Misplaced Pages

#791208

252-510: Nas signed with Columbia Records in 1992, and released his debut studio album, Illmatic (1994), two years later. An inductee of the Library of Congress 's National Recording Registry , it has been regarded as one of the greatest hip hop albums of all time. His second album, It Was Written (1996), debuted atop the Billboard 200 and sold over a quarter-million units in its first week;

504-562: A Scarface / Casino -esque lifestyle. On the other hand, references to Scarface protagonist Tony Montana notwithstanding, Illmatic was more about his early life growing up in the projects. It Was Written was released in mid-1996. Two singles, " If I Ruled the World (Imagine That) " (featuring Lauryn Hill of The Fugees ) and "Street Dreams" (including a remix with R. Kelly ), were instant hits. These songs were promoted by big-budget music videos directed by Hype Williams , making Nas

756-465: A producer . They also incorporate synthesizers, drum machines, and live bands. Rappers may write, memorize, or improvise their lyrics and perform their works a cappella or to a beat. Hip hop music predates the introduction of rapping into hip hop culture, and rap vocals are absent from many hip hop tracks, such as " Hip Hop, Be Bop (Don't Stop) " by Man Parrish ; " Chinese Arithmetic " by Eric B. & Rakim ; "Al-Naafiysh (The Soul)" and "We're Rocking

1008-544: A "potent evocation of life on the street", and he has even been compared to Rakim for his lyrical technique. In his book Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop (2009), writer Adam Bradley states, "Nas is perhaps contemporary rap's greatest innovator in storytelling. His catalog includes songs narrated before birth ('Fetus') and after death ('Amongst Kings'), biographies ('UBR [Unauthorized Biography of Rakim]') and autobiographies ('Doo Rags'), allegorical tales ('Money Is My Bitch') and epistolary ones ('One Love'), he's rapped in

1260-566: A "voice" for the disenfranchised youth of low-income and marginalized economic areas, as the hip hop culture reflected the social, economic and political realities of their lives. Hip hop's early evolution occurred around the time that sampling technology and drum-machines became widely available to the general public at a cost that was affordable to the average consumer—not just professional studios. Drum-machines and samplers were combined in machines that came to be known as MPC 's or ' Music Production Centers ', early examples of which would include

1512-669: A $ 500,000 investment which subsequently earned the company some $ 32 million in profits. In October 1958, Columbia, in time for the Christmas season, put out a series of "Greatest Hits" packages by such artists as Johnny Mathis, Doris Day, Guy Mitchell, Johnnie Ray, Jo Stafford , Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney, Frankie Laine and the Four Lads ; months later, it put out another Mathis compilation as well as that of Marty Robbins . Only Mathis' compilations charted, since there were only 25 positions on Billboard ' s album charts at

1764-638: A 1984 history of hip hop. Hip hop and rap music are often used interchangeably but the term "hip hop" has also been historically used to describe a culture of which music is a part. Historically hip hop is a cultural movement that emerged in the South Bronx in New York City during the 1970s which included MCing (or rapping), graffiti art (or aerosol art), break dancing, DJing and knowledge. Musical genres from which hip hop developed include funk , blues , jazz and rhythm and blues recordings from

2016-416: A DJ mixer. Prior to 1979, recorded hip hop music consisted mainly of PA system soundboard recordings of live party shows and early hip hop mixtapes by DJs. Puerto Rican DJ Disco Wiz is credited as the first hip hop DJ to create a "mixed plate," or mixed dub recording, when, in 1977, he combined sound bites, special effects and paused beats to technically produce a sound recording. The first hip hop record

2268-444: A Jay-Z effigy took place behind him, Cam'ron was announced as a last minute replacement and headlined the show instead. Nas appeared on Power 105.1 days later and addressed a number of fellow artists, including Nelly , Noreaga and Cam'ron himself. Nas praised Cam'ron as a good lyricist, but branded his album Come Home With Me as "wack". After Cam'ron heard of Nas's words, he appeared on Funkmaster Flex 's Hot 97 and performed

2520-563: A Roland 808. Later, samplers such as the E-mu SP-1200 allowed not only more memory but more flexibility for creative production. This allowed the filtration and layering different hits, and with a possibility of re-sequencing them into a single piece. With the emergence of a new generation of samplers such as the AKAI S900 in the late 1980s, producers did not have to create complex, time-consuming tape loops. Public Enemy 's first album

2772-466: A basic chorus, to allow the performer to gather his thoughts (e.g. "one, two, three, y'all, to the beat"). Later, the MCs grew more varied in their vocal and rhythmic delivery, incorporating brief rhymes, often with a sexual or scatological theme, in an effort to differentiate themselves and to entertain the audience. These early raps incorporated the dozens, a product of African American culture. Kool Herc &

SECTION 10

#1732773313792

3024-663: A best-selling genre in the mid-1990s and the top-selling music genre by 1999. Hip hop became a category at the Grammy Awards in 1989 with the addition of the Best Rap Performance award and was given to DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince for their song "Parents Just Don't Understand". In 1990, they became the first hip hop act to perform at the Grammys. The popularity of hip hop music continued through

3276-737: A black D.J., as were other white DJ's at the station. Dr. Hep Cat's rhymes were published in a dictionary of jive talk, The Jives of Dr. Hepcat , in 1953. Jockey jack is the infamous Jack the Rapper of Family Affair fame, after his radio convention that was a must attend for every rap artist in the 1980s and 1990s These jive talking rappers of the 1950s black appeal radio format were the source and inspiration of Soul singer James Brown , and musical 'comedy' acts such as Rudy Ray Moore , Pigmeat Markham and Blowfly that are often considered "godfathers" of hip hop music. Within New York City, performances of spoken-word poetry and music by artists such as

3528-603: A brilliant blue laminated product with matching label. Royal Blue issues, made from late 1932 through 1935, are particularly popular with collectors for their rarity and musical interest. The Columbia plant in Oakland, California, did Columbia's pressings for sale west of the Rockies and continued using the Royal Blue material for these until about mid-1936. As southern gospel developed, Columbia had astutely sought to record

3780-414: A catalog of blues and jazz artists, including Bessie Smith in their 14000-D Race series. Columbia also had a successful "Hillbilly" series (15000-D) with Dan Hornsby among others. By 1927, the "Sweet Jazz" bandleader Guy Lombardo also joined Columbia and recorded forty five 78 rpm's by 1931. In 1928, Paul Whiteman , the nation's most popular orchestra leader, left Victor to record for Columbia. During

4032-542: A common name among mainstream hip-hop . Reviewing It Was Written , Leo Stanley of Allmusic believed the album's rhymes were not as complex as those of Illmatic , but still thought Nas had "deepened his talents, creating a complex series of rhymes that not only flow, but manage to tell coherent stories as well." It Was Written featured the debut of the Firm , a supergroup consisting of Nas, AZ , Foxy Brown , and Cormega . Signed to Dr. Dre 's Aftermath Entertainment label,

4284-587: A compilation of previously unreleased or bootlegged songs from 1998 to 2001, was released by Columbia in September 2002. The collection attained respectable sales and received rave reviews from critics. In December 2002, Nas released the God's Son album including its lead single, "Made You Look" which used a pitched down sample of the Incredible Bongo Band 's " Apache ". The album peaked at No. 12 on

4536-757: A decade, Columbia competed with both the Edison Phonograph Company cylinders and Victor Talking Machine Company disc records as one of the top three names in American sound recording. In 1903, to add prestige to its early catalog of artists, Columbia contracted several prominent singers from the Metropolitan Opera in New York to make a highly touted series of Grand Opera Records. These stars included Marcella Sembrich , Lillian Nordica , Antonio Scotti , and Edouard de Reszke , but

4788-468: A distribution deal with Philips Records to market Columbia recordings outside North America. EMI continued to distribute Okeh and later Epic label recordings until 1968. EMI also continued to distribute Columbia recordings in Australia and New Zealand. American Columbia was not happy with EMI's reluctance to introduce long playing records. Columbia became the most successful non-rock record company in

5040-668: A few more years. Columbia was split into two companies, one to make records and one to make players. Columbia Phonograph relocated to Bridgeport, Connecticut , and Edward Easton went with it. Eventually it was renamed the Dictaphone Corporation . In late 1922, Columbia entered receivership. The company was bought by its UK subsidiary, the Columbia Graphophone Company , in 1925 and the label, record numbering system, and recording process changed. On February 25, 1925, Columbia began recording with

5292-489: A force to be reckoned with", while Marcus Shorter of Consequence would write that the album was Nas's and Hit-Boy's "most focused and confident collaboration" and that Nas was "at peace with his legacy, life, and the fact that old age is inevitable". On September 12, 2023, Nas announced the 3rd installment to the Magic album series, Magic 3 , which would be released two days later, on his fiftieth birthday. The album would be

