Yesterday I watched a Rick Rubin interview with Rick Beato where they dug into the early days of his career and the birth of Def Jam. He kept dropping names I’d never heard before, so I went down the rabbit hole and what I found was gold. Early MCs and rap groups from the early-to-mid ’80s, the pioneers who built the foundation for everything that came after. So today’s newsletter is a trip back to the early days of hip-hop in NYC.
Let’s get into it!
Feel the Heartbeat - Treacherous Three
According Rick, this was his favorite group when he was in school at NYU. He first discovered them at CBGB’s in the lower east side which was an iconic music venue on Bowery in the 1980’s and 90’s.
"Feel the Heartbeat" is one of the landmark tracks from the early 1980s in hip-hop’s transition from party jams to more polished, studio-produced records.
It came out in 1981 on Sugar Hill Records, produced by Sylvia Robinson and written/performed by the Treacherous Three members: Kool Moe Dee, L.A. Sunshine, and Special K.
The beat is built on a sample from Taana Gardner’s 1981 disco-funk classic “Heartbeat,” which was already a big hit in clubs and on the R&B charts. They looped that slow, funky bassline and layered their rapid-fire MC style over it. At the time, this was fresh because a lot of rap records still leaned on faster breakbeats — the Treacherous Three slowed it down, giving it a more deliberate, groove-heavy feel.
The song was one of the early examples of hip-hop and R&B/disco crossovers via sampling.
Talkin’ All That Jazz — Stetsasonic
By 1988, critics (and even some jazz musicians) were calling rap “unoriginal” and “lazy,” dismissing the art of sampling as theft. Enter Stetsasonic. The first hip hop “band” who blended MCs, DJs, and live instruments.
“Talkin’ All That Jazz” rides a buttery loop from Lonnie Liston Smith’s 1975 jazz-funk gem “Expansions.” Over that smooth bassline, the group lays out a case: sampling isn’t stealing, it’s recontextualizing. Just like jazz players quote riffs or classical composers borrow motifs, hip-hop producers take fragments of the past and rebuild them into something new.
This song is essentially a fuck you to all the early haters of hip hop.
Looking at the Front Door — Main Source
Before Breaking Atoms put them on the map, Main Source were already quietly changing what hip-hop could sound like. The trio consisting of Queens MC/producer Large Professor and Toronto brothers K-Cut and Sir Scratch blended razor-sharp lyricism with jazz-smooth production in a way that felt effortless.
“Looking at the Front Door” was their first single built over a buttery loop of Donald Byrd’s “Think Twice,”. The beat is so groovy that you almost miss the point of the song which is about breaking up with your lover.
Breaking Atoms, the album this song lived on, not only cemented Main Source’s legacy, it also gave the world Nas’s first verse.
Quote of the Day
I never decide if an idea is good or bad until I try it. So much of what gets in the way of things being good is thinking that we know. And the more that we can remove any baggage we're carrying with us, and just be in the moment, use our ears, and pay attention to what's happening, and just listen to the inner voice that directs us, the better.
Video of the Day
This was the video for the inspiration of today’s newsletter. It’s over 2 hours long. If you have the time you should definitely watch it. If not, then I’m sorry.
Photo of the Day
French photographer Sophie Bramly embedded herself in the Bronx and downtown scenes from 1981–84, capturing hip-hop’s four elements before the culture had a passport. Her images became some of the first to carry breaking, rap, and graffiti to an international audience.
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