Though including the question mark in the quoats is grammatically correct or whatever, it will always look wrong to me.

Oh, and we're having an informal "so I don't kill my coworkers" house party in #bunnies. Feel free to drop in and share some tracks with us (any genre; doesn't have to be hip-hop).

(Fingers crossed, I hope to perform in a show with my teachers/mentors in their hip-hop improv show tonight. They're going to pick two of us who've taken their class at random to join the show for tonight only.)

Still waiting. . .:-)

Imma pour you tall glass of

≡ Click to see image ≡

This is the first rap track I remember.

Probably "It's Like That" by Run-DMC, which came out the summer after I graduated high school (yikes). Several of my friends were way more into hip-hop than I was, so I don't remember if I heard the song through one of them, or music videos on MTV or Night Flight.

I still don't have a working definition of hip-hop. My first and favorite rap will always be The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.

I'm still not much of a fan of hip-hop/rap/etc (I'm confused by the definitions too. Some say rap is the music, and hip-hop is the culture, but the terms seem to be used interchangeably) . I think I'm too old. There are some things that I like in kind of a passing pop kind of way, but nothing that really makes me sit up and take notice in a "that's virtuosity" kind of way.

That said, I do remember once when listening to "Night Music" or "Sunday Night" the David Sanborn music show where there were 2 women doing beatbox/rap/singing that were really talented. The song was something about 2 fat girls, and it was quite great. Entertaining, and the girls were quite obviously quite talented. Other than that, I got nothin'.

It was absolutely "Fight For Your Right To Party."

We didn't have cable, but in 1989 or so we did get a rather grainy thing called the Jukebox Channel, which let you call in and pay $2.50 for them to play a video. (Nobody ever did, so it usually just flashed the selection listings.) On one of those occasions, they played "Just A Friend," by Biz Markie, which I thought was hilariously bad.

Also, by that point we had never owned a TV that had less than two screen images, so when the picture split I wasn't entirely sure if it was meant to be that way.

Now that I am a degreed professional in both music and letters, I can recognize this song for its inherent genius.

Not hating at all, Eideteker. Just honest. But then I came late to the game with Pinot Noir, also.

Probably either MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This" or the Simpson's "Do the Bartman", both of which came out in 1990.

I didn't know this until just now, but apparently Michael Jackson co-wrote "Do the Bartman".

I don't remember the first that I heard, but the first thing I liked was Salt-N-Pepa.

Living mostly in a rural are, you could argue that Blondie was my introduction to 'rapping'. Other than The Message, my introduction to the scene would be Run-DMC or Tone Loc

When I mentioned the Run-DMC track, that was the first one I really liked... I have no clue what the first one I heard was.

"Rapper's Reprsie (Jam, Jam)" by the Sugarhill Gang. I was at Marine Corps Supply School and it was my first exposure to anything not lily-white*. That was followed by Blondie's "Rapture", which I liked but recognized that it was far from authentic.

NWA's Straight Out Of Compton was the first record I respected. That was some high art.

* By that time I had deep respect for what George Clinton and his gang had done, but even George had said they wrote their music with the intent of garnering white sales.

Eide: are you on ThisIsMyJam? Cuz you would fit right in.

Most definitely the first rap track I ever heard was Rapper's Delight. (Yeah, I'm that old) I just recall hearing it playing, not knowing at all what it was, and really, really enjoying it. After that, I was aware of rap and sort of followed it from the periphery...just enough to be aware of the evolution of the form, but not into it yet.

The first albums that I actually spent serious time listening to were Run-DMC's Tougher Than Leather and NWA's Straight Outta Compton., several years after Rapper's.

When the medium was part of the message and visa versa. Same with anything.

I'm a fan of NWA too ("Fuck the Police" always brings a smile -- great beat, even if I don't always agree with the sentiments), and Snoop... I've always loved Snoop (Sippin' on gin and juice... With my mind on my money and money on my mind -- great laid-back flow). I'm no expert, mind you, but I like what I hear.

yt
Das ist der Deal, du brauchst 'n Ehemann
Ich brauch' 'ne Frau, die gut kochen und nähen kann
Du lebst im Bauernhaus, Kuhstall nebenan
Ich hol' dich raus, du fängst 'n neues Leben an

Aus dem Wollrock ins Negligeé
Ich schick' dich jeden Tag shoppen in dei'm neuen Carree
Dein Vater kriegt 'n second hand neues Coupé
Bei der Hochzeit glänzt er unter sei'm neuen Toupé

Wir feiern mit Fleisch und Selbtsgebranntem
Ich mache auf reich vor allen dein'n Verwandten
Die Onkels und Tanten sind am saufen und zanken
Und die Dorfmusikanten spielen auf und wir tanzen

Schnapsleichen liegen auf dem Rasen
Und die Blaskapelle ist zu blau zum Blasen
Man soll immer gehen wenn's am Besten ist
Mädchen, ich zeig' dir wo der goldene Westen ist

German is such a good language for Sprechgesang

I totally want to use Sprechgesang as a user name.

I would sing this when I was in highschool. Including the affected snotty austrian pronunciation.
Er war Superstar
Er war populär
Er war so exaltiert
Because er hatte Flair

Be aware though that using a wagnerian term to refer to this neo-scatting may be seen as lacking in street cred'.

