New Paradigms for Chicago’s Contemporary Urban Music; Placing Rap and House into Proper Perspective.
Modern urban America has been dominated by the musical force of rap for over a decade now. Despite the credit Chicago has been given in the development of America economically, socially and politically, its contribution to rap has been largely neglected. Chicago rapper Common summed up the neglect in 1993 saying, “I’d been making demo tapes since ’86, but Chicago is known for house music, so there weren’t too many labels coming here to sign rap” (Light 223). There are two important truths to Common’s revelation: first, that Chicago has in fact had an important impact on hip-hop, and second, that house music has played an important role in Chicago’s urban[1] music scene of the last twenty years. Any analysis of Chicago’s urban music must acknowledge the connection between rap and house and the contributions that Chicago has made in both areas.
Perhaps the most direct predecessor of rap is the toast, a rhymed monologue in the form of an epic poem (Light 8). Although the historical origins of the toast are unclear, by the early to mid 1970s there was an underground trend in New York City that resembled the toast tradition. The rhyming of the toasts was popularized during the 1970s as radio DJs had taken the rhythm and rhetoric of the toast and created their own catchy lyrics used in between songs or as introductions to their shows. Although this was not rap music per se, it was clearly the popularizing of a rap-esque sound. Chicago’s DJ Daddy-O -Daylie helped popularize this for the urbanites of the Windy City.
Even though rap remained underground and confined, there was a different movement that gained momentum by the mid 1970s and became national: urban dance. In New York, Jamaican outdoor sound-system dances were popularized by the likes of U-Roy and Kool Herc. Los Angeles was overcome by the Lockers, a dance troupe led by Don Campbell and his revolutionary and comical dance moves. In the middle was Chicago. Although Chicago had strong musical traditions in Jazz, Blues and Rock, by the mid to late 1970s it was embracing disco. The dance music can be clearly heard in the Sugar Hill Gang’s revolutionary song Rapper’s Delight and in Blondie’s duet with the furious five, Rapture. By the time disco was dead, rap was able to live on its own.
The feel-good, pop, happy-go-lucky dances were short lived. The pre-disco era was filled with politically-charged and socially-aware funk, reggae, rock and folk songs. It didn’t take America long to return to that type of meaningful music. “The first week of November of 1979 saw both the abduction of American hostages in Iran and Ronald Reagan’s announcement of his candidacy for the presidency. The ‘80s had been jump-started a few months early. Powerlessness, retrenchment, and xenophobia were in the air” (Light 25). In true Chicagoan fashion, the frank and down-to-earth citizens were led by a radio DJ named Steve Dahl to an anti-disco rally at Comiskey Park. Chicagoans sported “disco sucks” T-shirts and destroyed thousands of albums. Rap lyrics would soon fill the need for a political, social and musical outlet.
The short-lived disco fad, however, left Chicagoans with a different void; they wanted to dance, but there were relatively few dance (disco) albums. One pioneer at a Chicago dance club would find a way to spin new music and in doing so, change the way dance music is made. Reminiscent of Tom Brown and the development of Jazz, Frankie Knuckles, a New York native, brought the Big Apple’s musical avant garde spirit when he came to Chicago in 1977 to open and DJ at his new nightclub, the Warehouse.
The Warehouse was both a patron and provider of urban music culture. As an institution, the Warehouse was the coolest underground dance club in the city where an amazing assortment of white, black, hispanic, straight and gay clubbers. However, besides creating this atmosphere, the Warehouse was also a patron of its own customers. Chicago body-movers would demand that the DJ keep the music flowing continuously in an uptempo beat faster than what was being played in New York. Frankie Knuckles recalls,
“When we first opened in 1978, I was playing a lot of East Coast records, the Philly stuff, Salsoul. By ’80 or ’81 when that stuff was over with, I started working a lot of the soul that was coming out. I had to re-construct the records to work for my dancefloor, to keep the dancefloor happy, as there was no dance music coming out! I’d take the existing songs, change the tempo, layer different bits of percussion over them, to make them more conducive for the dancefloor.”
