#80s electro

Susanne Kuhnke of Malaria, 1982.

Capt. Rock - “Cosmic Blast” Street Sounds Electro 6 by DJ Maurice & DJ Noel Song released in 1984. Mix released in 1985. Electro / Hip Hop

***Song starts at 5:49 and ends at 12:07***

I just wanna preface this long-ass post I had queued up for today to say rest in peace to MF DOOM, the greatest rapper of all time, bar none, and an incredible beatsmith, too. No one has ever had quite the incredible way with words that DOOM had or managed to cultivate the air of mysterious intrigue around themselves like he was able to with his mask. I saw him perform once at a festival in 2007 and I don’t even really know if it was actually him on that stage. It would’ve been one of the DOOM-iest moves to trot out an impostor to perform his own songs while he still got to collect that check; a move whose abject ballsiness you really can’t help but just chuckle at. 

Fuck this year, royally, man.

A rhyming cannibal who's dressed to kill and cynical Whether is it animal, vegetable or mineral It's a miracle how he get so lyrical And proceed to move the crowd like a old negro spiritual

JUST REMEMBER, ALL CAPS WHEN YOU SPELL THE MAN NAME

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There’s so much to dig into with this record, and I’m not even really sure where to even begin with this post, but I guess I’ll start with the Aleem twins, two (duh) enterprising guys from Harlem who loved all kinds of music. Born in the mid-40s, the Aleem twins got their musical education from many local sources. They frequented the Apollo Theater and then a legendary local gangster, Jack “Fat Man” Taylor, signed them to his label, Rojac Records. The Aleems didn’t go anywhere with Rojac, but they learned the ins and outs of running an independent record label and they also met the enigmatic Blowfly, who was an in-house writer for Rojac at the time. Through Taylor the Aleems also met Jimi Hendrix’s friend and love interest, Lithofayne “Faye” Pridgeon, who ended up hatching quite a scheme involving the Aleems and Hendrix.

Pridgeon wanted to get Hendrix evicted from his apartment, in which he lived with her friend June Vasquenza. So Pridgeon sent the Aleem twins to the apartment to kick him out, with one of them to claim that he was going to marry June in order to help her secure a green card since she was undocumented at the time. But the plan fell apart when the Aleems actually met Hendrix and discovered that the three of them all shared a deep passion for music. Rather than Hendrix being evicted, the trio would end up sharing an apartment together. 

Hendrix would then ship off to Europe and become a superstar, but upon his return to Harlem, he kept close to the Aleems. They provided backing vocals on a number of Hendrix songs and they also promoted a street fair in Harlem that Hendrix headlined, which took place just a few weeks after his legendary performance at Woodstock. Hendrix had bigger plans for the Aleems, too; he was set on producing an album that they were planning, for which they would call themselves the Ghetto Fighters. Hendrix envisioned the album as a “street opera.”

But then in 1970, while in London, Jimi Hendrix tragically died, which, to say the least, put a really big crimp in the Aleems’ plans. However, they kept at it throughout the remainder of the 70s; they expanded their group to four members, including their sister, Juliette, changed their name to The Prana People, and got to be managed and financed by New York Knicks star, Earl “The Pearl” Monroe (Is this post New York enough for you yet?). In ‘77, the Prana People released their debut album, and in ‘79, the Aleem twins decided they wanted to move towards more of an electronic sound and ended up releasing a club hit called “Hooked on Your Love,” which stayed on the Billboard Dance chart for months and had both a barely known Jocelyn Brown and a young Luther Vandross on backing vocals.

Off of the success of that record and from being disillusioned by aspects of the music business, the Aleems decided to start their own independent label, NIA Records, which was to release disco, funk, soul, electro, and hip hop music. 

Around this same time, Jack “Fat Man” Taylor, who now owned the famous Harlem World club, wanted to promote his neighborhood’s burgeoning hip hop scene, and in 1980 released a record called Rapper’s Convention, whose a-side featured a duo who would break off afterwards and call themselves Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde. A frequent patron of Harlem World was a guy named Ronnie Greene, and he would one day run into Mr. Hyde and convince him to make him Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde’s DJ.

Fast forward to 1982 and the Aleem twins are holding auditions to put out a new George Clinton and Tom Tom Club-influenced electro-funk-hip hop record called Cosmic Glide. It’s a record that introduces a main character, Captain Rock, who’s an extraterrestrial that just wants earthlings to get down to his space-funk jams. The Aleems and Mr. Hyde already had the song written and Mr. Hyde then brought Ronnie Greene in to audition to be Captain Rock. And even though Greene had never really rapped before, he managed to win the Aleems over with his smooth delivery, his cool and varied flows, and his swaggeringly captivating mic presence.

However, despite it being a quality tune, “Cosmic Glide” didn’t perform all that well. But the next Captain Rock record, 1983′s The Return Of Capt. Rock, again written by Mr. Hyde and the Aleem twins, fared much better, and also became the first record to really earn a name for the NIA label. This new bit of fame for both Greene and NIA then allowed for the third and fourth Captain Rock records, respectively 1984′s Capt. Rock To The Future Shock and Cosmic Blast, to flourish. “Cosmic Blast” became both Captain Rock’s biggest and best hit and it also marked Ronnie Greene’s musical peak. Mr. Hyde had moved on to do other things, so the Aleems allowed Greene to write the song’s lyrics and they also involved him in the production process. 

