“They’re not there to tantalize the male fancy.” “They are fully represented and represented in the most respectable way,” Keyes said. The “Anthology” does a sturdy job of capturing the history of women in hip-hop - too often in the past considered primarily in relationship to men - from the Sequence and Salt-N-Pepa to Lil’ Kim and Foxy Brown all the way up to Missy Elliott, Lauryn Hill and Nicki Minaj. There’s a sprinkling of white rappers - Beastie Boys, Vanilla Ice, House of Pain, Eminem, Macklemore. ![]() It covers party music (Sir Mix-A-Lot, Ludacris, Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz) and gangster rap (Geto Boys, Schoolly-D, Ice-T). It exists in barbershops, it exists in your house with your friends, but on paper and concrete, a lot of stuff really doesn’t exist.”īeginning in the late 1970s, “The Smithsonian Anthology” takes in hip-hop’s earliest recordings (Sugarhill Gang, the Treacherous Three, Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, etc.). “We’re basically creating a foundation for something that doesn’t exist. The producer 9th Wonder, also a member of the executive committee, framed the conversation around selection in terms of standards, which is to say, “songs supposed to be known by the next generation coming up,” he explained. ![]() Keyes, the chair of U.C.L.A.’s department of African American Studies and a member of the executive committee - the collection is a tour led with intention through hip-hop’s many phases, regions and ideologies. Whether or not it constitutes a canon - “I eschew the concept of canon,” said Cheryl L. They come right after “The Humpty Dance” by Digital Underground and “Me So Horny” by 2 Live Crew - different sorts of breakouts by bug-eyed humorists from opposite ends of the country - and just before Brand Nubian’s strident “All for One,” which arrives like a mean sentry striving to restore order. 20 that acts as a foundation, primer and master narrative of the genre’s growth from 1979 to 2013. These hits - including one from a white rapper, no less - were different, nigh unprecedented phenomena.Īnd yet here they are, back to back in the middle of Disc 5 of “The Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-Hop and Rap,” a 129-song collection and boxed set due out Aug. ![]() Rap music, then still barely over a decade old, had only just begun to reckon with attention from outside the genre’s walls. While wildly popular in the pop mainstream, both songs were - in differing but related ways - derided in hip-hop, kept at arm’s length. Hot on its heels a few months later was Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby,” which sampled “Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie and became the first hip-hop single to top the Billboard Hot 100. That summer, MC Hammer released “U Can’t Touch This,” his flashy, breakout single that, thanks to the flamboyant fashion and quick footwork in its video, became a pop music phenomenon. In 1990, hip-hop was in the throes of an identity crisis.
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