(via Flaming Pablum)
Flippin tru Tony Rettman's NYHC book the other day, I came across a flier for a "Rock Against Rent" show featuring the likes of Antidote, Killdozer, and Stetsasonic. First I was like, "Whoa!" Then I was like, "No way!"
Aging New Wavers, high on dreams sold by Fraud 5 Freddy (Dante Ross wit da comment section ether), have long documented the intermingling of gallery and rec room with such relish you'd think we could cure race relations by building a Mudd Club from sea to shining sea. Outside of the Beasties & Rick Rubin, however, the nexus of hip-hop and hardcore is less publicized. Turns out Stetsasonic also played a Rock Against Racism show with The False Prophets, incorrigible rudeboys The Toasters, and the anarcho-punk band Nausea. A group as fresh as the one depicted on In Full Gear make strange bedfellows with this lot, but feasibly it could have ended with a mass burning of TROOP jackets.
Crossovers of this nature will seem old hat to those of you weaned on FADER Forts and the white guy in Odd Future. I can relate. You're asking yourself, Where's the marketing? What's the angle? What does this particular package of youth culture mean? Maybe, just maybe, there was a time when the only thing being marketed was the chance to mosh, skank, and smurf for equality.
Stet billed themselves as THE FIRST HIP HOP BAND so I guess it's not surprising they'd do shows with rock bands. Of all the NYHC bands I'd expect to see them sharing the same stage with, Nausea have gotta be pretty close to the bottom, tho.
ReplyDeleteNewcleus had beef with Stet for billing themselves as rap's first real band.
Something like Agnostic Front and Tim Dog would have made more sense as far as artistic similarities go. Stetsasonic seems too clean cut for a scene as thuggish as that era of NYHC. Backstage must have been bananas tho.
DeleteGot's to say I'm impressed to see NYHC discussed by RMH and the Marty-Rialist, never thought I'd see that on there. Very cool though.
ReplyDeleteOf all the regional hc scenes, NYHC is still the one that has been influenced by rap, by the time the class of 87-88 took over it was clear that those hard-hitting beats were directly inspired by rap, cf : Outburst, Breakdown, Raw Deal, Leeway etc ...
On terms of older shared billing, Memphis HC staples' Clenched Fist played with 3 6 Mafia in 97, and Baltimore heroes Next Step Up played with the Beatnuts in the early 90's, the kind of show that I'd love to find footage of.
There's a few things to be said about the often-horrendous/sometimes-wonderful connection between hardcore and rap but that'll be for another day.
Thanks for schooling me, Fred! I'd love to see that footage.
ReplyDeleteCertain Madball songs sound like really basic rap-metal, I'm surprised it took so long for Freddy to bless us with his rap masterpiece.
Someone really needs to write a history on how hardcore evolved into the weird metal/rap blob it's been since the '90s.