"hurry up! Do not move! It's over! " Blow at the branches and shout. The rapper then turned to his band and instructed them to "fight!" Young Mr. brower spoke the source of his impatience, and the rhythm was like a punch in the stomach:
Don't give me everything you wrote before you died.
Because this is not 1823.
Not even 1970.
Now I'm Curtis brower.
I know Christmas.
So this time of year.
I always rhyme to celebrate.
Then in the next three and a half minutes, I will tell you the story of Santa Claus stopping in Harlem to give presents, and then I will decide to go out to play with the young people he met here. Tradition It's a new day.
Born in Harlem, talented and ambitious Curtis Walker (about 1979) Curtis brower said that his role model is actor, singer and civil rights activist paul robeson. He said: "Robson is versatile, so I plan my life like this." (Michael Oakes Archives /Getty Images) Although Blue's "Christmas Rapper" is one of the earliest rap records in history, in retrospect, arrogant self-confidence is a typical hip-hop. Moreover, with the increasing popularity of hip-hop, this licentiousness was finally proved to be completely justified. Forty years after the release of this song, the story behind its lasting success is a story worth telling.
It was the spring of 1979, and a man named robert ford wanted to be a record producer. His friend called him Loki, which got his girlfriend pregnant. When he was nearly 30 years old, Ford worked as a reporter and commentator for Billboard magazine. He likes the job and pays him $300 a week. This is enough to keep him awake, but not enough to support a child. As a respectable young man, Ford knows that he must do the right thing. "I promised my father that I would take good care of any child I brought into this world," he recalled. So he thought, how can he earn the necessary money? Just when lightning struck, Ford decided to record a Christmas rap record. What if no one has released rap records before? So what if the mainstream music industry doesn't care about rap? Then, if the "rap music" of Tangshan gang is earth-shattering success, will it be a few months later?
Ford happened to work with an old guy named Mickey Eddie. He wrote a Christmas record for Perry Como at 195 1. He vowed that you can always make money from Christmas songs because this song is played every year. No matter what happens,
The Christmas Rap, filmed by Denzil Miller and produced by J, B Moore, Curtis Walker, larry smith and robert ford, sold more than 350,000 copies (above: the 7-inch American version collected by the National Museum of American History), which was 10 times the original goal of Mercury. (NMAH) "Christmas rappers" have been sampled 18 1 time, including those from Beast Boy, Public Enemy, North America, Baishushan, J.Dilla, UGK, Raekwon, Onyx, Lil Kim, Lederman, Busta Rymes, House of Pain, Slick Rick, Schooly D. God, Ford said, "This is my inspiration." Ford shared this dream with his music-loving colleague J.B. Moore at Billboard (not directly related to the author of Silent Night). "Robert is a black man in downtown Hollis, Queens, and I am a white man on the north shore of Long Island. Moore, our record collector, recalled in an interview on 200 1:
Moore likes making Christmas rap records very much. He wrote some rhyming poems without thinking. Ford found Moore's efforts when he came home from work one night, and played Moore's message on his answering machine and recited some poems he wrote for the "Christmas rapper".
I heard it, and I said, "That's it! He recalled,
After Ford accepted his lyrics, Moore volunteered to pay for the record. In the past five years, the 37-year-old Vietnam veteran has been saving money to build a nest for himself every week. His dream is to leave the billboard so that he can concentrate on writing a novel about him in Vietnam. Now, due to saving about $6.5438+0 million, Moore decided to spend all his money on "Christmas rap".
Brower's photos and some stage equipment, including the jacket he wore on the album "Deuce" in 198 1, are collected in the National Museum of African American History and Culture. (NMAAHC, a gift from Kurtis Walker PKA Kurtis Blow) The lyrics have been written and the money is in hand. The question remains: Who is the hottest host in rap today? Ford's first choice is Hollywood DJ. Like Kurt DJ Helck, Hollywood is one of the founders of hip-hop music. In fact, he started doing this in 1972, and a year later, Helck joined the sport. Ford's second choice was Eddie Cheba. As a student of Hollywood, Cheeba is very popular in hip-hop places such as disco fever in the Bronx and more upscale places such as Harlem Charles Gallery.
One day, when Ford took a bus on Jamaica Avenue in Queens, he was still trying to make a choice. His eyes fell on a young man who posted leaflets on a rap program. Joey Simmons' name told Ford that the play was produced by his brother Russell. Ford called the sponsor,
Russell Simmons's body proved to be a whirlwind of hip-hop. 2 1 year-old from Hollis, Queens. Simmons, where Ford grew up, is nominally a sociology major at new york City University. But most of his time is spent making and promoting hip-hop parties, which is a budding entrepreneurial spirit, and he is extraordinary in this respect.
