[Series 5: Why Kendrick Lamar's 'Alright' Became the Anthem of the BLM Movement] Hip-Hop Finally Leaps into the Mainstream: The Arrival of New School and Run-D.M.C.

3. The Arrival of New School and Female Rappers

Hip-hop was on the verge of leaping to the center of the music scene, having achieved commercial success with 'Rapper's Delight' and critical success with 'The Message.' Then came the second generation of hip-hop (commonly known as New School Hip-Hop), who grew up watching the early hip-hop scene of Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash, including Run-D.M.C., LL Cool J, and the Beastie Boys. Furthermore, toward the late 1980s, Eric B. & Rakim, De La Soul, MC Lyte, Boogie Down Productions, and Public Enemy achieved further success. Hip-hop also spread beyond New York, with Philadelphia rapper Schoolly D, Los Angeles' Ice-T, and Too $hort releasing songs reflecting the worldviews of gangs, pimps, and the streets, which, triggered by N.W.A., became the foundation for the gangsta rap that would become popular on the West Coast.

At the same time, female rappers also emerged. In 1984, 14-year-old Roxanne Shante broke through with 'Roxanne's Revenge' as a diss track to UTFO's 'Roxanne Roxanne.' In 1986, the debut album 'Hot, Cool & Vicious' by the female hip-hop trio Salt-N-Pepa became the first million-selling record by female rappers. MC Lyte released the first full-length album by a female solo rapper, 'Lyte as a Rock,' in 1988. In the single 'Paper Thin,' Lyte, having witnessed her boyfriend cheating with another woman, calls his excuses 'paper thin' and casts a scornful look at the men who hit on her. With this song, MC Lyte embodied an independent female image and showed a new direction for female rap.

4. The Fusion of Hip-Hop and Rock at Def Jam, and Popularization

Run-D.M.C., formed in 1983 under businessman Russell Simmons with MCs Joseph Simmons and Darryl McDaniels and DJ Jam Master Jay, made a huge breakthrough in the 1980s. Songs like 'Rapper's Delight,' released in the early days of hip-hop, were mostly live-instrumentation-based and disco-flavored, which was very different from the drum-beat-based breakbeat sound actually heard in clubs and parks. Run-D.M.C. stuck to a hard style using drum machines, debuting with 'It's Like That / Sucker M.C.'s,' which was seen as an innovative sound and sold 250,000 copies. Furthermore, unlike the hip-hop artists of the time who dressed in leather and the like, Run-D.M.C. appeared in the style of the B-boys of the time, wearing black shirts and Adidas shoes, completely changing the values of the era. Their 1986 collaboration with rock band Aerosmith, 'Walk This Way,' became a huge hit, and the album 'Raising Hell' also sold 2 million copies. Under white producer Rick Rubin, Run-D.M.C. incorporated guitar sounds into hip-hop on a large scale. Along with fellow Def Jam label mates Beastie Boys and LL Cool J, they expanded their popularity to white audiences and greatly revitalized the hip-hop scene, which was becoming mainstream culture.

The Beastie Boys' 1986 album 'Licensed to Ill' was the first rap album to reach number one on the Billboard 200, and '(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!),' which included elements of comedy rap, became a hit. The then 19-year-old LL Cool J debuted in a typical B-boy style and broke through as an idol figure supported by children and girls. His 1985 debut album 'Radio' was a hit, selling over 500,000 copies, thanks to its minimal sound and lyrics depicting the life and romance of a teenager. Today, the three albums 'Raising Hell,' 'Licensed to Ill,' and 'Radio' are classics that embody the New School Hip-Hop of this era. Rick Rubin was involved as a producer for all of them.
Even amidst such waves of commercialization, Run-D.M.C. included a song at the end of their album 'Raising Hell' called 'Proud to Be Black,' in which they rapped about being proud to be Black. Run-D.M.C. was not a conscious group that put social messages at the forefront, but in this song, they appeal to the listener about what it means to be Black in America and about racial discrimination against Black people.

5. The 'Stop the Violence' Movement and the Social Structure of Black People and Violence

Boogie Down Productions (BDP), formed in 1986 by KRS-One, Scott La Rock, and D-Nice, released New York's first gangsta rap album, 'Criminal Minded,' in 1987, but five months later, member Scott La Rock was shot and killed by someone while trying to mediate a fight. This was the first time a prominent hip-hop artist had died from a shooting. Furthermore, triggered by a death caused by a fight between audience members at a hip-hop concert at the Nassau Coliseum, rap-related violence began to be picked up by media reports. With this as a turning point, famous hip-hop artists and critics in New York gathered from 1988 to launch the 'Stop the Violence (STV)' movement. In the STV movement, based on rap-related violence, they released the song 'Self-Destruction,' which appealed to and educated people by saying, 'Let's stop violence between Black people' and 'Crime between Black people is self-destruction.'

However, this STV movement did not go beyond the scope of sociological terms (such as 'young Black people are prone to crime') that had been fixed by media reports. It reduced the root of Black violent crime to Blackness or the economic poverty behind it. In this respect, the STV movement was merely a performance in which hip-hop artists pandered to the media and society that were critical of rap.
On the other hand, KRS-One, a rapper from BDP who participated in this movement, released the album 'By All Means Necessary' under the BDP name in 1988. In one song on this album, 'Stop the Violence,' he rapped, 'They build missiles, my family eats gristle / They get mad when the newspaper tells the truth' and 'We're fighting inflation, but the President is on vacation.'

In this song, KRS-One appeals to 'stop the violence,' but at the same time, he also addresses the problems of the government, the President, the media, and education. When pointing out the problem of Black violence, he is simultaneously pointing out the violence of a government that spends billions of dollars on missile development while not even feeding its own citizens properly. While the media and many people tried to minimize Black violence and crime as a problem of the Black community, in this song, KRS-One positions it as 'the natural consequence of the massive coercive power of the system that encourages it,' pointing it out from the aspect of the 'antagonism between individual behavior and structural oppression' in violent crime.

→ Continued in Series 6

<References>

・S.H. Fernando Jr., 'The New Beats: Exploring the Music, Culture, and Attitudes of Hip-Hop,' Doubleday, 1994 (Japanese translation: Blues Interactions, 1996, p. 210).
・Jeff Chang, 'Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation,' St. Martin's Press, 2005 (Japanese translation: Rittor Music, 2007, pp. 281-292).
・Tricia Rose, 'Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America,' Wesleyan University Press, 1994 (Japanese translation: Misuzu Shobo, 2009, pp. 262-268).