SECTION 20

#1732773313792

5544-427: A form of empowerment and self-expression has solidified its significance beyond mere entertainment, making it a significant cultural force worldwide. The origin of the phrase "hip-hop" is unknown but a very old example of the phrase appears in scene II of an anonymously written satirical play from 1671 called The Rehearsal , thought to be written by George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and others. A character in

5796-544: A freestyle diss over the beat to Nas's " Hate Me Now ", making reference to Nas's mother, baby mother and daughter. Nas did not respond directly but appeared on the radio days later, calling Cam'ron a "dummy" for supposedly being used by Hot 97 to generate ratings. Nas eventually responded on his 2002 album God's Son on the song "Zone Out", claiming Cam'ron had HIV . Cam'ron and the rest of The Diplomats , specifically Jim Jones continued to attack Nas throughout 2003, on numerous mixtapes , albums and radio freestyles, however,

6048-546: A group of investors. It derived its name from the District of Columbia , where it was headquartered. At first it had a local monopoly on sales and service of Edison phonographs and phonograph cylinders in Washington, D.C. , Maryland , and Delaware . As was the custom of some of the regional phonograph companies, Columbia produced many commercial cylinder recordings of its own, and its catalog of musical records in 1891

6300-475: A high executive with RCA Victor from 1932 thru 1938, was asked to comment on ARC. "The chief value was that the record industry had come back tremendously, especially in the case of two other record companies; and the American Record Company, with all its facilities, had not, so far as I could learn, increased its business in any degree at all in the previous six years." On December 17, 1938,

6552-419: A highly publicized feud with fellow New York rapper Jay-Z , popularized by the former's diss track " Ether ". The feud, along with Nas's subsequent releases Stillmatic (2001), God's Son (2002), and the double album Street's Disciple (2004) helped him restore his critical standing. Nas then reconciled with Jay-Z prior to signing with his then-spearheaded label, Def Jam Recordings in 2006; he adopted

6804-481: A hip hop trio signed to Sugar Hill Records , the first all-female group to release a hit rap record, Funk You Up . The roots of rapping are found in African American music and bear similarities to traditional African music , particularly that of the griots of West African culture. The African American traditions of signifyin' , the dozens , and jazz poetry all influence hip hop music, as well as

7056-456: A historic building. The equipment consisted of numerous speakers, turntables, and one or more microphones. By using this technique, DJs could create a variety of music, but according to Rap Attack by David Toop "At its worst the technique could turn the night into one endless and inevitably boring song". KC the Prince of Soul , a rapper-lyricist with Pete DJ Jones, is often credited with being

7308-571: A member of the Cold Crush Brothers , stated that "hip hop saved a lot of lives". For inner-city youth, participating in hip hop culture became a way of dealing with the hardships of life as minorities within America, and an outlet to deal with the risk of violence and the rise of gang culture. MC Kid Lucky mentions that "people used to break-dance against each other instead of fighting". Inspired by DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa created

7560-520: A more provocative, politicized direction with the albums Hip Hop Is Dead (2006) and his untitled ninth studio album (2008). In 2010, Nas released Distant Relatives , a collaborative album with Damian Marley that donated its royalties to active African charities. His tenth studio album, Life Is Good (2012), was nominated for Best Rap Album at the 55th Annual Grammy Awards . After thirteen nominations, his thirteenth studio album, King's Disease (2020) won his first Grammy for Best Rap Album at

7812-614: A paradigm shift in the development of hip hop, with the introduction of samples from rock music, as demonstrated in the albums King of Rock and Licensed to Ill . Hip hop prior to this shift is characterized as old-school hip hop . In 1980, the Roland Corporation launched the TR-808 Rhythm Composer. It was one of the earliest programmable drum machines, with which users could create their own rhythms rather than having to use preset patterns. Though it

Nas - Misplaced Pages Continue

8064-449: A performance of "One Mic", were released on Music from The American Epic Sessions: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack on June 9, 2017. In April 2018, Kanye West announced on Twitter that Nas's twelfth studio album will be released on June 15, also serving as executive producer for the album. The album was announced the day before release, titled Nasir . Following the release of Nasir , Nas confirmed he would return to completing

8316-432: A poll asking listeners which rapper made the better diss song ; Nas won with 58% while Jay-Z got 42% of the votes. In 2002, in the midst of the dispute between the two New York rappers, Eminem cited both Nas and Jay-Z as being two of the best MCs in the industry, in his song " 'Till I Collapse ". Both the dispute and Stillmatic signaled an artistic comeback for Nas after a string of inconsistent albums. The Lost Tapes ,

8568-847: A press release, "The American Record Co. tag is discarded". Columbia Records was actually reborn on May 22, 1939, as "Columbia Recording Corporation, Inc.", a Delaware corporation. The NYDOS shows a later incorporation date of April 4, 1947. This corporation changed its name to Columbia Records, Inc. on October 11, 1954, and reverted to Columbia Recording Corporation on January 2, 1962. The Columbia trademark remained under Columbia Records, Inc. of Delaware, filed back in 1929. Brothers Ike and Leon Levy owned stakes in CBS. In February 1939, NYC Studios moved from ARC headquarters at 1776 Broadway, to 799 7th Avenue, 6th&7th flrs, New York City ("Studio A"). Corporate offices, studio and Pressing Plant would also continue at 1473 Barnum Avenue, Bridgeport, CT. John Hammond

8820-401: A previous album, including production from Swizz Beatz and RZA . This project was released as The Lost Tapes 2 on July 19, 2019, which included production from Kanye West, Pharrell Williams, Swizz Beatz, The Alchemist, and RZA. This album was a sequel to Nas's 2002 release, The Lost Tapes . In August 2020, Nas announced that he would be releasing his 13th album. On August 13, he revealed

9072-519: A reaction against disco and eventually incorporated characteristics of hip hop during the early 1980s. The DJ-based genre of electronic music behaved similarly, eventually evolving into underground styles known as house music in Chicago and techno in Detroit. The 1980s marked the diversification of hip hop as the genre developed more complex styles. New York City became a veritable laboratory for

9324-503: A result, the hip hop genre, barely known outside of the Bronx at the time, grew at an astounding rate from 1977 onward. DJ Kool Herc's house parties gained popularity and later moved to outdoor venues to accommodate more people. Hosted in parks, these outdoor parties became a means of expression and an outlet for teenagers, where "instead of getting into trouble on the streets, teens now had a place to expend their pent-up energy." Tony Tone,

9576-532: A rumored song "Sinatra in the Sands" featuring Jay-Z , Justin Timberlake , and Timbaland would be featured on the album. On April 16, 2014, on the twentieth anniversary of Illmatic , the documentary Nas: Time Is Illmatic was premiered which recounted circumstances leading up to Nas's debut album. It was reported on September 10, that Nas has finished his last album with Def Jam. On October 30, Nas released

9828-458: A set of CDs devoted to Columbia's Broadway albums. Over the years, Columbia joined Decca and RCA Victor in specializing in albums devoted to Broadway musicals with members of the original casts. In the 1950s, Columbia also began releasing LPs drawn from the soundtracks of popular films. Many album covers put together by Columbia and the other major labels were put together using one piece of cardboard (folded in half) and two paper "slicks", one for

10080-527: A skilled modernist composer himself, Columbia cemented contracts with jazz composer/musicians Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus , while Macero became a significant figure in Miles Davis career from an explorer of the art of modal jazz from Davis' sextets 1958 album Milestones to innovator and avatar of the marriage of jazz with rock and electronic sounds—commonly known as jazz fusion . In 1954, Columbia embraced small-group modern jazz by signing of

10332-497: A song called "Wrote My Way Out", which appears on The Hamilton Mixtape . On April 12, 2017, Nas released the song Angel Dust as soundtrack for TV series The Getdown . It contains a sample of the Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson song Angel Dust . In June 2017, Nas appeared in the award-winning 2017 documentary The American Epic Sessions directed by Bernard MacMahon , where he recorded live direct-to-disc on

Nas - Misplaced Pages Continue

10584-641: A song which might have been the first single on his new album, titled "The Season", produced by J Dilla . Nas has also collaborated with the Australian hip-hop group, Bliss n Eso , in 2014. They released the track "I Am Somebody" in May 2014. Nas was featured on the song "We Are" from Justin Bieber 's fourth studio album, Purpose , released in November 2015. Nas was announced as one of the executive producers of

10836-470: A street organization called Universal Zulu Nation , centered on hip hop, as a means to draw teenagers out of gang life, drugs and violence. The lyrical content of many early rap groups focused on social issues, most notably in the seminal track "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five , which discussed the realities of life in the housing projects. "Young black Americans coming out of

11088-501: A stylus (the legs) on a record (the eye); however, the "eye" also subtly refers to CBS's main business in television , and that division's iconic Eye logo. Columbia continued to use the "notes and mike" logo on record labels and even used a promo label showing both logos until the "notes and mike" was phased out (along with the 78 in the US) in 1958. In Canada, Columbia 78s were pressed with the "Walking Eye" logo in 1958. The original Walking Eye