Not long before “Cosmic Blast” was recorded, Doug E. Fresh, who was also a Harlem resident, had released a record called The Original Human Beat Box, and that was a record that was simply fly as fuck. It put Doug’s deft skills as a beatboxer on full display, and it also gave Ronnie Greene the idea to include some beatboxing on his own upcoming record. So he got his friend Richie Rich, who was a pretty good beatboxer himself, to come breathily box his beats for “Cosmic Blast”. And with Richie Rich, and an unforgettable electro-chiming melody supplied by the Aleem twins, and Greene’s fun party-rocking rap demeanor as Captain Rock, that quartet spun some real, dynamic, mid-80s New York gold.

It was actually a quintet though, because also in on the fun of that record was none other than Marley Marl, who’d go on to become one of hip hop’s greatest, most prolific, and most important producers. While mixing “Cosmic Blast,” Marley discovered, totally by accident, how to sample drums. He was trying to take a riff from a song, and in the process of playing back “Cosmic Blast,” discovered that he had lifted a snare drum, too. But the snare he had sampled sounded better than the drums that were originally programmed, so he kept the sample as is. This discovery led to an epiphany for Marley, in which he realized that he could sample any drum from any point within any record that was in his massive collection and then use those sampled drums as part of his own drumbeats instead of having to program the drumbeats on his own with a drum machine. This was a huge freaking deal; Marley’s beats could now sound uniquely authentic, like the drums had come from an actual drumkit, instead of sounding like they had come from the same inferior-sounding drum machines that every other producer was using. Pandora’s Box had suddenly been opened for Marley Marl with “Cosmic Blast,” and it helped set him on a course to attain legendary status as a producer.

But there’s even more to this story. Not only was electro big in New York; it was pretty popular in the UK, too; so much so, that Captain Rock actually went out there to perform at Wembley Stadium for a hip hop and electro festival called UK Fresh ‘86. He had absolutely no idea that people in the UK even knew anything about his music, but a compilation label called Street Sounds, which specialized in electro and hip hop, had been lacing their mixes with Captain Rock songs since ‘83, and in 1985, a pair of UK DJs by the names of Maurice and Noel included “Cosmic Blast” on the sixth installment of Street Sounds’ wonderful Street Sounds Electro series. 

It’s there you’ll find this fantastic version of “Cosmic Blast,” which features the addition of some really dope scratches from DJs Maurice and Noel that you won’t hear on the original cut; and those scratches have a way of really fucking enhancing the song. Maurice and Noel speed things up a little bit, too, which raises the pitch ever so slightly, and makes the tune way more danceable, overall. They also completely transform the third verse by mixing in other dubby vocals from Captain Rock and then instead of running with the electric guitar solo from the original, Maurice and Noel close their version out with more scratching with a little Run-D.M.C. mixed in there.

Today’s mix:

X-Mix - Electro Boogie by Dave Clarke 1996 Electro / Techno

Listen to the full mix here.

Favorite tracks:

World Class Wreckin’ Cru - “Surgery” Electro Boogie Vol 2 - The Throwdown by Dave Clarke Song released in 1984. Mix released in 1998. Electro / Hip Hop

***Song starts at 8:08 and ends at 10:15***

Before he would go on to sell a line of overrated headphones, before 2001, before Eminem, before Aftermath, before Snoop Dogg, before The Chronic, and before N.W.A., Dr. Dre was a bit of a star in L.A.’s nascent hip hop scene. Prior to having an indispensable role in gangsta rap’s commercial explosion that would forever define the west coast, he was a key member of the World Class Wreckin’ Cru, a hard-partying electro outfit that was deeply inspired by Afrika Bambaataa’s east coast futuristic, funk-inflected, electronic dance stylings (No doubt that L.A. funk stars George Clinton, Zapp, and Roger Troutman also had an impact on their sound). Founded by onetime Disco DJ Alonzo Williams, who is often revered as the godfather of L.A. hip hop, the World Class Wreckin’ Cru would not only be one of the west coast’s greatest electro acts, but would also serve as a springboard for both Dr. Dre and DJ Yella to join with future rap superstars Eric “Eazy-E” Wright and O’Shea “Ice Cube” Jackson to form N.W.A and forever change the history of music. 

One of Lonzo Williams’ first big ideas as he managed the direction of the World Class Wreckin’ Cru was for each member of the group to have their own song on which they could showcase their skills. In 1984, they released their debut single, the DJ Yella-focused “Slice,” on Williams’ own Kru-Cut label. After selling an astounding 50,000 copies, they followed up with “Surgery,” a track that highlighted Dr. Dre’s acumen as a DJ. 

Although Dr. Dre is the undisputed star of this track, it’s his slowly rapping, monotone hypeman (that’s a bit oxymoronic, isnt it?) Cli-N-Tel who amusingly and cleverly sets him up by constantly invoking medical terminology with lines that describe Dre’s “srugical” abilities as a DJ. Cli-N-Tel opens the song by replacing the list of tools a TV doctor typically demands (why does it always start with a scalpel?) with the things a DJ requires in order to “operate” successfully.

With a backbeat formed by a preponderant melody of soft bass stabs, ticking hi-hats, and crisp, clapping snares, a swift and otherworldly, bleepy synth melody weaves its way in. And when Cli-N-Tel calls Dre down to “surgery” to get busy on the boards, a sinisterly gothic organ synth melody materializes, which underlies Dre’s expert “cutting” and “slicing”, along with Cli-N-Tel’s looping and labored exhales. Also slyly appearing in this track is a repetitive beep that replicates the sound generated by an emergency room vital sign monitor. Although it’s not very audible in the song’s first half, after Dre’s first scratching session, it can be heard clearly.