Hip-Hop Evolution

For a lifelong hip hop head,

meeting the pioneers who built hip hop's foundations

was an eye-opening experience.

Because I began to understand the incredible innovation

that fueled this music.

But hip hop today is a lot more than DJ's and MC's rocking parks in the Bronx.

It's a showbiz juggernaut

that dominates the Internet,

television and radio

and fills arenas around the world.

So clearly, creative innovation isn't the only thing that builds hip hop.

So what took it over the top?

How did hip hop go from the underground

to the mainstream?

New York City might have more rappers than streets today,

but in the late 1970's,

there was only one crew to look up to.

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.

Flash and his MC's were the first crew to break out of uptown New York

and travel the globe.

Their success was something that all the young B-boys

in the Bronx and Harlem aspired to.

But getting on the mic was another story.

Creating a crew was expensive.

You needed mics, mixers,

turntables and speakers.

But hip hop was built on overcoming limitations.

Sometimes, it just needed a little nudge.

The clock stopped exactly 24 hours ago,

along with just about everything else here in New York City.

The only lights were car lights.

Otherwise, the Big Apple was pitch black.

Thousands took to the streets to devastate and devour.

City officials summed it all up by calling it a night of terror.

Some shop owners attempted to guard their stores

with shotguns, homemade spears and baseball bats

in the South Bronx.

One Bronx police officer said the looters swept through here like locusts.

It was crazy, everybody headed towards the electronic stores.

There's a place called the Sound Room

and they was pulling the gates down,

so I went over and I helped them pull the gate down.

Got it down and we broke the window

and we went inside.

And then, the cops came

and they had flashlights.

So, everybody's, "Shh, get down, get down, get down."

Everybody was down on the floor

until the flashlights disappeared.

And then we got up

and then we ran out.

And I had a Clubman Two mixer, all right,

and that's what I got away with.

What did you get?

I got me a stereo, clothes, a bicycle, a bracelet.

We seeing everybody just break wild,

so we just went with that, there.

Do you think if there's another blackout

the same thing will happen?

Yup.

The hood mentality is the minute there's an opportunity

to capitalize on something

we go in.

When the blackout happens,

if you're a DJ or you want to be one, you're absolutely stealing turntables.

And all of a sudden, this guy that didn't have anything last week but he's in

the park this week, like where'd you get all of that?

Hey, nobody says anything.

But it is what it is.

It was absolute Christmas.

I saw the craziest stuff that night, man.

Everybody I knew got gear.

The bottom line is that there was a wealth

of equipment available to all the local DJ's.

After that summer,

it was saturated with DJ's playing sound systems

and that the groups

really started to form.

Everyone's an MC now.

At that time, it's pandemonium

'cause you had so many groups.

You had Funky Four,

uh Busy Bee Starski.

You got DXT and those guys.

Spoony Gee, the Treacherous 3,

Fearless Four,

Masterdon and the Def Committee,

Crash Crew.

You already had a lot of groups

coming out of Harlem and the Bronx, man.

You had to battle in order for people to know who you are.

Being competitive is what it's all about.

It makes you want to try to stay two or three steps ahead

of everybody else that's doing it.

Tell me about those battles and those shows at that time.

It was intense, man.

For, for a while, man, it was intense.

The group at the top,

Furious Five, no doubt.

But the Furious Five, they was on tour, they was out of the city,

so we were competing for that spot, you know,

that, that number one spot in New York.

The Fantastic

and the Cold Crush

were without a doubt the primary street rivals

in the Bronx right at that time.

We tried to be like the Jackson Five,

like dance steps,

harmonizing,

it got to the point where it started getting so popular with the ladies,

that we became the Fantastic Romantic Five.

When we got together,

we practiced for a year in my house

everyday before we even went out and did anything.

We blended together so well, so, like when you say,

"I know somebody where I can finish his sentences",

we could finish each other's sentences.

Us and the Fantastic's rivalry came to a culmination.

You had a battle at Harlem World.

Shit was epic.

What's up, fly guy?

Hello, fly girl.

Tensions were flaring up.

They took it like really, really, really, really serious.

And it was a thousand dollars that night, it was packed to capacity.

You had the Cold Crush Brothers' people there,

you had Fantastic Five people there.

Harlem World.

Settle down, settle down, settle down, settle down!

The owner said, "All right, fellas,

it's a thousand dollars, winner takes all.

But, if you guys want, I can give the winner

seven hundred

and give the losers three hundred.

What do you guys want to do?"

Everybody looked at each other.

Fuck it! Winner takes all!

We would uh

stack the room, so to speak.

We would bring Cold Crush fans from all over

and Grand Wizzard Theodore and the Fantastic Five

would stack the room with their people.

And the way these battles were won was by crowd participation.

You know, whoever could clap and yell the loudest.

So it was all up to us to go on stage, or the Cold Crush

to go on stage and

whoever had the better show that night.

We had routines, dance steps, man.

We were just untouchable, man.

- Say number one - Number one!

- Say real good - Real good!

- We're the best at the bop - Best at the bop!

- It's in the neighborhood - In the neighborhood!

Somebody, and anybody, and everybody, scream...

For Cold Crush and Fantastic

it's really about how creative are you,

what's your angle, 'cause you can't

predict what a person's going to do in a battle.

Doesn't matter how dope your rhyme was, if he's more effective with the crowd,

'cause it's a live, reciprocal kind of space.

It was about showmanship,

they was the pretty boys

so they had more going for them than just being talented.

You know, they looked good up there.

Of course, the girls are lovin' it.

So when you hear screams, you hear a lot of screams

and most of them is girls though.

When, when you hear screams for us

it's, it's the niggas in there.

- Is it them ? - NO!

-Is it them? - NO!

Now are you all ready?

Are you all ready to judge out there?

YEAH!