January 1st 1983

[Kory]

The rhythm and rhyming of the best MCs, the cadence, the flow, the lyrics are so very clever once you tune your ears to it (and do some terrible attempts at rapping of your own)

A couple days ago, I did my origins of hip hop lecture and explained, after showing a clip of “Rapper’s Delight,” that originally I quoted some of the lyrics, which was traumatic and embarrassing for me and the students. Afterwards, a student asked me if I could nevertheless do some for them. “Could I? No. Will I? No.” As Dirty Harry said, a man’s gotta know his limitations.

I remember when I was at secondary school, a rough inner city one filled with a lot of kids that the world didn't have a lot of hope for, a local parish priest came in to speak to us. His way of getting us to identify with him was to start things off with a boombox playing Where Is the Love? by the Black Eyed Peas, a song that was about two years old at that point, so a cobweb covered classic as far as the audience of up to the minute grime and garage fans were concerned. As the long intro boomed through the assembly hall and the middle aged man stood silently and awkwardly in front of us, I panicked and clenched my shoulders, certain he was about to start spitting bars. Happily, the actual vocals kicked in. I don't remember if he let the whole track play, but he then went on to say something like "And that's the issue of the world today, isn't it? Where is the love?" and preached in a well meaning fashion at us for twenty minutes before never being seen again.

I like to think he's spinning UKG tracks in assembly halls now.