According to Francisco Reyes, a professor at the Faculty of Information Sciences at the Complutense University of Madrid and author of the first Doctoral Thesis on hip hop, this “almost ideology” begins in the parks, on the street, “from hands of African Americans who did not have money to go to the nightclubs in Manhattan , -and even if they had they would not have let them in- “.
First it would be the DJs playing music connected to the streetlights, then the B-boys (who do Break Dance) would come dancing in circles, and finally the MC ( Master of Ceremonies, in Spanish ‘Maestros de Ceremonias’), which would engender the genre. rap making rhymes of his lyrics. Graffiti artists, the last piece of the hip hop puzzle, already existed since the late 60s. But when did hip hop win over the general public? Reyes says that “years later, specifically between 1989 and 1991, this movement became a worldwide boom .”
The first song that came closest to what we understand today by hip hop was King Tim III , by the Fatback Band, a group that fused funk, disco and rhythm and blues in their themes. Later, the trio called Sugarhill Gang, managed to triumph in 1979 with Rappers delight , it would be the first group to be officially pigeonholed in this way of making music.
Returning to rap, the academic points out that melodies were created to stir consciences. The first song in which the lyrics predominated over the music was The Message , performed in 1982 by the band Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. According to Reyes, this topic was one of the pioneers of the genre in talking about the frustrations and problems in the ghettos (currently, an area where socially excluded groups are concentrated).
In Spain, we would have to wait until 1984 to witness this form of urban culture . Five years later rap arrives, which begins to be officially produced with ‘Madrid hip hop’ , a compilation that included songs by the groups QSC (Quick Silver Crew), DNI, Sindicato del Crimen and Estado Critico, among others.
Finally, when asked about what makes rap special, Reyes does not doubt: “the great amount of message that is transmitted in a short time. They are the new singer-songwriters ”.