(Frankie Knuckles and the Warehouse)
In fact, Frankie’s sound was so revolutionary that it gave birth to a new musical genre, “house.” Chicagoans had been using the term “house” to refer to whatever was cool (cars, clothes, music) when Frankie’s nightclub made such an impression on the in-circle of clubbers that they referred to the music he made as “house.” It also happens that his club was called the Warehouse, and so “House” was an abbreviated form of that as well. In any case, the term “House” was created and Frankie continued to cater to the taste of his loyal followers.
As Frankie pioneered the Chicago club scene, a different pioneer was quietly ushering in a new era for Chicago music. As early as 1980, an artist known as Casper released a 12” album called the Groovy Ghost Show. Still to this day it is not general knowledge in hip-hop circles that this is a Chicago-based recording. Perhaps because of its disco sound, it has not been recognized for its hip-hop content. However, The New York-based Sugar Hill Gang has largely been given credit for spreading the hip-hop movement into popular culture and the disco influence is very apparent on their 1979 album. It is possible that the oversight was a matter of geographic expectations. New York has always been considered the quintessential American City. Urban culture therefore is not only defined by New York, but also associated with it. Chicago, which has been the second city for a reason, was overlooked when it came to the Groovy Ghost Show. However, Tom Joyner, who was a special mention on the album, would later become the “Fly Jock” and make national waves as he traveled by plane from Chicago to Detroit to do his daily radio show.
At roughly the same time, other bits of New York urban culture were finding its way to Chicago. In 1979 the New York graffiti artist Nick Salsa moved to Chicago (Beacham). He found the city like Adam in Eden, plentiful with undecorated walls, trains, and rooftops. Nick creates a groundswelling of graffiti artists who inadvertently promote hip-hop because graffiti had already established itself as an important piece of the rap pie; it was New York City’s underground artform which was accompanied by NYC’s underground music. In 1982, the Graf artist known as Caution becomes the first person known to paint Chicago scenery into his backgrounds. In 1983, the famous Ravenswood trainyards are hit and the C.T.A. graf crew paints every train in the yard. Ironically, that year was also the beginning of Roberto Clemente High School’s classes in graffiti art.
By 1983 Chicago had a hip-hop radio show on WHPK, a University of Chicago station. “The founders, K-III & Patrick Moxy(also the founder of Payday Records) initially started the show with a dance and rap format, but the popularity of rap was heavily reflected in the requests and eventually they became strictly rap” (Beacham). Meanwhile, the underground dance scene continued and the fast-paced Chicago style continued to spin through more and more songs. Although there was a devout hip-hop following that requested the latest hip-hop, the dance crowd craved anything that was fast enough to dance to. DJs spun through songs quickly as they mixed from one song to another and sped up tracks that were not fast enough. The house music included rap, Euro, funk, punk and pop music.
The strong popularity of rap continued to be satisfied by New York artists while the Chicago house DJs had to continually turn to new sources for their music. Frankie Knuckles made a move to a new dance club, the Power Plant in 1983. Meanwhile, another DJ named Ron Hardy moved back to Chicago after working in Los Angeles for awhile. Upon his return, Hardy took a job at The Music Box, a club on the South Side. Hardy brought back the pausing, Locker-style music from L.A. and the sound infected Chicago’s South Side straight black scene (Renn). There was a friendly rivalry between the DJs as each continued to sample various records and develop his style. As the demand for more and more music continued, the DJs started to create their own music. “Hardy’s mix of disco, European electronica, industrial and alternative sounds was spiced with tape edits which he would manipulate and pause by hand. The Music Box became known as a rougher, wilder and more hedonistic alternative to Knuckles’ sophisticated mixes…”(Renn).
