DJ Jazzy Jeff: Where it All Began
As I watched Ambrosia For Heads sit down with the legendary everyman to take them on a journey through music, it made me think of the time it “began” for me: MC Hammer’s Please, Hammer, Don’t Hurt ‘em and The Notorious BIG’s Ready To Die tapes. So I ask the dopehouse residents, where did your infatuation with this culture begin for you?
it would have to be after watching the movie “how high” most definetely and all the “friday” movies.
Man, It really started with The Blueprint for me, I heard rap before it, but I stared Listening when that dropped. On a DOPE level “it” started with The Minstrel Show, thats when I knew I wanted to rhyme.
My friend put “Trans DF Express” on, right after he had downloaded it on Napster of course, and I fell in love. I went to HMV the next day and bought “Even in Darkness” and a couple OutKast and Goodie Mob albums.
I guess the MM LP really did it for me. /whiteboystan
Speakerboxx/Love Below
In all honesty I got heavy into rap in the 05-08 era. I would only bump papoose,Cassidy,reed dollaz,the whole dipset, and g-unit. That street shit fascinated me back then and I didn’t care about Jay, nas, , pac or ye . After that I heard Jiggas BluePrint and Bigs Ready to die then I became a fan of real dope shit.
Tha Carter III. Needless to say, I was let down when I heard Weezy’s later stuff.
same as @rondo, Speakerboxx/Love Below
@Y-Rap
that’s exactly when “it” started for me too…figuring out that Little Brother’s name was a homage to the groups that came before them helped me discover the greatness of ATCQ, De La Soul, Gang Starr, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, & The Roots…and as they say, the rest is history. let’s keep supporting this culture that we all love
PeaCee
Loose Yourself. Like so many other broke white kids.
Listenin to old DMX in eighth grade. Grew from there
It was around the time when The Chronic 2001 & MMLP dropped. My uncle was in high school and I’d jam out to that shit with him when I was like 8, against the wishes of my parents of course. haha
Grand Puba on MJB’s What’s the 411 is the first rap I remember LOVING! But, I too loved me some Hammer. Christmas ’91 I got some Hammer pants and the doll. 2L2Q!
3rd grade. My first cassette.
Coolio – Gangsta’s Paradise
Straight Outta Compton along with Licensed to Ill were my first tapes. Dubbed from my friends older brother. Thats were it all began.
College Dropout.
Chamillionaire Ridin Dirty. Tastes have changed since then…
it all started when i was a youngster rockin LA Gears n shit. i heard Pac and Bone Thug’s “Thug Luv” and the rest was history. favorite hiphop song period.
When I was younger I used to listen to all kinds of music. I used to love Metallica, Pearl Jam, Run DMC, LL Cool J, Beastie Boys, Def Leopard, Guns N Roses, ATCQ, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, and more… but the first time I heard “1, 2, 3, and to the 4, Snoop Doggy Dogg and Dr. Dre is at your door…” that shit changed my life. Right then I knew that hip hop was for me. I was a young white kid from the suburbs of Hartford CT, and could not relate to the NWA influenced gangsta rap, but something about that sick ass Dre beat and the smooth Snoop flow just sucked me in. That song is what really caught my attention, and soon after that came out, 36 Chambers was released. To this day Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) is my favorite album of all time. But Nuthin But A G Thang was really the reason I fell in love with hip hop.
My brother played a big part I used to only listen to the radio shit back then (thought T-Pain was good) but 1 day my brother played “Gimmie the loot” and something struck a fuckin nerve that shit was incredible
The Wu Tang Forever Album is when I really started paying attention more to the culture. I had a bunch of hip hop albums before then but I wasnt really listening to the lyrics has much as I was the beats and I didnt really look at hip hop as a culture yet just more like beats and rhymes about some real shit and having some dope videos to go with it. I already knew about Wu Tang but I was just a big Method Man fan so I really was only listening for his parts on the album but then I started to listen to the other members more and then started exploring more about the culture from there. By then most of the great hip hop classics had already came out but the way they were presented and commercialized by labels it kinda made them feel like gangsta movies on cassette, rather then an art form. The Wu Tang Forever album was when I actually started paying attention to styles and deliveries etc. Then 98 was just crazy with dope albums coming out all over the place.
