New York City Rap Tour Celebrates 40th Anniversary – NPR

Futura 2000 break train, 1980. Photo by Martha Cooper.

Martha Cooper

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Martha Cooper

Futura 2000 break train, 1980. Photo by Martha Cooper.

Martha Cooper

After graduating from college in 1978, Michael Holman moved to New York City in search of a job on Wall Street, but he says his interests quickly led him elsewhere. “I went to his one station, Hudson and Chambers, and a train came in with graffiti burners covering the train from top to bottom. And I couldn’t believe what I saw.” It was like this: beautiful vandalism.”

Holman then read a short blurb of village voiceFred Brathwaite, who served as the unofficial spokesperson for the Fabulous 5 Graffiti Crew, called on readers to hire them to create a custom burner for their company or home. Prices are per square foot. Intrigued, Holman called “Fab 5 Freddy” and invited him to hang out.

Later that year, Fabulous 5’s Freddy and Lee Quinones exhibited graffiti on canvas at a gallery in Rome. And in 1980, Freddie painted a striking Warhol-inspired mural on a New York City subway car. This is a series of soup cans that double as announcing his arrival as an important creative catalyst.

As Freddie’s influence grew, it expanded beyond the visual arts. He had his DJ’s Afrika Bambaataa and Jazzy Jay play at his Mudd Club downtown and took Chris Stein and Debbie Harry to the Bronx to see his Grandmaster Flash. Harry then introduced rapper Funky 4+1 when they performed at The His Kitchen in Soho, bringing them on as co-musical guests. saturday night livewhere the rap debuted on national television.

When British punk rockers The Clash came to New York to record their 1980 album Sandinista!, they also caught a beat. The band’s single “Magnificent Seven/Magnificent Dance” was a hit on pirate radio, college radio and New York’s legendary black station WBLS. In the summer of 1981, Bonds International returned to the city for his 17-day string of shows at his casino. I had a Futura (then a Futura 2000) do the paint. Live graffiti backgrounds are live on stage.

A portion of The Clash’s fanbase expressed resistance to these creative alliances, but the band remained committed to defending them. When the tour continued to Europe, The Clash took his Futura and collaborated with him on his rap graffiti, which he performed live in Paris.

At the same time, back in New York, former Sex Pistols impresario Malcolm McLaren was looking for the next big thing, and Michael Holman took him to Park Jam in the Bronx. “He was dressed like a Penzance pirate in acid,” Holman recalls. “Pantaloons in his pants bright orange flecks, crazy, culture like his club.”

It may seem like a culture clash, but Holman says something magical happened. “Jazzy [Jay] Get on the turntable, start scratching the record, make a quick cut, isolate all this and play the B beat. It’s like a special mix DJ. Look at that kid over there – he’s like breakdancing, and do you see that over there? That’s graffiti. And Mike’s Ikey-C – It’s Rap.

In September 1981, McLaren asked Holman to open a show for New York band Bow Wow Wow, featuring DJs, MCs, breaking and visual arts. That led to a weekly revue at a club called Negril, where he battled the Rocksteady crew of B-boys and the Floormasters (later the New York City Breakers) on his dance floor.

Futura 2000 in front of the ‘New York City Wrap Tour’ bus, London, 1982 © Janette Beckman.

Janet Beckman

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Janet Beckman

Another McLaren associate, Luza “Cool Lady” Blue, brought in the 1980 World Championship winners, the Fantastic for Double Dutch team, to add another element to the mix at the Roxy, the giant roller rink. got things going.

In the summer of 1982, The Roxy became the epicenter of New York’s early multiracial youth culture. Riding on that momentum, Fab 5 Freddie, ‘Cool Lady’ Blue and French journalist Bernard Zécris brought hip-hop to Europe. The sojourn, dubbed the ‘New York City Wrap Tour’, began in Paris on November 21, 1982 and traveled to Lyon, Belfort, Mulhouse, Strasbourg, London and Los Angeles. Collecting all elements of hip hop, we present dozens of artists such as Fantastic Four, Futura, Rock Steady Crew, Afrika Bambaataa, Phase 2, Dondi, GrandMixer D.ST (now he is DXT), Rammelzee and many more. bottom. .

Photographer Janet Beckman melody maker Covering the London performance. At the time, she was filming for her two to three bands a week, most of which were her punk acts in small clubs. “It was pitch black and people were pooping and spitting and screaming,” she recalls. Beckman had never met an artist who could scratch, rap, break, graffiti her art, and double her dutch at the same time. She also had never seen an audience react so enthusiastically.

Rocksteady, Ken Swift, London, 1982 © Janette Beckman.

Janet Beckman

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Janet Beckman

Rocksteady, Ken Swift, London, 1982 © Janette Beckman.

Janet Beckman

“It was nothing like what we knew,” she says. “It seemed full of joy, I must say.” Though the journalists who accompanied her dismissed hip-hop as a passing fad, Beckman moved to New York in 1983, shortly after her tour, to live there. He continued to photograph emerging artists such as Run-DMC, LL Cool J and Salt-N-Pepa. who will soon become iconic. By then, hip-hop had already starred in movies like; style wars, wild styleWhen flash dance, setting the stage for its global dominance. Forty years later, it is still at the center of music, art and fashion, and is gaining recognition in the world of Olympic sports, with breaking featured for the first time in Paris 2024.