11340-422: A teenager, Nas enlisted his best friend and upstairs neighbor Willie "Ill Will" Graham as his DJ. Nas initially went by the nickname "Kid Wave" before adopting his more commonly known alias of "Nasty Nas". In 1989, then-16-year-old Nas met up with producer Large Professor and went to the studio where Rakim and Kool G Rap were recording their albums. When they were not in the recording studio, Nas would go into

11592-413: A time when the economy was bad enough that many of them would not have had the opportunity to enter a studio and play real jazz (a handful of these in this special series were issued in the US). Hammond's work for Columbia was interrupted by his service during World War II , and he had less involvement with the music scene during the bebop era, but when he returned to work as a talent scout for Columbia in

11844-438: A way that mimicked the rhythmic cadence of soldiers marching. Cowboy later worked "hip hop" into a part of his stage performance saying something along the lines of what was adopted by other artists such as The Sugarhill Gang in 1979 in one of the earliest rap records " Rapper's Delight "I said a hip-hop, a hibbit, hibby-dibby, hip-hip-hop and you don't stop". Universal Zulu Nation founder and music artist Afrika Bambaataa

12096-571: Is "able to evoke the bleak reality of ghetto life without losing hope or forgetting the good times". About.com ranked Illmatic as the greatest hip hop album of all time, and Prefix magazine praised it as "the best hip hop record ever made". In 1995, Nas did guest performances on the albums Doe or Die by AZ , The Infamous by Mobb Deep , Only Built 4 Cuban Linx by Raekwon and 4,5,6 by Kool G Rap . Nas also parted ways with manager MC Serch , enlisted Steve Stoute , and began preparation for his second album, It Was Written . The album

12348-495: Is "charismatic", and Nas is also described as having a "densely packed" flow, with compound rhymes that "run over from one beat into the next or even into another bar". About.com ranked him 1st on their list of the "50 Greatest MCs of All Time" in 2014, and a year later, Nas was featured on the "10 Best Rappers of All Time" list by Billboard. The Source ranked him No. 2 on their list of the Top 50 Lyricists of All Time . In 2013, Nas

12600-419: Is Good would be nominated for Best Rap Album at the 2013 Grammy Awards . In January 2013, Nas announced he had begun working on his twelfth studio album, which would be his final album for Def Jam . The album was supposed to be released during 2015. In October 2013, DJ Premier said that his collaboration album with Nas, would be released following his twelfth studio album. In October 2013, Nas confirmed that

12852-475: Is Yours , with the sample featured heavily in what went on to be Dead Presidents II . The two traded subliminal responses for the next couple of years, until the beef was escalated further in 2001 after Jay-Z publicly addressed Nas at the Summer Jam , performing what would go on to be known as " Takeover ", ending the performance by saying "ask Nas, he don't want it with Hov". After Jay-Z eventually released

SECTION 50

#1732773313792

13104-418: Is a genre of popular music that originated in the early 1970s from the African American community. Hip-hop music originated as an anti-drug and anti-violence genre consisting of stylized rhythmic music (usually built around drum beats ) that often accompanies rapping , a rhythmic delivery of poetic speech. In the early 1990s, a professor of African American studies at Temple University said, "Hip-hop

13356-634: Is a member of hip hop group Bravehearts . His father adopted the name "Olu Dara" from the Yoruba people . " Nasir " is an Arabic name meaning "helper and protector", while "bin" means "son of" in Arabic. He is a cousin of actors Yara Shahidi and Sayeed Shahidi . As a young child, Nas and his family relocated to the Queensbridge housing project of the Long Island City community area in

13608-584: Is credited with first using the term as a five element culture of which the music belonged; although it is also suggested that it was sometimes used as a derogatory term. The term was used in an article of February 24, 1979 by reporter Robert Flipping Jr. in the New Pittsburgh Courier The article is about DJs and discothèque nightclubs in Pittsburgh and does not mention rap music but says this: "D.J. Starsky ( Lovebug Starsky ), one of

13860-518: Is listed as an executive producer on Stillmatic so she could receive royalty checks from the album. Stillmatic peaked at No. 5 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart and featured the singles " Got Ur Self A... " and " One Mic ". In response to "Ether", Jay-Z released the song "Supa Ugly", which Hot 97 radio host Angie Martinez premiered on December 11, 2001. In the song, Jay-Z explicitly boasts about having an affair with Nas's girlfriend, Carmen Bryan. New York City hip-hop radio station Hot 97 issued

14112-451: Is something that blacks can unequivocally claim as their own." By the 21st century, the field of rappers had diversified by both race and gender. The music developed as part of the broader hip-hop culture , a subculture defined by four key stylistic elements: MCing /rapping, DJing/ scratching with turntables , breakdancing , and graffiti art . While often used to refer solely to rapping and rap music, "hip hop" more properly denotes

14364-638: Is the rhythmic spoken delivery of rhymes and wordplay, delivered at first without accompaniment and later done over a beats . This spoken style was influenced by the African American style of "capping", a performance where men tried to outdo each other in originality of their language and tried to gain the favor of the listeners. The basic elements of hip hop—boasting raps, rival "posses" (groups), uptown "throw-downs", and political and social commentary—were all long present in African American music. MCing and rapping performers moved back and forth between

14616-463: Is this dictionary is: "Hip-hop, adv. [v. hip + hop v.; or re-duplication of hop, with alternation of lighter and heavier vowel : cf. drip-drop, tip-top: With hopping movement; with successive hops." A similar phrase "hippity hop" of unknown origin goes to least back to the 1800s and appears in a poem, "Spring Weather", written by Elizabeth Cummings published in an 1882 children's magazine called Wide Awake . The illustrated poem begins "Hippity hop to

14868-481: Is usually considered new wave and fuses heavy pop music elements, but there is an extended rap by Harry near the end. Boxer Muhammad Ali , as an influential African American celebrity, was widely covered in the media. Ali influenced several elements of hip hop music. Both in the boxing ring and in media interviews, Ali became known in the 1960s for being "rhyming trickster". Ali used a "funky delivery" for his comments, which included "boasts, comical trash talk , [and]

15120-611: Is widely regarded to be the Sugarhill Gang 's " Rapper's Delight ", from 1979. It was the first hip hop record to gain widespread popularity in the mainstream and was where hip hop music got its name from (from the opening bar). However, much controversy surrounds this assertion as some regard the March 1979 single " King Tim III (Personality Jock) " by the Fatback Band , as a rap record. There are various other claimants for

15372-427: The Billboard 200 charts, selling 355,000 copies—Nas's third number one album, along with It Was Written and I Am... . It also inspired reactions about the state of hip-hop, particularly controversy with Southern hip hop artists who felt the album's title was a criticism aimed at them. Nas's 2004 song, "Thief's Theme", was featured in the 2006 film, The Departed . Nas's former label, Columbia Records , released

SECTION 60

#1732773313792

15624-591: The Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 on the Top R&;B/Hip-Hop Albums charts despite widespread Internet bootlegging. Time Magazine named his album best hip-hop album of the year. Vibe gave it four stars and The Source gave it four mics. The second single, " I Can ", which reworked elements from Beethoven 's " Für Elise ", became Nas's biggest hit to date in 2003, garnering substantial radio airplay on urban, rhythmic , and top 40 radio stations, as well as on

15876-457: The 63rd Annual Grammy Awards . His five subsequent albums— King's Disease II , Magic (2021), King's Disease III (2022), Magic 2 , and Magic 3 (2023)—were each produced entirely by Hit-Boy and met with critical praise. Nas has been second ranked by The Source on their "Top 50 Lyricists of All Time" list in 2012, fourth on MTV's Annual Hottest MCs in the Game list in 2013, and

16128-657: The Australian Record Company (founded in 1936) including Coronet Records , one of the leading Australian independent recording and distribution companies of the day. The CBS Coronet label was replaced by the CBS label with the 'walking eye' logo in 1963. ARC continued trading under that name until the late 1970s when it formally changed its business name to CBS Australia. Hip hop music African Asian Middle Eastern European North American Oceanic South American Hip hop or hip-hop , formerly known as disco rap ,

16380-514: The Bravehearts , Tragedy Khadafi , Millennium Thug and Cormega , who had briefly reconciled with Nas. The album also featured guest appearances from Queensbridge hip-hop legends Roxanne Shanté , MC Shan , and Marley Marl . Shan and Marley Marl both appeared on the lead single "Da Bridge 2001", which was based on Shan & Marl's 1986 recording "The Bridge". After trading veiled criticisms on various songs, freestyles and mixtape appearances,

