To what extent is Jazz the Mother of Hip Hop?
'A light exploration into hip hop's origins' type beat
For my first ever blog post, I want to revisit a topic I had written in Sixth Form back in 2018/19 for an extra qualification to help get into university. The origin of the question was because of a brilliant video on YouTube released by Jazz Night In America titled ‘Robert Glasper: Jazz in the Mother of Hip Hop (2017)’, presented by the genius musician that is, of course, Robert Glasper! Given that this is my first blog, it’s definitely not perfect in terms of written style and research, though I’ll get more comfortable later hopefully.
Within the video, Glasper begins by playing the Ahmad Jamal Trio’s ‘I Love Music (1970)’ record, showing how a few bars of the song becomes the main sample used by the producer Pete Rock on rapper Nas’ ‘The World Is Yours (1994)’, which featured on Illmatic, an album regarded as a contender for one of the best Hip Hop albums ever. Glasper states how both jazz and hip hop were “born out of oppression”, which can be considered as “protest music, going against the grain”. He continues by showing how a Herbie Hancock record from 1978 becomes a sample used by the producer J Dilla [who will have to be explored within this post!]. He finishes up by playing another Ahmad Jamal record, sampled within the De La Soul song ‘Stakes Is High (1996)’, produced again by J Dilla [see what I mean? Dilla is very important for this conversation!]. Finally, he plays the De La Soul song on the grand piano in front of him, recognising how the two genres are able to borrow from each other and become “full circle”. It really is a great video to watch, hip hop fan or otherwise. [So why would I explore this topic if multiple Grammy Award-winning musician Robert Glasper has stated his thoughts? Cuz I’m a nerd that likes exploring music too, that’s why!!]
The idea that jazz is the Mother of hip hop is an easy one to back; the socio-political environment for Black Americans is pretty consistent over the decades as a result of white supremacist politicians [per se], and the art forms made as a result reflect that. The history of jazz is quite extensive, with its origins said to have started in New Orleans in the 19th century, which had heavy African and Creole traditions alongside European influences. A combination of these music cultures were alongside Blues and Ragtime, which coupled with the work songs sung by the Slaves and Southern gospel, on top of brass bands, all helped to create the beginnings of jazz music. [There is probably a lot more to the history, but I did not want to explore that as much since the topic is more so about hip hop.] Either way, the origins of jazz is built from mostly Black cultures of the time and over the decades jazz became an incredibly popular genre amongst Americans of all classes and race; it was the ‘hip’ music of the time, but also highlighted the socio-economic struggles that Black Americans faced. [Simply put, so many jazz musicians back then were heroin addicts! Miles Davis at one point was also a pimp and a dealer, which I think is wild. There’s a lot of struggle within music that PoC and/or working class communities made, and exploring how the music industry does not help musicians is a different topic too lol].
One of my favourite rappers of all time, Yasiin Bey (f.k.a. Mos Def), released [my favourite rap album of all time] Black On Both Sides (1999) . On the 2nd song of the album ‘Hip Hop’, Bey raps “We went from picking cotton/To chain gang line chopping, to be-bopping, to hip-hopping”. Although a succinct history, the allusion to the music is important to the conversation. ‘Bebop’ refers to a popular movement in jazz around the mid 1940s, characterised by free form jazz lines, fast tempos, heavily improvised melodies, and complex chord progressions; this was different to ballad jazz and big band jazz that was common on the scene. Charlie “Bird” Parker was credited as the originator of Bebop, a wildly innovating and talented, though drug-addiction-troubled, man. Bey’s reference to jazz helps solidify the connection of hip hop to origin. [Could it be just for the rhyme, maybe? But, Mos is a definite scholar of rap music so it holds extra validity]. A similar reference to bebop and hip hop is mentioned in the rap group A Tribe Called Quest’s song ‘Excursions’ from their album The Low End Theory (1991). ATCQ is a vital part of this conversation, since their entrance in hip hop was extensively jazz influenced, relatively new to the scene of hip hop at the time and paved the way for even more jazzy hip hop songs. On ‘Excursions’, rapper Q Tip says “You could find the Abstract listenin’ to hip-hop/ My pops used to say, it reminded him of Bebop/ I said, "Well, Daddy, don't you know that things go in cycles?” Two definite correlations provided by Mos Def and Q Tip really support Glasper’s statement.
What exactly is the musical similarity, you may ask? [If you didn’t ask, fair enough lol keep on reading anyway!]. It may not seem so, but jazz and hip hop do share a musical language: improvisation. In hip hop, ‘freestyling’ is massively important for rappers (also called emcees). Where jazz musicians play their instruments over beats with pre-empted melodies, rappers can spit rhymes over beats played by DJs freely. Group cyphers include multiple rappers rhyming over a DJs beat, sometimes just a drum loop, which pairs similar to how a jazz band with multiple saxophone players, trumpet players, pianists, and so on, will improvise over a jazz drummer’s grooves.
Whilst I’ve only really considered instrumental jazz, there exists vocal jazz that needs to be mentioned too. Billie Holiday famously sang ‘Strange Fruit (1939)’, written by Abel Meeropol, which explores the topic of lynching. She sings “Southern trees bear a strange fruit/ Blood on the leaves and blood at the root/ Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze/ Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.” The very dark theme consequently caused the song to be banned from radio stations across America, though was one of her most successful songs. Black music speaking of protest and voicing social issues is very common, though even more evident in the form of rap verses. I bring up a similarity to the west coast rap group N.W.A., who emerged on the scene in the late 1980s with huge controversy. Their album Straight Outta Compton (1988) features the song ‘Fuck The Police’, which strongly vocalised the hatred against the police [if that wasn’t already obvious]. As a result, NWAs music at the time was banned from radio stations in the same way Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit was too. This evidences the element of social commentary that jazz music passed onto hip hop over the time, as well as censorship of Black voices in the arts.
