Five Faves is a new, semi-regular column in which the Popwell staff will be sharing our five favorites in whatever random categories we come up with. Everyone loves lists – at least that’s what Google tells us! I’m kicking off the column with a topic that’s near and dear to me, 1980’s hip-hop. Here are my Fave Five 80’s Hip-Hop Albums. . .
Beastie Boys – Paul’s Boutique (1989) – The last hurrah of the heavy sampling era, the Beasties’ second album is a dense, ultra-funky masterpiece. Realizing that their Zeppelin-sampling frat boy hi-jinx weren’t built to last, the band pulled a 180 and changed their sound completely. With help from sample masters The Dust Brothers, the Beasties created a new sound built from layer upon layer of bits from rare (and some not-so-rare) funk grooves. The album begins with the slow fade-in of “To All The Girls,” and really kicks into high gear the moment that “Shake Your Rump” bursts from your speakers. From the very first note, the Beasties made sure that everyone knew: This is something different. Other high points include the funky dance hit “Hey Ladies” and the noirish pranksterism of “Egg Man.” The Boys’ ridiculous verbal gymnastics were even sharper than on their debut, referencing everything from Bob Dylan to “Welcome Back, Kotter.” The album really reaches the stratosphere during the concluding eleven-minute melange “B-Boy Bouillabaisse.” The tune actually consists of a string of short, disparate little ditties strung together, and it both summed up the Beasties’ output to that point and showed a way forward. It even ends with the sampled challenge, “Now I want you all to break this down.” It’s a challenge that very few chose to take up.
Public Enemy – It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988) – Public Enemy’s incredible second album is another insanely sample-rich bit of greatness that could only have been produced in the late 80s. Once lawsuits put an end to the days of unbridled sampling, no one could afford to create tracks built up from twenty different song bits. Thankfully, Public Enemy hit the scene at just the right time. The Bomb Squad’s unique skills turned trumpet squeals, shouts, little bass figures, and more into a totally original sound that was at once abrasive and immersive. Just from the music alone, you could never mistake Public Enemy for anyone else. Add in Chuck D’s bombastic Black Power lyrics and Flavor Flav’s dopey interjections and you had the ultimate rarity: a truly original group. Using audio clips from the 70’s Wattstax concerts as the connective glue, PE created an angry yet hypnotic album that proudly shoved its politics down your throat. Chuck D’s lyrics lit into the American power structure in a way that had previously been reserved for punk rockers. (I’d like to note here that the oppressive Reagan/Bush era at least resulted in lots of great protest music, from PE to Dead Kennedys. Trump’s ascendency seems to have only gotten us frothier pop.) Flav injected just enough levity to make the whole thing go down smoothly. Highlights include “Bring the Noise,” “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos,” and “She Watch Channel Zero?!,” still the greatest hip-hop song ever built off of a Slayer riff.
Eric B. & Rakim – Follow the Leader (1988) – Lots of people hold up Eric B. & Rakim’s first album, Paid in Full, as their best, since it does feature such gems as “Eric B. For President” and “My Melody.” For me, though, their follow-up is even better. The beats are more consistent, reaching a level of peak boom-bap intensity from the very first track. The sound that Eric B. gets on this album is the definition of “hard” 80s rap, with slamming snare drum crashes and heavy low-end bass that was made to be blasted out of huge car speakers. The group pushes the James Brown samples that defined their first album to the side in favor of a more eclectic, futuristic sound. Seriously, listen to the first cut, “Follow the Leader,” and tell me that its spacy, propulsive sound wouldn’t fit right into any modern cyberpunk action flick. While Eric B. was expanding his sound palette, Rakim was pushing rap lyricism way past its previous bounds. Rakim’s dense, wordy lyrics were streets past what anyone else was doing at the time, full of complex internal rhymes and pinpoint-precise imagery that still dazzles after 30 years. No rapper would approach Rakim’s lyrical complexity until Eminem and MF DOOM hit the scene years later. Follow the Leader is a masterclass is rap lyricism, taught by the era’s foremost wordsmith.
Run-DMC – Run-DMC (1984) – Run-DMC changed the game in hip-hop from the moment of their first single, “Sucker MCs.” Leaving the funk-inspired outfits of Afrika Bambaataa and Melle Mel behind, these were guys who proudly wore Adidas shoes and Lee jeans. Their music was even more of a departure. While other bands were producing danceable, funky tunes full of playful back-and-forth banter, Run-DMC went for your throat. They stripped the music down to its essence, doing away with traditional arrangements and focusing purely on the beat. Pretty much everything on this album is treated as a percussion instrument. Keyboards don’t play melodies, they plink out beats. Only the rock guitars layered onto “Rock Box” have any connection to other kinds of music. Meanwhile, DJ Run and DMC took turns shouting their lyrics into the mic, often trading off within the same line. While the lyrics were never all that complex, the urgency and spirit that the guys put into them made the whole thing seem incredibly vital and new. As hard as it is to believe at this remove, Run-DMC were considered the forerunners of a “new school” of hip-hop at the time. This was as hard as it got in 1984, with songs like “It’s Like That” and “Hard Times” delivering unflinching views of the real world that these young men lived in. And “Rock Box” set the template for years (and years) of rock-rap hybrids that still never quite matched what Run-DMC did way back when.
De La Soul – 3 Feet High & Rising (1989) – The final entry in this list is another incredibly sample-rich construction of the kind that couldn’t be produced today. Emerging from their suburban bedrooms with an absolutely unique take on the genre, the three members of De La Soul proved that there was room in the rap world for everybody. Their lyrical wordplay could be as dense and confusing as their kaleidoscopic music. I’m still not sure what some of these lyrics mean almost thirty years later, but boy, do they sound cool. When De La hit the scene with their flowery shirts, beads, and low-key hippie vibe, they showed that rap was a far more inclusive and open genre than it had been given credit for. In a world of gold-chain-sporting, tougher-than-leather rap stars, De La’s laid-back suburban cool was like a shock to the system. You mean you didn’t have to wear a Kangol to be hip-hop?!? The music was just as inclusive, with samples from bands like Steely Dan, Hall & Oates, and Johnny Cash pushed and molded into a bouncy new thing that De La called “The D.A.I.S.Y Age.” (That stands for Da Inner Sound, Ya’ll!) Trust me, no one was sampling Steely Dan at the time. 3 Feet High & Rising paved the way for everything from A Tribe Called Quest to Kanye West, opening the gates to a flood of hip-hop weirdos who hadn’t even been on the radar before. Of course, it also introduced the world to the idea of the hip-hop album skit, something that has never really been a good idea. If that’s the price to pay for an album that’s this much fun, though, it’s one I’ll gladly pay.
Leave a Reply