16632-619: The Do It Any Way You Wanna Do rhythm by the People's Choice as re-recorded by Sly and Robbie ), where he even used a New York accent, consciously aiming at the new NYC rap market. The Jamaican DJ dance music was deeply rooted in the sound system tradition that made music available to poor people in a very poor country where live music was only played in clubs and hotels patronized by the middle and upper classes. By 1973 Jamaican sound system enthusiast DJ Kool Herc moved to

16884-521: The Eastman School of Music in the 1930s.) Miller quickly signed up Mercury's biggest artist at the time, Frankie Laine , and discovered several of the decade's biggest recording stars including Tony Bennett , Mahalia Jackson , Jimmy Boyd , Guy Mitchell (whose stage surname was taken from Miller's first name), Johnnie Ray , The Four Lads , Rosemary Clooney , Kay Lande , Ray Conniff , Jerry Vale and Johnny Mathis . He also oversaw many of

17136-758: The Linn 9000 . The first sampler that was broadly adopted to create this new kind of music was the Mellotron used in combination with the TR-808 drum machine. Mellotrons and Linn's were succeeded by the Akai , in the late 1980s. Turntablist techniques – such as rhythmic " scratching " (pushing a record back and forth while the needle is in the groove to create new sounds and sound effects , an approach attributed to Grand Wizzard Theodore ), beat mixing and/or beatmatching , and beat juggling – eventually developed along with

17388-682: The Westminster Choir conducted by Leonard Bernstein (recorded on December 31, 1956, on 1 ⁄ 2 -inch tape, using an Ampex 300-3 machine). Bernstein combined the Nativity and Resurrection sections, and ended the performance with the death of Christ. As with RCA Victor, most of the early stereo recordings were of classical artists, including the New York Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Bruno Walter , Dimitri Mitropoulos , and Leonard Bernstein , and

17640-421: The break section of the song, showing off athleticism, spinning on the stage to 'break-dance' in the distinctive, frenetic style. Although there were some early MCs that recorded solo projects of note, such as DJ Hollywood , Kurtis Blow , and Spoonie Gee , the frequency of solo artists did not increase until later with the rise of soloists with stage presence and drama, such as LL Cool J . Most early hip hop

17892-494: The call and response patterns of African and African American religious ceremonies. Early popular radio disc jockeys of the Black-appeal radio period broke into broadcast announcing by using these techniques under the jive talk of the post WWII swing era in the late 1940s and the 1950s. DJ Nat D. was the M.C. at one of the most pitiless places for any aspiring musician trying to break into show business, Amateur Night at

18144-408: The infringed material from I Am... under the title Nastradamus during the later half of 1999, but, at the last minute, Nas decided to record an entire new album for the 1999 release of Nastradamus . Nastradamus was therefore rushed to meet a November release date. Though critical reviews were unfavorable, it did result in a minor hit, " You Owe Me ". Fans and critics feared that Nas's career

18396-511: The snare drum . Nas created a style of rapping that was more conversational than ever before". OC of D.I.T.C. comments in the book How to Rap : "Nas did the song backwards ['Rewind']... that was a brilliant idea". Also in How to Rap , 2Mex of The Visionaries describes Nas's flow as "effervescent", Rah Digga says Nas's lyrics have "intricacy", Bootie Brown of The Pharcyde explains that Nas does not always have to make words rhyme as he

18648-553: The swing music era, Hammond had already been of great help to Columbia in 1932–33. Through his involvement in the UK music paper Melody Maker , Hammond had arranged for the struggling US Columbia label to provide recordings for the UK Columbia label, mostly using the specially created Columbia W-265000 matrix series. Hammond recorded Fletcher Henderson , Benny Carter , Joe Venuti , Roger Wolfe Kahn and other jazz performers during

18900-604: The "Graffiti Capital of the World" in 1971. Philadelphia native DJ Lady B recorded "To the Beat Y'All" in 1979, and became the first female solo hip hop artist to record music. Schoolly D , starting in 1984 and also from Philadelphia, began creating a style that would later be known as gangsta rap . Hip hop music was influenced by disco music, as disco also emphasized the key role of the DJ in creating tracks and mixes for dancers, and old school hip hop often used disco tracks as beats. At

19152-436: The 'talking blues' tradition. The first full-length Jamaican DJ record was a duet on a Rastafarian topic by Kingston ghetto dwellers U-Roy and Peter Tosh named Righteous Ruler (produced by Lee "Scratch" Perry in 1969). The first DJ hit record was Fire Corner by Coxsone's Downbeat sound system DJ, King Stitt that same year; 1970 saw a multitude of DJ hit records in the wake of U-Roy's early, massive hits, most famously Wake

19404-536: The 10-inch variety initially selling for 65 cents each. Columbia also introduced the internal-horn " Grafonola " to compete with the extremely popular " Victrola " introduced by the rival Victor Talking Machine Company in 1906. During this era, Columbia began to use the "Magic Notes" logo—a pair of sixteenth notes (semiquavers) in a circle—both in the United States and overseas (where this particular logo would never substantially change). In 1908, Columbia ceased

19656-546: The 10th anniversary of the introduction of the LP, in 1958 Columbia initiated the "Adventures in Sound" series that showcased music from around the world. As far as the catalog numbering system went, there was no correlation between mono and stereo versions for the first few years. Columbia started a new CS 8000 series for pop stereo releases, and figuring the stereo releases as some sort of specialty niche records, didn't bother to link

19908-491: The 1931 Brunswick lease agreement, so they discontinued Vocalion in June 1940, and fired up Okeh. By July, it was releasing new Hillbilly platters by Gene Autry and Bob Wills, and re-issuing past Vocalion discs, using the same catalogue numbers with a leading zero added. When a January 1941 audit found that not more than 150,000 Brunswick records had sold during the period from December 1, 1939, through December 31, 1940, control of

20160-509: The 1950s after it lured producer and bandleader Mitch Miller away from the Mercury label in 1950. Despite its many successes, Columbia remained largely uninvolved in the teenage rock'n'roll market until the mid-1960s, despite a handful of crossover hits, largely because of Miller's frequently expressed loathing of rock'n'roll. (Miller was a classically trained oboist who had been a friend of Columbia executive Goddard Lieberson since their days at

20412-436: The 1950s, his career proved to be of incalculable historical and cultural importance – the list of superstar artists he would discover and sign to Columbia over the course of his career included Charlie Christian , Count Basie , Teddy Wilson , Pete Seeger , Bob Dylan , Leonard Cohen , Aretha Franklin , Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Ray Vaughan , and in the early 1960s Hammond would also exert an enormous cultural effect on

20664-438: The 1956 Newport Jazz Festival , which proved a boost to a bandleader whose career had stalled. Under new head producer George Avakian , Columbia became the most vital label to the general public's appreciation and understanding (with help from Avakian's prolific and perceptive play-by-play liner notes) of jazz, releasing a series of LP's by Louis Armstrong , but also signing to long-term contracts Dave Brubeck and Miles Davis ,

20916-514: The 1960s, 1950s, and earlier, including several records by Bo Diddley and gospel group The Jubalaires , whose 1946 song "Noah" is often named as the first recorded instance of rap . Muhammad Ali 's 1963 spoken-word album I Am the Greatest is regarded by some writers as an early example of hip hop. Pigmeat Markham 's 1968 single " Here Comes the Judge " is one of several songs said to be

21168-628: The 1970s, when block parties became increasingly popular in New York City, particularly among African American youth residing in the Bronx . At block parties, DJs played percussive breaks of popular songs using two turntables and a DJ mixer to be able to play breaks from two copies of the same record, alternating from one to the other and extending the " break ". Hip-hop's early evolution occurred as sampling technology and drum machines became widely available and affordable. Turntablist techniques such as scratching and beatmatching developed along with

21420-591: The ARC, including the Columbia label in the U.S., was acquired by William S. Paley of the Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. for US$ 700,000, ten times the price ARC paid in 1934, which would later spark lawsuits by disgruntled shareholders. (Columbia Records had originally co-founded CBS in 1927 along with New York talent agent Arthur Judson , but soon cashed out of the partnership leaving only

21672-462: The Black community. Old-school hip hop was the first mainstream wave of the genre, marked by its disco influence and party-oriented lyrics. The 1980s marked the diversification of hip hop as the genre developed more complex styles and spread around the world. New-school hip hop was the genre's second wave, marked by its electro sound, and led into golden age hip hop , an innovative period between

21924-422: The Bronx to its global reach today, hip hop has served as a voice for the disenfranchised, shedding light on issues such as racial inequality, poverty, and police brutality. Artists such as Public Enemy , Tupac Shakur , and Kendrick Lamar have used their platforms to address systemic injustices, fostering dialogue and inspiring activism. Hip hop's ability to confront societal issues while simultaneously providing

22176-409: The Bronx, taking with him Jamaica's sound system culture, and teamed up with another Jamaican, Coke La Rock, at the mike. Although other influences, most notably musical sequencer Grandmaster Flowers of Brooklyn and Grandwizard Theodore of the Bronx contributed to the birth of hip hop in New York, and although it was downplayed in most US books about hip hop, the main root of this sound system culture