That year, an outlet for the unique developing sounds emerged. “Larry Sherman, a former musician bought Musical Products, Chicago’s only pressing plant” (Renn). Shortly thereafter, a number of labels arose including Jes Say Records, Precision, DJ International and the eventual dominator, Trax Records. In 1985 Precision released the first house record to include a rap, Music Is the Key and, “By 1986 the trickle had turned to a flood and it seemed like everybody in Chicago was making house music. The early players were joined by a rush of new talent which included the first real vocal talents of house: Liz Torres, Keith Nunally…” (Cheeseman) Besides the vocal talents, other artists were producing their own sound including those that were more on the hip-hop side.
While the dance scene produced furious competition to produce new music and new labels, the first hip-hop album that represented Chicago was quietly produced. The album was performed by a conglomerate of two groups: Chi Rock and OZ & the D.V.S. crew (Beacham). Also this year, Sugar Ray Dinki released his twelve-inch single Cabrini Green Rap. Although the Chicago rap scene was kept quiet both nationally and locally, it did influence the local house artists who continued to look for new sounds for the club scene.
By contrast, the Chicago house scene was anything but quiet. “Radio was the key to the [house] explosion in Chicago” (Cheeseman). By 1986, there was a steady group of radio programs devoted to the house format, especially on WBMX. The anchoring of house music in Chicago led quickly to expansion to other cities. New York, Detroit, London and others all developed their own versions of Chicago house music. Along with the expansion into other cities, the music expanded into other genres. This expansion brought dance and rap back together again[2]. By the late 1980s, Chicago had created a mix of hip-hop and house called hip-house.
By 1989 “the popularity of Chicago’s hip-house sound, pioneered by guys like Fast Eddie & Kool Rock Steady, can no longer be ignored and nearly every rap album this year from New York to L.A. had one hip-house attempt on it” (Beacham). Chicago’s style of upbeat house music required a quick, flowing style of lyrics. Fast Eddie, Kool Rock Steady, Mr. Lee and Bomb all infused quick hip hop style rap into their house music. It was basically hip hop lyrics with house beats that you could dance to. It was so powerful that hip hop groups like De La Soul, LLCool J, Big Daddy Kane, Slick Rick, Heavy D & the Boys all were influenced by the sound and speed. Even the notorious gangster rap group NWA released a song called Something to Dance to on their 1988 released album, Straight Outta Compton.
Chicago had now made its impact and the hip-hop scene had been changed. “Things started to shift from the importance of the word into the importance of the music. This is perhaps the most critical point for Chicago…” (Beacham). In 1992 Chicago had its first MC to land a major record deal. Tung Twista released his Runnin Off at Da Mouth LP on the Loud/RCA label. He followed it up by being the first hip-hop artist in the Guinness Book of World Records as he was clocked as the world’s fastest rapper. Chicago’s allure for speed and upbeat rhythm had climaxed.
Sadly, although Chicago’s contributions seem apparent, the 1996 reference book, Rap Whoz Who contains not a single listing of any Chicago-born or based group. The city continues to be shunned in favor of New York artists and strictly hip-hop groups, though the attachment to house is so clear. Hopefully, Chicago’s new generation of strictly hip hop artists will be able to put Chicago on the rap map but the limitations of Indie labels and Chicago’s reputation as a dance city may make the task a difficult one.
Beacham, Kevin. The Chicago Hip-hop Story. www.galapagos4.com/blackbook/ chicago_history.html. August 1, 2002.
Cheeseman, Phil. The History of House. music.hyperreal.org/library/history_of_house. html. August 1,2002.
Frankie Knuckles and the Warehouse. www.geocities.com/HotSprings/ 1392/FrankieKnuckles.html. August 1, 2002.
Light, Alan. The Vibe History of Hip-hop. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999.
Renn, Max. Trax Records. www.geocities.com/HotSprings/1392/Trax.html. August 1,2002.
[1] By urban music I mean a combination of the music types being developed in America’s largest cities during this time period. This includes both rap and dance music which would later evolve into hip-hop, house and hip-house.
[2] Although elements of the two had never left each other such as sampling, scratching, heavy beats and bass.
