ONE OF the main ideas of hip-hop was to either find rhythms from any source and change their original context or create completely new rhythms. One of the first influential hip-hop labels Sugarhill had a group of musicians that included drummer Keith Leblanc, bassist Doug Wimbush and guitarist Skip McDonald.
The band would also come up with rhythm tracks of their own but gradually electronic musical equipment played a more and more prominent role in the development of hip-hop.
Drum machines were used to programme a basic rhythm and the sampler, another form of new machine used in music making, made it possible to have a loop or breakbeat from an old record playing for an unlimited amount of time.
Rappers could ‘freestyle’ over the beats. That meant making lyrics up on the spur of the moment just as musicians created variations on a melody or improvised in jazz.
Now with the sampler and the drum machine the hip-hop DJ or producer – the person creating the music for the rapper - could create endless rhythms or beats if he had a stack of old records. The music of James Brown, the man who invented the percussive hard-hitting variation of soul that was known as funk, would be a particularly valuable source of breakbeats.
Listen to Just Rhymin’ With Biz by Big Daddy Kane and Biz Markie and you can hear how the foundation of the music is The Payback by James Brown.