22428-459: The CD, combined with the fact that it was delivered into the crucible of the boiling East-West conflict, quickly solidified [his] reputation as the premier writer of his time. Illmatic was awarded best album of 1994 by The Source . Steve Huey of AllMusic described Nas's lyrics on Illmatic as "highly literate" and his raps "superbly fluid regardless of the size of his vocabulary", adding that Nas

22680-732: The Caribbean, where Jocko Henderson and Jockey Jack were American DJs who were listened to at night from broadcast transmitters located in Miami, Florida. Jocko came to have an outsized influence on Jamaican Emcees during the '50s as the R&;B music played on the Miami stations was different from that played on JBC , which re-broadcast BBC and local music styles. In Jamaica, DJs would set up large roadside sound systems in towns and villages, playing music for informal gatherings, mostly folks who wandered down from country hills looking for excitement at

22932-576: The Columbia Graphophone Company, had been the moving force behind bringing Western Electric's recording process, and the British takeover. Originally from New York, Sterling became Chairman of Columbia NY from 1925 until 1931, and oversaw stability and success. In 1926, Columbia acquired Okeh Records and its growing stable of jazz and blues artists, including Louis Armstrong and Clarence Williams . Columbia had already built

23184-471: The Columbia Records name because EMI operated a separate record label by that name, Columbia Graphophone Company , outside North America. This was the result of legal maneuvers which led to the creation of EMI in the early 1930s. While this happened, starting in late 1961, both the mono and the stereo labels of domestic Columbia releases started carrying a small "CBS" at the top of the label. This

23436-534: The Columbia name. During the 1940s, Frank Sinatra recorded for Columbia and helped to substantially boost the company's revenue. Sinatra recorded over 200 songs for Columbia which include his most popular songs from his early years. Other popular artists on Columbia at this time included Benny Goodman (signed from RCA Victor in 1939), Count Basie , Jimmie Lunceford (both signed from Decca), Eddy Duchin , Ray Noble (both moved to Columbia from Brunswick), Kate Smith , Mildred Bailey , and Will Bradley . In 1947,

23688-563: The Dave Brubeck Quartet, which resulted in the release of the on-location, best-selling jazz album (up to this time), Jazz Goes to College . Contemporaneously with Columbia's first release of modern jazz by a small group, which was also the Brubeck Quartet's debut on the label, was a Time magazine cover story on the phenomenon of Brubeck's success on college campuses. The humble Dave Brubeck demurred, saying that

23940-415: The Firm began working on their debut album. Halfway through the production of the album, Cormega was fired from the group by Steve Stoute , who had unsuccessfully attempted to force Cormega to sign a deal with his management company. Cormega subsequently became one of Nas's most vocal opponents and released a number of underground hip hop singles dissing Nas, Stoute, and Nature , who replaced Cormega as

24192-404: The Furious Five who is sometimes credited with the term as it relates to Hip Hop as we know it today (although it was not documented). Lovebug Starski , Keef Cowboy, and DJ Hollywood used the term when the music was still known as disco rap . It is believed by some that Cowboy created the term while teasing a friend who had just joined the U.S. Army, by singing the words "hip/hop/hip/hop" in

24444-517: The Gramophone Company (HMV) was now a wholly owned subsidiary of Victor, and Columbia in America was a subsidiary of UK Columbia, Victor now technically owned its largest rival in the US. To avoid antitrust legislation, EMI had to sell off its US Columbia operation, which continued to release pressings of matrices made in the UK. In December, 1931, the U.S. Columbia Phonograph Company, Inc.

24696-522: The Herculoids were the first hip hop group to gain recognition in New York, but the number of MC teams increased over time. Often these were collaborations between former gangs , such as Afrikaa Bambaataa 's Universal Zulu Nation —now an international organization. Melle Mel , a rapper with the Furious Five is often credited with being the first rap lyricist to call himself an "MC". During

24948-462: The Internet, and Nas and Stoute quickly recorded enough substitute material to constitute a single-disc release. The second single on I Am... was " Hate Me Now ", featuring Sean "Puffy" Combs , which was used as an example by Nas's critics accusing him of moving towards more commercial themes. The video featured Nas and Combs being crucified in a manner similar to Jesus Christ; after the video

25200-497: The LP record was officially demonstrated, Columbia offered to share the new speed with rival RCA Victor, who initially rejected it and soon introduced their new competitive 45 RPM record. When it became clear that the LP was the preferred format for classical recordings, RCA Victor announced that the company would begin releasing its own LPs in January 1950. This was quickly followed by the other major American labels. Decca Records in

25452-461: The Last Poets , Gil Scott-Heron and Jalal Mansur Nuriddin had a significant impact on the post-civil rights era culture of the 1960s and '1970s, and thus the social environment in which hip hop music was created. AM radio at many stations were limited by the 'broadcast Day' as special licenses were required to transmit at night. Those that had such licenses were heard far out to sea and in

25704-670: The MTV and VH1 music video networks. God's Son also includes several songs dedicated to Nas's mother, who died of cancer in April 2002, including "Dance". In 2003, Nas was featured on the Korn song "Play Me", from Korn's Take a Look in the Mirror LP. Also in 2003, a live performance in New York City, featuring Ludacris , Jadakiss , and Darryl McDaniels (of Run-D.M.C. fame), was released on DVD as Made You Look: God's Son Live . God's Son

25956-574: The Music Play " (1983), Freeez 's "I.O.U." (1983), Midnight Star 's "Freak-a-Zoid" (1983), Chaka Khan 's " I Feel For You " (1984). DJ Pete Jones, Eddie Cheeba, DJ Hollywood , and Love Bug Starski were disco-influenced hip hop DJs. Their styles differed from other hip hop musicians who focused on rapid-fire rhymes and more complex rhythmic schemes. Afrika Bambaataa , Paul Winley, Grandmaster Flash , and Bobby Robinson were all members of third s latter group. In Washington, D.C. go-go emerged as

26208-683: The Netflix original series, The Get Down , prior to its release in August 2016. He narrated the series and rapped as adult Ezekiel of 1996. On October 16, 2016, he received the Jimmy Iovine Icon Award at 2016 REVOLT Music Conference for having a lasting impact and unique influence on music, numerous years in the rap business, his partnership with Hennessy, and Mass Appeal imprint by Puff Daddy . In November 2016, Nas collaborated with Lin-Manuel Miranda , Dave East and Aloe Blacc on

26460-570: The Palace theatre on Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee. There he was master of ceremonies from 1935 until 1947 along with his sideman, D.J. Rufus Thomas . It was there he perfected the dozens, signifyin' and the personality jock jive patter that would become his schtick when he became the first black radio announcer on the air south of the Mason–Dixon line. Jive popularized black appeal radio, it

26712-657: The Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy , who also recorded an abridged Messiah for Columbia. Some sessions were made with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, an ensemble drawn from leading New York musicians, which had first made recordings with Sir Thomas Beecham in 1949 in Columbia's New York City studios. George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra recorded mostly for Epic. When Epic dropped classical music,

26964-635: The Planet" by Hashim ; and "Destination Earth" by Newcleus . However, the majority of the genre has been accompanied by rap vocals, such as the Sci-fi influenced electro hip hop group Warp 9 . Female rappers appeared on the scene in the late 1970s and early 80s, including Bronx artist MC Sha-Rock , member of the Funky Four Plus One , credited with being the first female MC and the Sequence ,

27216-583: The Town and many others. As the tradition of remix (which also started in Jamaica where it was called 'version' and 'dub') developed, established young Jamaican DJ/rappers from that period, who had already been working for sound systems for years, were suddenly recorded and had many local hit records, widely contributing to the reggae craze triggered by Bob Marley's impact in the 1970s. The main Jamaican DJs of

27468-479: The U.K. was the first to release LPs in Europe, beginning in 1949. EMI would not fully adopt the LP format until 1955. An "original cast recording" of Rodgers & Hammerstein 's South Pacific with Ezio Pinza and Mary Martin was recorded in 1949. Both conventional metal masters and tape were used in the sessions in New York City. For some reason, the taped version was not used until Sony released it as part of

27720-459: The U.S. Billboard 200 , becoming Nas's highest-charting album since 2012. On December 24, Nas released the album Magic . It is his third album executive produced by Hit-Boy, and includes guest appearances from ASAP Rocky and DJ Premier . Nas's third installment in the King's Disease series, King's Disease III , was released the following year. Like its two predecessors, King's Disease III

27972-529: The U.S. Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones was born in the Brooklyn borough of New York City on September 14, 1973, to African American parents. His father, Olu Dara (born Charles Jones III), is a jazz and blues musician from Mississippi . His mother, Fannie Ann (née Little; 1941–2002) was a U.S. Postal Service worker from North Carolina . He has a brother, Jabari Fret, who raps under the name Jungle and

