Movie of the Week: Beat This! A Hip Hop History (1984)

 Here's an amazing doc from 1984 from the BBC on the still nascent (at the time) hip hop scene. Astounding & beautiful...

Appearances include Easy A.D., Almighty K.G., Arthur Baker, Afrika Bambaataa, Drew Bundini, H. Rap Brown, Grandmaster Caz, Charlie Chase, Brim Fuentes, G.L.O.B.E., Kool Herc, Lisa Lee, Malcolm McLaren, Pow Wow, Sha Rock, and Tony Tone.

Hat tip to Dangerous Minds

Lost & Found: Boogie Down Productions’ Criminal Minded practice tapes

I stopped keeping up with the latest hip hop much longer ago than I'd care to admit. When I WAS into it, however, one of acts that you could not ignore at the time was Boogie Down Productions, whose Criminal Minded (1987) was certainly a stunning debut, and has definitely gone down as one of the great hip hop albums in the genre's history. That should go without saying. 

Last week DJ Kenny Parker, via the Frozen Files show on East Village Radio, shared the tracks you can listen to below - BDP practice tapes from the mid-80's as they shaped what became Criminal Minded. Fascinating stuff especially in light of the fact that hip hop bootlegs (and I don't mean mix tapes) still seems to be a somewhat under-exploited thing. But hey...I could be wrong about that. Enjoy these old school beats.

Hat tip to Fact Mag and Unkut.

Happening Now Thru August 10: THE AFRIKA BAMBAATAA MASTER OF RECORDS OPEN ARCHIVE at Gavin brown's enterprise

Gavin Brown’s enterprise and Johan Kugelberg/Boo-Hooray Gallery, together with Afrika Bambaataa, the Universal Zulu Nation, and Cornell University Library announce the public archiving of one of the most important record collections in the history of hip hop:

The Afrika Bambaataa Master of Records vinyl archive
From July 11 through August 10, Kugelberg and his team will be organizing, cataloguing, and documenting Afrika Bambaataa’s peerless vinyl collection at Gavin Brown’s enterprise, Monday through Friday between 12 – 5 PM. Visitors are encouraged to stop by, hear some great music and see how the cultural artifacts of this important strand of American history are preserved.

Open archiving, like an archeological dig or a group of students viewing biological research in a museum, is an important and rarely seen part of the process of documenting history. Before the Afrika Bambaataa archive moves to its permanent home at Cornell University’s Hip Hop Collection in the Fall of 2013, Johan Kugelberg and Gavin Brown’s enterprise offer visitors a unique opportunity to experience what is arguably the most important gathering of vinyl in the history of hip hop while it is sorted, organized, archived (and DJ'd) in full view of the public.

Gavin Brown's enterprise is located at 620 Greenwich Street, NYC, and can be reached at 212-627-5258 or via email here.

Universal Zulu Nation
Cornell Hip Hop Archive
Bambaataa Visiting Scholar 

Fred Milano (The Belmonts) RIP

Dion & the Belmonts: Fred Milano is on the left. 

Fred Milano - RIP

The Bronx 1979

New York Times reporter David Gonzalez shares some memories & wonderful photos of the south Bronx, circa 1979. View the slide show (with audio) here.