No wonder there is always some uneducated comments on this blog! Niggas don’t have no history when it comes to Hip Hop. From now on, I’m going to take these comments with a grain of salt. No history, no progress. As for me, it started when I heard Rapper’s Delight. That was the first record I brought, and it’s been a love affair ever since. My Hip Hop passport has thousands of punches on it. Been to the mecca of the culture (Bronx), been right in the middle of every turn Hip Hop has made since the beginning…
My older cuz let me borrow a Makaveli album called “The Don Killuminati,” back in 2000 or so, been of rap since then.
The Wiz was a big fan of Run DMC when I was young. All I can remember is walk this way w/aerosmith and that was the 1st taste. I started listening to my older brothas tapes like ice cube, ultramagnetic mc’s and I purchased enter the 36 chambers…it was a wrap after that…
@Akademik, Thats cause when you bought Rappers Delight some of us werent even born yet so its kinda hard to fully appreciate or understand WHY you like something until you get some age on you. Just saying
@Akademik , Marty is 100% right. Why the fuck would anybody in my generation say “Rapper’s Delight?” Seriously, I’m 22 years old. Even though its not impossible for “Rapper’s Delight to be the first Hip-Hop record I heard or fell in love with, its just unlikely. That doesn’t mean I don’t know about “Rapper’s Delight” or that I don’t absolutely love it. But just because its kinda known as the beginning of Hip-Hop as a musical artform, dosen’t mean its SUPPOSED to be when EVERYBODY fell in love with Hip-Hop. I consider myself a Hip-Hop Head for damn sure & I pride myself on knowing the history. I don’t know everything but I know I have a respectable knowledge of the history & the great emcees & groups. That being said, I hated Hip-Hop when I was little. I thought it was stupid & that it didnt take any talent to do it. I was ignorant and I didnt understand the poetry that it is in so many ways. The artist & album where the love began for me was Jay-Z on The Dynasty. Listening to that album I recognized the artistry of a great emcee. From the flows to the lyricism I was mesmerised. And I’m not even a hood nigga. I just knew that shit was dope. It was then that I wanted to know more about Jay & his music and more about other rappers and more about Hip-Hop in general.
@musichead189, Exactly. Before the Wu Tang Forever album I had already been a hip hop fan for ten years by then but I actually started becoming a ‘hip hop head” ( loving the culture not just liking it ) around 96, 97. Most people like me on the west coast already had Ice Cube, 2pac, Snoop, LL Cool J, leading up to Midnight Marauders, Illmatic, Infamous, Soul Food, At The Speed Of Life and other albums like that before really getting into hip hop to the point of appreciating it and loving it. I had already got some hand me down turntables and tried to do what Q was doing in that dope scene in Juice, already had witnessed break dance battles in school , graffiti crews and all the other elements that came from being a kid in the 80s but we didnt realize the full significance of what we were doing until the mid 90s. By then it was Pac mania on the west and then it was the whole west vs east shit that took up most peoples attention in rap. So the reason why I specifically named Wu Tang Forever is because by then kids in their teens in my generation started to appreciate the culture as something deeper then just entertainment like the generation before it appreciated Run Dmc, Big Daddy Kane and Rakim.
Timbaland and Magoo – Welcome to Our World….then Stankonia
Marshall Mathers LP…
The Blueprint really got me into hip hop..
Jesus…in the summer of 2005, when I was 10, I heard my first non-radio rap song: Can’t C Me by 2Pac…I felt it. I got into it tentatively, not really searching for music. I heard songs every now and then that just got me hooked. The World is Yours by NaS, Soul Survivor by Jeezy, Dance with the Devil by Immortal Technique, Diamonds from Sierra Leone by Kanye, Thieves in the Night from the Black Star album…that was my introduction to hip-hop. The first time I heard Dilla was the unreleased MCA album. And I’ve never stopped loving hip-hop since.