28224-479: The U.S. Columbia material was issued in Australia and New Zealand on the CBS Coronet label. In the same year, former Columbia A&R manager Goddard Lieberson was promoted to President of the entire CBS recording division, which included Columbia and Epic, as well as the company's various international divisions and licensees. Under his leadership the corporation's music division soon overtook RCA Victor as

28476-456: The United States and young immigrants and children of immigrants from countries in the Caribbean. Some were influenced by the vocal style of the earliest African American radio MCs (including Jocko Henderson 's Rocket Ship Show of the 1950s, which rhymed and was influenced by scat singing ), which could be heard over the radio in Jamaica. The first records by Jamaican DJs, including Sir Lord Comic ( The Great Wuga Wuga , 1967) came as part of

28728-612: The Worm' sold 2.5 million copies. In 1929, Ben Selvin became house bandleader and A. & R. director. Other favorites in the Viva-tonal era included Ruth Etting , Paul Whiteman, Fletcher Henderson , Ipana Troubadours (a Sam Lanin group), and Ted Lewis . Columbia used acoustic recording for "budget label" pop product well into 1929 on the labels Harmony, Velvet Tone (both general purpose labels), and Diva (sold exclusively at W.T. Grant stores). When Edison Records folded, Columbia

28980-668: The aegis of the Mull Singing Convention of the Air sponsored on radio (and later television) by southern gospel broadcaster J. Bazzel Mull (1914–2006). In 1935, Herbert M. Greenspon, an 18-year-old shipping clerk, led a committee to organize the first trade union shop at the main manufacturing factory in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Elected as president of the Congress of Industrial Unions (CIO) local, Greenspon negotiated

29232-408: The album could be made. Initially friends, Nas and Jay-Z had met a number of times in the 1990s with no animosity between the two. Jay-Z requested that Nas appear on his 1996 album Reasonable Doubt on the track "Bring it On"; however, Nas never showed up to the studio and was not included on the album. In response to this, Jay-Z asked producer Ski Beatz to sample a line from Nas's song The World

29484-428: The album a "magic moment" in his rap career. In 2011, Nas announced that he would release collaboration albums with Mobb Deep , Common , and a third with DJ Premier . Common said of the project in a 2011 interview, "At some point, we will do that. We'd talked about it and we had a good idea to call it Nas.Com . That was actually going to be a mixtape at one point. But we decided that we should make it an album." Life

29736-447: The album's impending release date drew nearer, going as far as to spark rumors that Def Jam was planning to drop Nas unless he changed the title. Additionally, then- Fort Greene, Brooklyn assemblyman (later United States Representative) Hakeem Jeffries requested that New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli withdraw $ 84,000,000 from the state pension fund that had been invested into Universal and its parent company, Vivendi , if

29988-594: The album's lead single released on June 23, 2008, reached No. 97 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 87 on the Hot R&;B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks. In July, Nas attained a shoe deal with Fila . In an interview with MTV News in July, Nas speculated that he might release two albums: one produced by DJ Premier and another by Dr. Dre —simultaneously the same day. Nas worked on Dr. Dre's studio album Detox . Nas

30240-622: The album's release, he began helping the Bravehearts , an act including his younger brother Jungle and friend Wiz (Wizard), put together their debut album, Bravehearted . The album featured guest appearances from Nas, Nashawn (Millennium Thug), Lil Jon , and Jully Black . Nas released his seventh album Street's Disciple , a sprawling double album, on November 30, 2004. It addressed subject matter both political and personal, including his impending marriage to recording artist Kelis . The double-sided single " Thief's Theme "/"You Know My Style"

30492-439: The album's title was not changed. On the opposite side of the spectrum, many of the most famous names in the entertainment industry supported Nas for using the racial epithet as the title of his full-length LP. Nas's management worried the album would not be sold by chain stores such as Wal-Mart , thus limiting its distribution. On May 19, 2008, Nas decided to forgo an album title. Responding to Jesse Jackson 's remarks and use of

30744-548: The album's title, King's Disease . The album, executive-produced by Hit-Boy , was preceded by the lead single, " Ultra Black ", a song detailing perseverance and pride "despite the system". The album won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards , becoming Nas' first Grammy. The sequel album, King's Disease II , was released on August 6, 2021, and included the song " Nobody " featuring Lauryn Hill . King's Disease II debuted at number-three on

30996-404: The album, along with its lead single " If I Ruled the World (Imagine That) " (featuring Lauryn Hill ), propelled Nas into mainstream success. Both released in 1999, Nas's third and fourth albums I Am and Nastradamus were criticized as inconsistent and too commercially oriented, with critics and audiences fearing a decline in the quality of his output. From 2001 to 2005, Nas was involved in

31248-636: The artists associated with the emerging genre; for example, Columbia was the only company to record Charles Davis Tillman . Most fortuitously for Columbia in its Depression Era financial woes, in 1936 the company entered into an exclusive recording contract with the Chuck Wagon Gang , a hugely successful relationship which continued into the 1970s. A signature group of southern gospel, the Chuck Wagon Gang became Columbia's bestsellers with at least 37 million records, many of them through

31500-450: The basis of hip hop music. Campbell's announcements and exhortations to dancers would lead to the syncopated, rhymed spoken accompaniment now known as rapping. He dubbed his dancers "break-boys" and "break-girls", or simply "b-boys" and "b-girls". According to Herc, "breaking" was also street slang for "getting excited" and "acting energetically". DJs such as Grand Wizzard Theodore , Grandmaster Flash , and Jazzy Jay refined and developed

31752-444: The birth of hip hop in the hip hop culture. It is hard to pinpoint the exact musical influences that most affected the sound and culture of early hip hop because of the multicultural nature of New York—hip hop's early pioneers were influenced by a mix of cultures, due to the city's diversity. The city experienced a heavy Jamaican hip hop influence during the 1990s. This influence was brought on by cultural shifts particularly because of

32004-548: The blues-R&B label, and the exclusive outlet for Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys , a phenomenal mid-1930s Western Swing band, which drew 10,000+ customers nightly to dance. Columbia was added in mid-1932, relegated to slower sellers such as the Hawaiian music of Andy Iona , the Irving Mills stable of artists and songs, and the still unknown Benny Goodman . It tried a marketing ploy, the Columbia "Royal Blue Record",

32256-562: The booth and record his own material. However, none of it was ever released. In 1991, Nas performed on Main Source 's " Live at the Barbeque ", also produced by Large Professor. In mid-1992, Nas was approached by MC Serch of 3rd Bass , who became his manager and secured Nas a record deal with Columbia Records during the same year. Nas made his solo debut under the name of "Nasty Nas" on the single " Halftime " from MC Serch's soundtrack for

32508-625: The borough of Queens . His neighbor, Willie "Ill Will" Graham, influenced his interest in hip hop by playing him records. His parents divorced in 1985, and he dropped out of school after the eighth grade. He educated himself about African culture through the Five-Percent Nation (a splinter group of the Nation of Islam ) and the Nuwaubian Nation . In his early years, he played the trumpet and began writing his own rhymes. As

32760-508: The bottom line." He also said of the album's title: "It's important to me that this album gets to the fans. It's been a long time coming. I want my fans to know that creatively and lyrically, they can expect the same content and the same messages. The people will always know what the real title of this album is and what to call it." The album was ultimately released on July 15, 2008, untitled. It featured production from Polow da Don , stic.man of Dead Prez , Sons of Light and J. Myers, " Hero ",

33012-540: The bottom to the back and "pasted over" by the back slick. Conversely, for a mono album, they moved the slick up so the mono information showed at the bottom, and the stereo information was pasted over. Soon, other record companies had adopted the paste-over method. In 1951, Columbia US began issuing records in the 45 rpm format RCA Victor had introduced two years earlier. The same year, Ted Wallerstein retired as Columbia Records chairman; and Columbia US also severed its decades-long distribution arrangement with EMI and signed

33264-402: The breaks. Rapping developed as a vocal style in which the artist speaks or chants along rhythmically with an instrumental or synthesized beat . Hip hop music was not officially recorded to play on radio or television until 1979, largely due to poverty during the genre's birth and lack of acceptance outside ghetto neighborhoods. The genre of music began spreading through block parties throughout

33516-569: The candy Shop four little men in a row" and the phrase appears a few more times. The hopping depicted in the illustration seems to crossover later to describing dances such as the Lindy Hop , which began in Harlem in the late 1920s. Later dance parties in the 1970s with DJs predated rap music but rap music would evolve out of them. In an article in Medium , Jeff Chang writes: "Father Amde Hamilton of

33768-608: The case). The blue Columbia label was retained for its classical music Columbia Masterworks Records series until it was later changed to a green label before switching to a gray label in the late 1950s, and then to the bronze that is familiar to owners of Columbia/CBS classical and Broadway albums. Columbia Phonograph Company of Canada did not survive the Great Depression , so CBS made a distribution deal with Sparton Records in 1939 to release Columbia records in Canada under

