The other week Tone-Loc was hospitalized in Florida after passing out during a concert. He's 43 now, and his collapse begs two questions: can dudes rap into their forties, and... people go to hip-hop shows in Florida?

Actually, the whole hip-hop generation is approaching middle-age. I'm sure we could argue all day long about the first hip-hop moment, the first hip-hop single, or the moment when hip-hop's spark was truly ignited. I'm going to put a stake in the sand on that last one and call it as August 11, 1973. That's the night Bronx DJ Kool Herc (short for "Hercules" - a childhood nickname) played the first breakbeat at the 1520 Sedgwick Avenue project housing recreation room. And with this break the hip-hop blueprint was drawn.

Rap without a breakbeat is like rock with out an amp. That "five-minute loop of fury" gave rappers the foundation to build their rhymes. Thirty-six years later, 1520 Sedgwick Avenue is now officially the "birthplace of hip-hop" (thanks to Herc's lobbying) and a host of old-school rappers are now approaching AARP age. While Eminem, Method Man & Redman, and Cam'ron all suck up the hip-hop oxygen this summer, let's pay our respects to the pioneers who hold them up. Know your history to create your own.

GALLERY: See what rap's pioneers look like now

MELLE MEL
THEN: Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five's 1982 single "The Message" is credited as the first socially conscious rap recording, but rapper Melle Mel (born Melvin Glover) didn't want to do it when his label, Sugarhill, brought it to him. Mel thought it was just another forgettable single. But when he heard it played in the Bronx club Disco Fever, he knew he was wrong. The crowd dug it.

NOW:Melle Mel, 2007 Since his '80s glory days Mel has done everything from pursue a wrestling career to write a children's book ("The Portal in the Park"). He's also dropped an "l" from his name and now goes by Mele Mel. The name change hasn't brought him back to hop-hop's mainstream, but maybe it helped get him into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2007 he and the Furious Five became the first rap artists inducted.

GRANDMASTER FLASH
THEN: DJ Grandmaster Flash (born Joseph Saddler) moved to the Bronx from the West Indies and quickly became a student of both his father's record collection and Kool Herc's DJ style. Both helped Flash pioneer the early use of scratching. An interesting bit of trivia: an unofficial video for the 1983 single "White Lines (Don't Do It)" was directed by NYU film student Spike Lee and featured an unknown Laurence Fishburne.

NOW:Grandmaster Flash, 2008 Flash has travelled a lot of ground since his early '80s heyday. He spent most of the '90s as musical director for Chris Rock's HBO series and found a loyal following in Europe and Asia, where he continues mix for legions of kids who wish they were born in the Bronx (but deep down are glad they weren't). He's also taken to the airwaves with a show on Sirius XM Radio and made himself a legit author with the publication of his memoirs, which he wrote completely in rhyme. Just kidding.

KURTIS BLOW
THEN: Harlem native Curtis Walker was in a late-'70s group called The Force with future hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons. Simmons wound up managing Walker and persuaded him to change his name to Kurtis Blow. His 1980 single "The Breaks" was the first hip-hop song to be released by a major label (Mercury) and got him an opening slot for Bob Marley at Madison Square Garden.

NOW:Kurtis Blow, 2009 Blow gave up recording in the '90s and briefly worked as a radio DJ with a show on L.A.'s Power 106. Then he got religion. Blow went back to college as a theology major, graduating this year. On the road to rap religion, he lent his name to a compilation of Christian rap music and co-founded Hip Hop Church New York, which holds services in Harlem. I guess this answers the question, "Are there breakbeats in Heaven?" Pass the turntable, and praise the lord.
DOUG E. FRESH
THEN: The Human Beat Box, Douglas Davis, gained recognition in the classic 1984 hip-hop film "Beat Street." Throughout the '80s, Doug E. Fresh & The Get Fresh Crew (whose M C Ricky D left the group and went on to fame as Slick Rick) released a series of hugely successful records, including the humbly titled "The World's Greatest Entertainer."

NOW:Doug E. Fresh, 2007 After his crashing from his chart heights, Fresh turned to commercials to keep the cash coming in. He's provided music for McDonalds, Coors, Tanqueray, and all sorts of other brands begging for hip-hop cred. Fresh also became a Scientologist. I assume he's bringing some hip-hop to the Celebrity Center. What rhymes with L. Ron Hubbard?

KRS-ONE
THEN: New Yorker Lawrence Parker lived in homeless shelters as a teen. It was there he met Scott Sterling (a.k.a. DJ Scott La Rock), and the two formed the seminal late-'80s act Boogie Down Productions. The deaths of La Rock in a 1987 shooting and a fan at a 1988 show prompted KRS to form the Stop the Violence Movement, which donates money to the National Urban League.