Oh I can’t believe I left out Express Yourself, NWA. That was my shit!
fugees – the score, when i was like 5 was the hottest shit ever. ya remember when ready or not first dropped. college dropout and the black album started it up again for me when i was in 8th grade
I don’t even remember what the first tape I heard was. I just remember it was sometime before 2nd grade because the other kids didn’t understand why I listened to what I listened to.
I do remember my first physical copy of a Hip Hop cd was Beastie Boys’ “Ill Communication” and that was because my aunt had two copies
” The Show ” by Doug E Fresh and Slick Rick piqued my young mind, but the first LP I could flow front-to-back was Licensed To Ill.
Public Enemy’s ITANOMTHUB and NWA’s Dopeman took it to another level.
it really kicked in with the listening by little brother
Damn Im old….The Fat Boys….no bullshit. i was a beatboxing fool back in the day.
dave chappelle’s block party. i went to see it in theater’s when i was like 16. right after that i went and bought the roots phrenology album and i’ve been hooked ever since.
“figuring out that Little Brother’s name was a homage to the groups that came before them helped me discover the greatness of ATCQ, De La Soul, Gang Starr, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, & The Roots…and as they say, the rest is history. let’s keep supporting this culture that we all love
PeaCee”
[2] Damn, if this isn’t a quote… I swear
Nelly Country Grammar and Ja Rule Rule 3:36 in the 5th grade
I’m a old head not originally from NY. But once I got the bite of the apple I have been in love ever since. I was in St. Louis, Missouri (way before Nelly was known) and I heard Kurtis Blow “the Breaks” being soon by a local dj at my church’s block party! That song stuck out in my head. I remember ’cause I ran to the dj booth to see what song that was and the record label had the sugar hill cityscape…I have been mesmerized ever since. Thanks 2dp!
Great question. Young heads. Instead of being combative with old grumpy heads (we are); school on the new! Two favorite moments for me was at my old job two different times- one dude put me on to Eminem- I thought he was crazy; first album- but lil’ man told me to listen to his lyrics and I did. I stood corrected. I got one even better- Talib Kweli Reflection Eternal- I wasn’t feeling Rawkus Record Artists too much cause I thought they were too underground for me; just about lost interest in Rap/Hip-Hop culture period. A student at my job loved Talib music. He lent me the album. I listened to it a apologized and respected this kid because I had missed out. Talib is one of the best emcee’s to do it! Thanks younger generation!
First hip hop song I heard was Run-DMC & Aerosmith’s “Rock This Way”, but what really got me hooked on hip hop was Public Enemy’s “Night Of The Living Baseheads.” That video came out on Yo! MTV Raps & that was it. Plus my older cousins used to dress like Kid-n-Play back in the day when they used to babysit me & my brother. So hip hop has always been with me since a young’n. I ain’t gon front tho. I used to like Kris Kross & MC Hammer. But when my cousin told me they was wack & he put me on to Native Tongues, I said fuck them cats. After that, it was Wu-Tang, Mobb Deep, Das EFX, Def Squad, Boot Camp, Nas, KRS-One, Biggie, etc. A 80′s baby turnt 90′s head.
RUN DMC’s Tougher Than Leather and later Cypress Hill’s first album. I grew up in the Southwest and when How I Could Just Kill a Man dropped, nothing else mattered.
Ice Cube 90-93
Amerikkka’s Most Wanted
Death Certificate
The Predator
Lethal Injection
Dont know how I forgot about those albums
Kanye’s College Dropout was mind blowing. I was 8 around that time and I fell in love with this shit ever since
I was in 6th grade when I somehow ended up buying The Marshal Mather LP from the Wherehouse. Guess that made me the fucked up individual I am today.
It’s begin with Coolio Gangsta Paradise
I was about 4 when I first heard License To Ill. I started to understand what emcees were rapping about when Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde came around. It was over with when Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik blew out the south. Those three albums have been pivotal throughout my life.
Also, Apocalypse 91…The Enemy Strikes Back fucked me up!