34020-637: The catalog were in the 10 inch format starting with ML 2001 for the light classics, CL 6001 for popular songs and JL 8001 for children's records. The Library of Congress in Washington DC now holds the Columbia Records Paperwork Archive which shows the Label order for ML 4001 being written on March 1, 1948. One can infer that Columbia was pressing the first LPs for distribution to their dealers for at least 3 months prior to

34272-469: The civil rights movement have used hip hop culture in the 1980s and 1990s to show the limitations of the Hip Hop Movement." Hip hop gave young African Americans a voice to let their issues be heard; "Like rock-and-roll, hip hop is vigorously opposed by conservatives because it romanticises violence, law-breaking, and gangs". It also gave people a chance for financial gain by "reducing the rest of

34524-437: The collaboration in an interview "I was a big fan of his father and of course all the children, all the offspring, and Damian, I kind of looked at Damian as a rap guy. His stuff is not really singing, or if he does, it comes off more hard, like on some street shit. I always liked how reggae and hip-hop have always been intertwined and always kind of pushed each other, I always liked the connection. I'd worked with people before from

34776-450: The collaborative effort, but Wallerstein credits engineer William Savory with the technical prowess that brought the long-playing disc to the public. By the early 1940s, Columbia had been experimenting with higher fidelity recordings, as well as longer masters, which paved the way for the successful release of the LPs in 1948. One such record that helped set a new standard for music listeners

35028-529: The company was renamed Columbia Records Inc. and founded its Mexican record company, Discos Columbia de Mexico. 1948 saw the first classical LP Nathan Milstein's recording of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto . Columbia's new 33 rpm format quickly spelled the death of the classical 78 rpm record and for the first time in nearly fifty years, gave Columbia a commanding lead over RCA Victor Red Seal . Columbia's president Edward Wallerstein

35280-419: The compilation Greatest Hits in November. On October 12, 2007, Nas announced that his next album would be called Nigger . Both progressive commentators, such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton , and the conservative-aligned news channel Fox News were outraged; Jackson called on entertainers to stop using the epithet after comedian Michael Richards used it onstage in late 2006. Controversy escalated as

35532-575: The cover of Time magazine were all Columbia artists. (In the early 1960s Columbia jazz artist Thelonious Monk would be afforded the same honor.) Columbia changed distributors in Australia and New Zealand in 1956 when the Australian Record Company picked up distribution of U.S. Columbia product to replace the Capitol Records product which ARC lost when EMI bought Capitol. As EMI owned the Columbia trademark at that time,

35784-513: The creation of new hip hop sounds. Early examples of the diversification process can be heard in tracks such as Grandmaster Flash's " The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel " (1981), a single consisting entirely of sampled tracks as well as Afrika Bambaataa 's " Planet Rock " (1982), and Warp 9 's " Nunk ", (1982) which signified the fusion of hip hop music with electro . In addition, Rammellzee & K-Rob 's "Beat Bop" (1983)

36036-413: The crossover success of its artists. During the late 2000s and early 2010s "blog era", rappers were able to build up a following through online methods of music distribution, such as social media and blogs, and mainstream hip hop took on a more melodic, sensitive direction following the commercial decline of gangsta rap. The trap and mumble rap subgenres have become the most popular form of hip hop during

36288-466: The crowd. Eventually, this introducing role developed into longer sessions of spoken, rhythmic wordplay, and rhyming, which became rapping. By 1979, hip hop music had become a mainstream genre. Herc also developed upon break-beat deejaying, where the breaks of funk songs—the part most suited to dance, usually percussion-based—were isolated and repeated for the purpose of all-night dance parties. This form of music playback, using hard funk and rock, formed

36540-444: The delight of many, this did not happen, and Art went on to many more successful years supervising all aspects of Columbia's Hillbilly/Country artists and sessions. On August 30, 1939, Columbia replaced its $ .75 Brunswick record for a $ .50 Columbia label. Brunswick was gradually phased out, the final issue being Brunswick 8520, in April 1940. Wallerstein and Paley knew in advance that their course of action would lead to violation of

36792-550: The earliest hip hop record. Leading up to hip hop, there were spoken-word artists such as the Last Poets who released their debut album in 1970, and Gil Scott-Heron , who gained a wide audience with his 1971 track " The Revolution Will Not Be Televised ". These artists combined spoken word and music to create a kind of "proto-rap" vibe. Hip hop as music and culture formed during the 1970s in New York City . As expressed by Mark D. Naison of Fordham University , "Hip hop

37044-406: The early 1970s B-boying arose during block parties, as b-boys and b-girls got in front of the audience to dance in a distinctive and frenetic style. The style was documented for release to a worldwide audience for the first time in documentaries and movies such as Style Wars , Wild Style , and Beat Street . The term "B-boy" was coined by DJ Kool Herc to describe the people who would wait for

37296-556: The early 1970s were King Stitt , Samuel the First , Count Machuki, Johnny Lover (who 'versioned' songs by Bob Marley and the Wailers as early as 1971), Dave Barker, Scotty, Lloyd Young, Charlie Ace and others, as well as soon-to-be reggae stars U-Roy , Dennis Alcapone , I-Roy , Prince Jazzbo , Prince Far I , Big Youth and Dillinger . Dillinger scored the first international rap hit record with Cocaine in my Brain in 1976 (based on

37548-420: The early days of hip hop were characterized by divisions between fans and detractors of disco music. Hip hop had largely emerged as "a direct response to the watered down, Europeanised, disco music that permeated the airwaves". The earliest hip hop was mainly based on hard funk loops sourced from vintage funk records. By 1979, disco instrumental loops/tracks had become the basis of much hip hop music. This genre

37800-433: The early numbers with the "ledge" variation (i.e., no deep groove), had the small "CBS". This text would be used on the Columbia labels until June 1962. Columbia's Mexican unit, Discos Columbia, was renamed Discos CBS. With the formation of CBS Records International, CBS started establishing its own distribution in the early 1960s, beginning in Australia. In 1960 CBS took over its distributor in Australia and New Zealand,

38052-846: The early singles by the label's top female recording star of the decade, Doris Day . In 1953, Columbia formed a new subsidiary label Epic Records . 1954 saw Columbia end its distribution arrangement with Sparton Records and form Columbia Records of Canada. To enhance its country music stable, which already included Marty Robbins , Ray Price and Carl Smith , Columbia bid $ 15,000 for Elvis Presley 's contract from Sun Records in 1955. Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker , turned down their offer and signed Presley with RCA Victor. However, Columbia did sign two Sun artists in 1958: Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins . With 1954, Columbia U.S. decisively broke with its past when it introduced its new, modernist -style "Walking Eye" logo, designed by Columbia's art director S. Neil Fujita . This logo actually depicts

38304-417: The electric recording process licensed from Western Electric . "Viva-tonal" records set a benchmark in tone and clarity unequaled on commercial discs during the 78-rpm era. The first electrical recordings were made by Art Gillham , the "Whispering Pianist". In a secret agreement with Victor, electrical technology was kept secret to avoid hurting sales of acoustic records. Louis Sterling, managing director of

38556-540: The emerging rock music scene thanks to his championing of reissue LPs of the music of blues artists Robert Johnson and Bessie Smith . By 1937–38, the record business in America was finally recovering from the near-death blow of the Great Depression, at least for RCA Victor and Decca, but privately, there were doubts about the survival of ARC. In a 1941 court case brought by unhappy shareholders of Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. ("CBS"), Edward Wallerstein,

38808-570: The end of the week. There the DJs would allow 'Toasts' by an Emcee, which copied the style of the American DJs listened to on AM transistor radios. It was by this method that Jive talk, rapping and rhyming was transposed to the island and locally the style was transformed by 'Jamaican lyricism', or the local patois . Hip hop as music and culture formed during the 1970s in New York City from the multicultural exchange between African American youth from

39060-434: The endless quotabl[e]" lines. According to Rolling Stone , his " freestyle skills" (a reference to a type of vocal improvisation in which lyrics are recited with no particular subject or structure) and his "rhymes, flow, and braggadocio " would "one day become typical of old-school MCs" like Run-DMC and LL Cool J , the latter citing Ali as an influence. Hip hop music in its infancy has been described as an outlet and

39312-500: The feud between the two slowly died down and they eventually reconciled in 2014. Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment , a subsidiary of Sony Music Group , the American division of multinational conglomerate Sony . Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the recorded sound business, and the second major company to produce records. From 1961 to 1991, its recordings were released outside North America under