Christmas rappers robert ford (right) and J.B. Moore (middle) collaborated with musician and screenwriter larry smith (left) in 1999. Twenty years ago, they met at the Green Street Studio in Lower Manhattan. Simon's energy (provided by Linda Madley), including his uninterrupted voice, has earned him the nickname "Rush". His work was carried out under the banner of Rush Production Company, when he was a three-person partner. In addition to Rush, the team also includes an old friend named Rudy Toping, a rapper aged 65,438+09 and a college student named Curtis Blue.
Born in Curtis Walker, a brilliant and ambitious black youth, his first role model was actor, singer and civil rights activist paul robeson. He said: "Robson is versatile, so I plan my life like this." The young man discovered many hip-hop cultural types when he was a teenager, and his ambition was even greater. A few years later, as a communication major at City College, brower decided to focus on rap, although he and Simmons continued to promote the party together.
Then, in the late summer of 1979, Ford revealed his plan to make rap records to Simmons. Simmons soon came up with his own plan: to show his elegance to hotel diplomats in Times Square. On the night of August 3 1, 1979, Ford was so sure at home that he finally agreed that the blow was right. He said the decision was the best of both worlds: Russell Simmons and Kurt Blau left together. "Russell is very energetic. He knows how to get a higher salary than anyone I have ever met, "Ford said.
The team's energy has now turned to him taking notes. The question is: how to copy a music that has never been recorded on a record? At a pre-production meeting with Ford, J.B. Moore, musician/arranger Denzil Miller and larry smith, brower suggested that the combination of james brown's "heavy fear" and fashionable dance disco might be one. Crew's Good Times, headquartered in new york, was not only the most popular radio program in new york at that time, but also popular in hip-hop circles. The mold has been cast.
John Steiner (pictured above at 1980 with Curtis brower) received a tape from J.B. Moore of new york. He said, "I heard it and thought, yes, it's very good." . They called "KDSP" at Green Street Recording Studio, a small recording studio in lower Manhattan, which was called "Soho" several years ago. These musicians are a mixture of J.B. Moore's friend (drummer Jimmy Bralo) and Ford (Smith and Miller). Adam White is there. A young Englishman was working on a billboard with Ford and Moore. White was asked to recite the beginning of Silent Night. This is when Curtis brower walked in the door and waited for his staff. Moore handed him a hard copy of the lyrics. The rapper has never seen such a thing before. Forty years later, brower still savors their strangeness:
He's Rowley, he's Paulie, and I said, "Holy Molly!
You must have a lot of whiskers on your chin.
He allowed him to be a furry little crowd in the skin of his chin.
And proud.
"This is completely different from the way we knocked at the door," Blow said. "But it's so witty that I'm glad to have the opportunity to do so." He wrote the lyrics for the second half of the record himself: "There was a large group of people talking about Santa Claus at the party, and everyone had a good time."
This record was completed overnight. Bloch remembers that he cut the whole song for eight minutes, just like playing it live at the club. He knocked a few times, the band played together, the tape rolled up, and then it was over.
Even so, the finished product surprised some people at that time. It is made up of mismatched body parts. Music critic Nelson George said: "The challenge is how to reconcile these two worlds. What does this mean between making records and making rap records?
Finding a label that is willing to make a record is really the hardest part. Ford recalled that nearly 20 companies rejected the salary scandal before Mercury Records finalized it. The problem is that almost no one in the big record companies wants to be associated with rap, although in June of 1979 10, the whole world was shocked by the success of "The Rapist * * *", which is one of the earliest rap records in history. George said, "No one in the city center has ever given an f**". "None of the black people really have sex in the city center."
How to explain this industry-wide disgust? Ford said in an interview on 200 1 that few black professionals liked rap music at that time, "because it reminded them of their life in the slums". This at least partly explains why the "Christmas rapper" was signed by a white British man from Mercury Records.
John Steiner is in the London office of the phonograph company. When he had the opportunity to do the same job in the company's Los Angeles office, he signed the terrible strait there. As an American R&D personnel. Jamaican reggae and Christmas novelty record lover Stenzer jumped up. There, he received a tape from J.B. Moore of new york. "I listened and thought, yes, very good," he said.
He immediately took quite sustained action to sign the record. Colleagues in his office didn't want anything to do with this matter, and the national director of Mercury's R&D division didn't want anything to do with this matter at first. But stanzel p.