One major name to bring back is J Dilla. James Dewitt Yancey known as ‘J Dilla’ has one of the biggest impacts musically in hip hop. His skills are akin to a jazz musician and his musical ear is fantastic. As already mentioned, Dilla was involved with many pioneering rap acts like De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, the Pharcyde, and later his own folks with Slum Village. What makes Dilla incredible is the way he broke the norms of the genre with his innovative sampling techniques, but also his unique ‘swing’ when programming his drums. Jazz drummer Kariem Riggins said about Dilla “He’s so important. Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams and Miles [Davis]: he’s in the same category to me.” Dilla’s technique involved not quantising his drums, which allowed it to give a more human feel; it led to Philly hip hop group The Roots’ drummer Questlove wondering who was the drummer on songs Dilla produced since the technique was so natural. DJ HouseShoes, a Detroit producer who worked with Dilla in the 1990s, said “Hip-hop had a stiff, structured code to it, and that definitely got loosened up after his reign.” These type of innovations feel so similar to jazz conversations about their innovators like Bird or Miles.
I think there can be even more explorations of how jazz influenced hip hop, including exploring the impact of Herbie Hancock and how his sound of jazz fusion in the early 70s sounded like the hip hop to come, but I do wish to talk about other major influences now [if that’s alright with you?]
It should be noted the birth of hip hop was said to be in 1973 at a house party in the Bronx hosted by DJ Kool Herc for his sister’s birthday. This begins the exploration of how Jamaican music (reggae/dancehall) was a primary influence. DJ Kool Herc was of Caribbean origin, and brought his deejaying style to the Bronx. Herc brought over a musical aspect called ‘Toasting’, which was developed by the sound-system operators to emphasise the music’s rhythm. DJs would chant staccato noises over the top of the instrumental tracks. A common technique was the rapid-fire repetition of words, like “ska-ska-ska” or “get-up-get-up-get-up”. This could have developed into the phrases heard in early hip hop such as the term “hip hop” itself. In the 2000 documentary ‘Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme’, break-dancer Crazy Legs said how the progression of toasting developed into DJs saying things like ‘let’s hip hop’. He then describes how emcees like Coke La Rock and Melle Mel (of the Furious Five) would be able to evolve and improve their rhymes, leading to the overall culture of hip hop.
Despite this, some would argue that the Funk music of the 60s and 70s were more influential to hip hop. Regarding Funk, AllMusic described it as “the rawest, most primal form of R&B, surpassing even Southern soul in terms of earthiness. It was also the least structured, often stretching out into extended jams, and the most Africanized, built on dynamic, highly syncopated polyrhythms.” One of the most notable Funk legends was the Godfather of Soul: James Brown. It is also noted that some of Brown’s musical showmanship and footwork inspired young break dancers. As mentioned before, DJs had used breakbeats within music to loop and create a space for dancing. Funk songs normally had extended breakbeats, such as in The Winstons’ ‘Amen Brother (1969)’, James Brown’s ‘Funky Drummer (1970)’, Stevie Wonder’s ‘Superstition (1974)’ amongst many more. It could be argued the essence of the hip hop sound comes from these breakbeats with the funk sound allowing for rappers to rap over them for long periods of time. It also helped break-dancers dance to the beat; these two aspects alongside DJing are three of the four pivotal aspects of Hip Hop itself [the 4th being graffitiing].
In the 2014 documentary ‘Mr Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown’, musicians that had worked alongside James Brown explained the sound of funk. They described the creation of a song called ‘Cold Sweat (1967)’, saying how it was a mixture of R&B and jazz, which created the genre known as funk. This important to consider as the genre was an offspring of jazz; the genre that has musical relations to early hip hop was created with the flavour of jazz.
Similarly, Disco was huge in the 1970s and played its influence in hip hop too, mostly with early hip hop fashion. Famous Disco artists included Chic, Nile Rodgers, Donna Summers, the Bee Gees, who made chart-topping tracks. The timespan of disco was quite short however and was killed off quickly. One of the first hip hop songs was ‘Rappers Delight (1979)’, which sampled ‘Good Times (1979)’ by Chic, which evidences Disco’s role in hip hop as having monumental importance. Artists within the disco scene were known for the extreme sense of fashion, wearing bright and sparkly outfits. Within early hip hop, many were inspired and flaunted a similar style of bright and tight attire. This is noticeable through groups like the Furious Five, who wore shiny clothing during their performances. This was quickly changed with the genre’s first superstar group, Run DMC, whose signature Adidas style was representative of the urban environment surrounding hip hop, ending the disco-inspired style of rap music. Questlove said that the black music scene after the demise of disco was “largely a wasteland, at least compared to the explosion of disco, funk, and soul of a few years earlier. In that desert, the first real greenery wasn’t a mirage but an oasis. It was hip-hop, ready to pick up the pieces and make something new.”
So, I guess that covers most of it on the surface. Exploring origins of music sure is hard and I’m glad I still have the essay from 2018/19 to look back on. With that being said, Robert Glasper knows his jazz and I don’t think he’s wrong by any means. The real essence of jazz is prevalent in hip hop, though the culture of hip hop itself is influenced by so many things mentioned in this here post. Ironically, hip hop influenced the jazz scene during its life and plenty of modern jazz artists like Glasper make it known.
“I said, "Well, Daddy, don't you know that things go in cycles?” - Q Tip