first MC
[26] cites the
Last Poets among his influences, as well as comedians such as The Wild Man Steve and
Richard Pryor.
[25] Comedian
Rudy Ray Moore released under the counter albums in the 1960s and 1970s such as
This Pussy Belongs To Me
(1970), which contained "raunchy, sexually explicit rhymes that often
had to do with pimps, prostitutes, players, and hustlers",
[27] and which later led to him being called "The Godfather of Rap".
[28]
Gil Scott-Heron, a jazz poet/musician, has been cited as an influence on rappers such as
Chuck D and
KRS-One.
[29] Scott-Heron himself was influenced by
Melvin Van Peebles,
[30][31] whose first album was 1968's
Brer Soul.
Van Peebles describes his vocal style as "the old Southern style",
which was influenced by singers he had heard growing up in South
Chicago.
[32] Van Peebles also said that he was influenced by older forms of
African-American music: "[...] people like
Blind Lemon Jefferson
and the field hollers. I was also influenced by spoken word song styles
from Germany that I encountered when I lived in France."
[33]
During the mid-20th century, the musical culture of the Caribbean was constantly influenced by the concurrent changes in
American music. As early as 1956,
[34] deejays were toasting (an African tradition of "rapped out" tales of heroism) over
dubbed Jamaican
beats. It was called "rap", expanding the word's earlier meaning in the
African-American community—"to discuss or debate informally."
[35]
The early rapping of hip-hop developed out of announcements made over
the microphone at parties, and later into more complex raps.
[36] Grandmaster Caz
states: "The microphone was just used for making announcements, like
when the next party was gonna be, or people's moms would come to the
party looking for them, and you have to announce it on the mic.
Different DJs started embellishing what they were saying. I would make
an announcement this way, and somebody would hear that and they add a
little bit to it. I'd hear it again and take it a little step further
'til it turned from lines to sentences to paragraphs to verses to
rhymes."
[36]
One of the first rappers at the beginning of the hip hop period, at the end of the 1970s, was also hip hop's first
DJ,
Kool Herc.
Herc, a Jamaican immigrant, started delivering simple raps at his
parties, which some claim were inspired by the Jamaican tradition of
toasting.
[37] However, Kool Herc himself denies this link (in the 1984 book
Hip Hop),
saying, "Jamaican toasting? Naw, naw. No connection there. I couldn't
play reggae in the Bronx. People wouldn't accept it. The inspiration for
rap is
James Brown and the album
Hustler's Convention.".
[38]
Herc also suggests he was too young while in Jamaica to get into sound
system parties: "I couldn’t get in. Couldn’t get in. I was ten, eleven
years old,"
[39] and that while in Jamaica, he was listening to
James Brown:
"I was listening to American music in Jamaica and my favorite artist
was James Brown. That's who inspired me. A lot of the records I played
were by James Brown."
[37]
By the end of the 1970s, artists such as
Kurtis Blow and
The Sugarhill Gang
were just starting to receive radio airplay and make an impact far
outside of New York City, on a national scale. "Stranger in a Strange
Land" on the 1971 album
Leon Russell and the Shelter People and
Blondie's inclusion of a rap section in their 1981 single, "
Rapture", were some of the first songs with rap to top the U.S.
Billboard Hot 100 charts.