NOW:
KRS-One briefly worked as a label exec for Reprise Records but ditched the gig in 2001. That same year he got himself into trouble when he said, "We cheered when 9/11 happened." To clarify his remarks, KRS explained that he was referring to the cheering for what happened to the rich and powerful. That didn't help. As recently as 2007, he was still explaining himself to Fox's Sean Hannity of all people.
PUBLIC ENEMY
THEN: Chuck D (born Carlton Ridenhour) and Flavor Flav (William Drayton Jr.) practiced their MC skills while delivering furniture for Chuck's father's business. They were signed to Def Jam after a demo featuring Chuck's freestyles caught the attention of label co-founder Rick Rubin. Their powerful black militant stance put them in the center of many controversies where they were accused of being homophobic and anti-Semitic.

NOW:Flavor Flav and Chuck D, circa 1990 Today, aside from continued PE touring, Chuck D has become a reliable political pundit for the left. He co-hosted Air America's "Unfiltered" show with Rachel Maddow and now his own show, "On the Real." Flavor Flav, meanwhile, has become a reliable staple of reality shows, starring in four different series. He wears a clock in all of them.
RUN-D.M.C.
THEN: One of the most influential hip-hop acts in history began when Russell Simmons asked his younger brother, Joseph, to DJ for Kurtis Blow under the name "DJ Run." Run's friend Daryl "D.M.C." McDaniels began rapping to his beats and soon they recorded their first single right out of high school with neighborhood bad boy Jason "Jam-Master Jay" Mizell.

NOW:img src="http://a.getbackimages.com/uri/w514_h676_cfalse_K0529170421/run-dmc-circa-1990/image/4/0/6/9/4069553.jpg" alt="Run-DMC, circa 1990"> Mizell was gunned down in 2002, allegedly for deciding to work with a young blacklisted rapper named 50 Cent. Run has since dedicated himself to inner-city youth and reality TV, while D.M.C. successfully fought depression (with the unlikely help of Sarah McLachlan's song "Angel") and reunited with his birth mother in 2006.
Run-DMC, 2009
LL COOL J
THEN: James Todd Smith probably had the most idyllic childhood of any of his rap contemporaries. He sang in church choir, joined the Boy Scouts, and delivered papers. His grandfather bought him his first mixer at Sears. His first single as LL Cool J (it stands for "Ladies Love Cool James), "I Need a Beat," sold over 100,000 copies.
NOW:LL Cool J, 2009 In the great hip-hop tradition, LL Cool J is a serial entrepreneur. He's written four books, has the requisite urban clothing line (Todd Smith), and regularly acts in film and on television. Next up is a starring role in CBS's upcoming fall series "NCIS: Los Angeles." Cool J is also one of the most in-shape dudes in hip-hop, employing a personal trainer and gracing the covers of fitness magazines. That's why the ladies love him.

M.C. HAMMER
THEN: Say what you will about his credibility (or lack thereof), Hammer taught the world how to wear baggy pants and blow $30 million. Hammer began his career as a batboy for the Oakland A's in the early '80s. By the early '90s he was a multi-millionaire thanks to rap-lite hits like "U Can't Touch This." He tried to toughen up his image by signing to Death Row Records at the end of the decade (none of his recordings, which included collaborations with Tupac Shakur, were released).

NOW:
MC Hammer, 2008 By '96 Hammer was bankrupt and his career a punch line. He went from traveling with a 300-person entourage to appearing with Ed McMahon in a Cash 4 Gold commercial on this year's Super Bowl broadcast. He's now a minister (the "M.C." now stands for "Man of Christ"), which earns him extra cash for officiating weddings of other faded pop-culture icons, such as Corey Feldman and Vince Neil. But things may be looking up for the MC: his new TV show "Hammertime," which chronicles his struggle to relaunch his empire with the help of his wife of 24 years and their six kids, debuts June 19 on A&E.


D.J. JAZZY JEFF & THE FRESH PRINCE
THEN: Jeff Townes was a local Philadelphia hero when he met a kid named Will Smith at a 1985 house party. They had instant chemistry and soon a hit single with 1986's "Girls Ain't Nothing But Trouble." It was released a month before Smith's high school graduation. Three years later they won the first ever rap Grammy for "Parents Just Don't Understand."

NOW:
*see the top photo with they cute selves* Officially, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince have never disbanded, but they have taken very different career paths. DJ Jeff went on to contribute scratching for Eminem, Talib Kweli, The Roots, and others. Unfortunately, things didn't turn our so well for Will Smith's career: a forgettable sitcom and some box-office bombs. Maybe Flavor Flav will put him in his next reality show.