Sprechgesang is one of my favorite words. So much so that I will go to pains to bring up Fred Schneider in conversation just so I can use it.

I went through a short phase around 13-14 or so where I was hearing stuff like Run-DMC and Grandmaster Flash. This is was 83-84, so GMF was already years old. The other music I remember really well was Whodini. Loved those guys. Tracks like Big Mouth!

A couple years later, I found The Clash, and The Jam, and The Damned, The Vibrators, Elvis Costello and company. I was pretty impressed to discover that the Clash were fans of GMF. Punk really made me move away from the rap/hip hop world though, it would seem. Well, not that punk MADE ME, but I did, after getting pretty hard core into the early, old school punk. Then...I found out who Gram Parsons was, and things moved even FURTHER from the rap/hip hop spectrum!

I am still not a big fan but this is the song that got me listening. I am still an Everlast fan.

Grandmaster Flash- White Lines (Don't Do It) It's all been downhill from there.

I couldn't even come up with a likely candidate 'til Senyar and BP suggested some. Yeah, mine was almost certainly RUN-DMC or Grandmaster Flash, or just possibly Sugar Hill Gang. But like rollick, Blondie's "Rapture" was the first time I listened to an piece of rap intently. And like richat, I got snagged young by new wave and punk, and never got into rap or hiphop.

Lately I've been hoping to change that, so I'm slowly getting around to listening to more of it --- and also to more old-school mainstream R&B, which I completely missed out on in my youth. My youth in Houston and later in small-town Maine exposed me to plenty of punk and new wave, some country, some folk, and some mainstream classic rock (though my husband, who grew up on popular radio, is often startled at how few popular MOR 1980s songs I can identify), but I feel like a missed whole swaths of excellent music.

Run-DMC, but I honestly can't say with 100 percent certainty whether it was "You Be Illin" or "It's Tricky."

I'm a child of the 80s, so I can't recall what I first heard. But the first stuff that really caught my ear was Buck 65 from Man Overboard, or something from Anticon. Underground hip-hop, represent!

There was a kid down the street from my house named Corey that was maybe three years older than me that would bump (over the years) Run DMC, EPMD, 2 Live Crew and eventually Tone Loc up in his bedroom while we flipped through wrestling magazines, so I reckon that was my first exposure, which would've been when I was probably 8-10 years old. And I liked 'em, but I'm sure I didn't "get it".

The first thing that really grabbed me and made me stare in awe was definitely Public Enemy's "Fight The Power". That video just kicked my 10-year-old ass in ways I probably still don't understand. From there I got turned on to other PE stuff that was played on MTV or BET (hey, remember when they did that kind of thing?) and would wait for them to play "Bring the Noise" (the collab they did with Anthrax, who I also loved back then) or "Can't Truss It".

Next in line was seeing the video for A Tribe Called Quest's video for "Scenario", which opened up a portal into the Golden Age of hip-hop (like I'm sure it did for many folks). From there I started digging into Leaders of the New School and Pharcyde and then, once I got into high school, Hieroglyphics and Souls of Mischief. God, those were great years.

Uni days (well, my first time around) were kind of devoid of hip-hop for me. There was some Wu Tang but that was about it(although I distinctly remember the month when Eminem first hit and everyone went nuts for him, but he never did much for me).

Shortly after that, a MeFite/SpoFite (vito90) sent me a mix cd he made that included Aesop Rock, and he completely shifted my shit. I got way into him and through that much of the rest of the Def Jux crew and other associated acts, and since then, I'm still on the hunt for good folks.

Long story short, I think it was probably Nina Cherry's "Buffalo Stance".

Rapper's Delight actually. I was in 5th grade, and the other kids in my middle school were bringing in the big pink LP. Say up jump the boogie to the bang bang boogie. That was some good roller skating.

Yea, Rapper's Delight. We were studying simple statistics in 7th grade and had to do a survey of everyone in the grade's favorite song and Rapper's Delight was the runaway favorite.

I'm a fan of NWA too ("Fuck the Police" always brings a smile -- great beat, even if I don't always agree with the sentiments)

We had an art teacher at high school who used to play us music during lessons - including this song. It marked her out as super-cool to us 13-year-olds.

My intro to "rapping" came via white East Coasters (Blondie and Waitresses) and Brits (Adam Ant, the Clash, and Captain Sensible). I had seen several rap videos and a few performances on Soul Train and other syndicated music TV shows, but the first rap song I remember absolutely kicking my ass was "King of Rock" on the second RUN DMC album. That's when I suddenly started buying rap albums. I sort of have the same feeling about rap as I do with country - I hate 95% of it, but that other 5% I'll proudly wave the flag for.

That was some good roller skating.
Haha

~ ("Fuck the Police" always brings a smile -- great beat, even if I don't always agree with the sentiments)
~ We had an art teacher at high school who used to play us music during lessons - including this song. It marked her out as super-cool to us 13-year-olds.

That must have been one seriously progressive and laid-back community. If a teacher had played Fuck the Police to a bunch of 13-year-olds here, there would have been a lynch mob at the next school board meeting, screaming for blood and termination.

a lynch mob at the next school board meeting

Heheh, we had a half-year elective called Pop Music (this was 1974), and one of the songs we studied was Steppenwolf's "The Pusher". That class, btw, was no pushover; we got into some pretty deep theory. Conversely, we each got 10 minutes to play with a Moog synthesizer.