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Comment by Edie Antoinette on June 21, 2009 at 2:49pm
..I'm working on this babies..♥

Introspection

Entr'acte

  1. play Norman Brown — Night Drive
  2. play Norman Brown — Feeling
  3. play Norman Brown — Still
  4. play Miles Davis — miles 1
  5. play miles 2
  6. play miles 3
  7. play miles 4
  8. play miles 5
  9. play Marvin Gaye — I Met A Little Girl
  10. play Santana — 01 Singing Winds, Crying Beasts
  11. play Santana — 02 Black Magic Woman-Gypsy Queen
  12. play Mongo — 02. Afro Blue



The history of the Butlers/Raw Soul is dense, but for all of us music nerds, that's normal. It is not totally clear what year the Butlers actually formed but they released their first single in 1963 on Liberty Records. That single was "She Tried To Kiss Me" and another single followed on Guyden entitled "Lovable Girl." After the Guyden single the Butlers took a break not recording another record until the single "Laugh, Laugh, Laugh" was released on the Phila label in 1966. The group also backed Charles Earland and Jean Wells on one Phila single ("I Know She Loves Me"). 


As you might be noticing, the Butlers were doing a fair amount of recording but not achieving much success. The group's recordings sold regionally but never had the promotion to make an impact on the national scene. After the single with Phila, the Butlers moved to the Fairmount label (part of the Cameo-Parkway family) and released a handful of singles, some being reissued singles of the past. The Butlers were with Fairmount for 1966-67 and then moved to Sassy Records. Sassy released the group's greatest single (in my opinion) "Love (Your Pain Goes Deep)" b/w "If That's What You Wanted." A copy of that 45 sold for just under $500 last summer on eBay. Even though that isn't that much in the world of record collecting--it's still a hefty sum. The Butlers released another single on Sassy ("She's Gone" b/w "Love Is Good") that appears to be even 
harder to come by then the "Love (Your Pain Goes Deep)" single.

 

The true history become a bit blurred here as the AMG biography states that the Butlers last record was released on C.R.S. in 1974 (". However, between 1971 and that single, Frankie Beverly formed a group called Raw Soul and released a number of singles. Some of the songs recorded by Beverly during this period are "While I'm Alone," "Open Up Your Heart," (both on the Gregor label) and "Color Blind." "Color Blind" was released by the Eldorado label and rerecorded by Maze. Beverly's big break came when Marvin Gaye asked Raw Soul to back him on a tour. Gaye helped Beverly/Raw Soul get a contract at Capitol. Beverly decided to take the group in a different direction, a name change occurred, and Maze was created. 

The above isn't the most complete history of Beverly but hopefully someone will know a way to get in touch with the man or his management because a comprehensive pre-Maze history needs to be done on Frankie Beverly (his real name is Howard, by the way). Below you'll find every Frankie Beverly (pre-Maze) song available to me right now ("Color Blind" will be up soon). 

If you have a song that is not included below, shoot it over to funkinsoulman (at) yahoo.com and it will go up in the next Frankie Beverly post (later this week--highlighting Maze). Also, if you have any more information please share your knowledge. The Butlers material has been comp-ed sporadically (usually imports) but the entire Maze catalog has been reissued and is available. 

Enjoy.  "She Kissed Me" (Fairmount, 1966 or 1967) 
 
 "I Want To Feel I'm Wanted" (not sure which label or year) "Laugh, Laugh, Laugh" (Phila, 1966) "Because Of My Heart" (Fairmount, 1966 or 1967)
   
 "Love (Your Pain Goes Deep)" (Sassy, 1967)
   
 "If That's What You Wanted" (Sassy, 1967)
 



Frankie Beverly is one of those cats that has lasting power. He started in the music business doing a tour with doo wop group the Silhouettes and then formed his own group called the Blenders. The Blenders never recorded a single, Beverly wouldn't appear on wax until forming the Butlers a few years later. Along with Beverly, the Butlers included Jack "Sonny" Nicholson, Joe Collins, John Fitch, and Talmadge Conway.

Beverly would later enjoy great success fronting Maze and Conway would become a
well-known penning Double Exposure's
"Ten Percent" and the Intruders' "Memories Are Here To Stay." 
 While Maze is a phenomenal group, Beverly's work before that group will always stand out as his best (imo).

The Butlers produced tunes that most Northern Soul fans would kill for and Raw Soul gave the funksters something to pursue. If, by chance, you know of a way to get in touch with Frankie Beverly or his management, please drop me an e-mail. It would be absolutely great to do an interview with him about his pre-Maze work. He's still playing out, most recently doing a New Year's Eve show in Atlanta.
:: Funkinsoulman ::

Power...Through Simplicity ♪♫♪

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