39564-582: The film Zebrahead . Called the new Rakim , his rhyming skills attracted a significant amount of attention within the hip hop community. In 1994, Nas's debut album, Illmatic , was released. It featured production from Large Professor , Pete Rock , Q-Tip , LES and DJ Premier , as well as guest appearances from Nas's friend AZ and his father Olu Dara. The album spawned several singles, including "The World Is Yours", "It Ain't Hard to Tell", and "One Love". Shaheem Reid of MTV News called Illmatic "the first classic LP " of 1994. In 1994, Nas also recorded

39816-408: The first contract between factory workers and Columbia management. In a career with Columbia that lasted 30 years, Greenspon retired after achieving the position of executive vice president of the company. Columbia also hired talent scout, music writer, producer, and impresario John Hammond in 1937. Alongside his significance as a discoverer, promoter, and producer of jazz, blues, and folk artists during

40068-596: The first rap lyricist to call himself an "MC". Street gangs were prevalent in the poverty of the South Bronx, and much of the graffiti, rapping, and b-boying at these parties were all artistic variations on the competition and one-upmanship of street gangs. Sensing that gang members' often violent urges could be turned into creative ones, Afrika Bambaataa founded the Zulu Nation , a loose confederation of street-dance crews, graffiti artists, and rap musicians. By

40320-449: The fourth member of the Firm. Nas, Foxy Brown, AZ, and Nature Present The Firm: The Album was finally released in 1997 to mixed reviews. The album failed to live up to its expected sales despite being certified platinum, and the members of the group disbanded to go their separate ways. During this period, Nas was one of four rappers (the others being B-Real , KRS-One and RBX ) in the hip-hop supergroup Group Therapy , who appeared on

40572-457: The front and one for the back. The front slick bent around the top, bottom, and left sides (the right side is open for the record to be inserted into the cover) and glued the two halves of cardboard together at the top and bottom. The back slick is pasted over the edges of the pasted-on front slick to make it appear that the album cover is one continuous piece. Columbia discovered that printing two front cover slicks, one for mono and one for stereo,

40824-406: The heightened immigration of Jamaicans to New York and the American-born Jamaican youth who were coming of age during the 1990s. In the 1970s, block parties became increasingly popular in New York, particularly among African American, Caribbean and Hispanic youth residing in the Bronx . Block parties incorporated DJs, who played popular genres of music, especially funk and soul music . Due to

41076-508: The highest number being 32601, "Heinie", which is a duet by Arthur Collins and Byron G. Harlan . The molded brown waxes may have been sold to Sears for distribution (possibly under Sears' Oxford trademark for Columbia products). Columbia began selling disc records , invented and patented by Victor Talking Machine Company's Emile Berliner , and phonographs in addition to the cylinder system in 1901, preceded only by their "Toy Graphophone" of 1899, which used small, vertically cut records. For

41328-471: The highly publicised dispute between Nas and Jay-Z became widely known to the public in 2001. Jay-Z, in his song " Takeover ", criticised Nas by calling him "fake" and his career "lame". Nas responded with " Ether ", in which he compared Jay-Z to such characters as J.J. Evans from the sitcom Good Times and cigarette company mascot Joe Camel . The song was included on Nas's fifth studio album, Stillmatic , released in December 2001. His daughter, Destiny,

41580-515: The influential rap precursors the Watts Prophets once told me that, when he was growing up along Central Avenue in 1950s Los Angeles, the older folks used to call teen house parties 'them old hippity hops'." The earliest known instance of "hip hop" as a compound phrase in a song lyric is in a song about dancing by the doo-wop group the Dovells in 1963 called You Can't Sit Down , the lyric is: "...you gotta slop, bop, flip flop, hip hop, never stop". Keef Cowboy , rapper with Grandmaster Flash and

41832-523: The introduction of the LP on June 21, 1948. The catalog numbering system has had minor changes ever since. Columbia's LPs were particularly well-suited to classical music's longer pieces, so some of the early albums featured such artists as Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra , Bruno Walter and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra , and Sir Thomas Beecham and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra . The success of these recordings persuaded Capitol Records to begin releasing LPs in 1949. Even before

42084-421: The late 1970s, the culture had gained media attention, with Billboard magazine printing an article titled "B Beats Bombarding Bronx", commenting on the local phenomenon and mentioning influential figures such as Kool Herc. The New York City blackout of 1977 saw widespread looting, arson, and other citywide disorders especially in the Bronx where a number of looters stole DJ equipment from electronics stores. As

42336-411: The late 1990s to early-2000s "bling era" with hip hop influences increasingly finding their way into other genres of popular music, such as neo soul , nu metal , and R&B . The United States also saw the success of regional styles such as crunk , a Southern genre that emphasized the beats and music more than the lyrics, and alternative hip hop began to secure a place in the mainstream, due in part to

42588-532: The latter half of 1961, Columbia started using pressing plants with newer equipment. The "deep groove" pressings were made on older pressing machines, where the groove was an artifact of the metal stamper being affixed to a round center "block" to assure the resulting record would be centered. Newer machines used parts with a slightly different geometry, that only left a small "ledge" where the deep groove used to be. This changeover did not happen all at once, as different plants replaced machines at different times, leaving

42840-445: The loaned trademarks and catalog of master recordings made prior to December 3, 1931, reverted to Warner Bros. Pictures. The Columbia trademark from this point until the late 1950s was two overlapping circles with the Magic Notes in the left circle and a CBS microphone in the right circle. The Royal Blue labels were dropped in favor of a deep red, which caused RCA Victor to claim infringement on its famous Red Seal trademark (RCA lost

43092-452: The local dance hall culture, which featured 'specials,' unique mixes or 'versions' pressed on soft discs or acetate discs, and rappers (called DJs) such as King Stitt , Count Machuki, U-Roy , I-Roy , Big Youth and many others. Recordings of talk-over, which is a different style from the dancehall's DJ style, were also made by Jamaican artists such as Prince Buster and Lee "Scratch" Perry ( Judge Dread ) as early as 1967, somehow rooted in

43344-499: The low 2000s. Columbia's engineering department developed a process for emulating stereo from a mono source. They called this process "Electronically Rechanneled for Stereo". In the June 16, 1962, issue of Billboard magazine (page 5), Columbia announced it would issue "rechanneled" versions of greatest hits compilations that had been recorded in mono, including albums by Doris Day, Frankie Laine, Percy Faith, Mitch Miller, Marty Robbins, Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, and Johnny Mathis. By

43596-552: The mid-1980s and mid-1990s that also developed hip hop's own album era . The gangsta rap subgenre , focused on the violent lifestyles and impoverished conditions of inner-city African American youth, gained popularity at this time. West Coast hip hop was dominated by G-funk in the early-mid 1990s, while East Coast hip hop was dominated by jazz rap , alternative hip hop , and hardcore hip hop . Hip hop continued to diversify at this time with other regional styles emerging, such as Southern rap and Atlanta hip hop . Hip hop became

43848-454: The mid-late 2010s and early 2020s. In 2017, rock music was usurped by hip hop as the most popular genre in the United States. In recent years, hip hop's influence has transcended musical boundaries, impacting fashion, language, and cultural trends worldwide. Amidst its evolution, hip hop has also been a vehicle for social commentary and political expression, reflecting the struggles and aspirations of marginalized communities. From its roots in

44100-408: The mono and stereo numbers for two years. Masterworks classical LPs had an MS 6000 series, while showtunes albums on Masterworks were OS 2000. Finally, in 1960, the pop stereo series jumped from 8300 to 8310 to match Lambert, Hendricks & Ross Sing Ellington , the Lambert, Hendricks & Ross album issued as CL-1510. From that point, the stereo numbers on pop albums were exactly 6800 higher than

44352-402: The mono; stereo classical albums were the mono number plus 600; and showtunes releases were the mono number MINUS 3600. Only the last two digits in the respective catalog series' matched. Pop stereo LPs got into the high 9000s by 1970, when CBS Records revamped and unified its catalog numbering system across all its labels. Masterworks classical albums were in the 7000s, while showtunes stayed in

44604-536: The more prominent based disc jockeys ... He is also responsible for the derivation of the 'Hip-Hop'." Lovebug Starsky is also credited for the term by Afrika Bambaataa in a January 1982 interview by Michael Holman in the East Village Eye . Holman stating "Hip hop: the all inclusive tag for the rapping, breaking, graffiti-writing, crew fashion wearing street sub-culture." The term gained further currency in September of that year in another Bambaataa interview in The Village Voice , by Steven Hager , later author of

44856-400: The music scene outside of New York City; it could be found in cities as diverse as Los Angeles, Atlanta , Chicago, Washington, D.C., Baltimore , Dallas , Kansas City , San Antonio , Miami, Seattle , St. Louis , New Orleans , Houston , and Toronto . Indeed, " Funk You Up " (1979), the first hip hop record released by a female group, and the second single released by Sugar Hill Records ,

45108-505: The name CBS Records to avoid confusion with EMI 's Columbia Graphophone Company . Columbia is one of Sony Music's four flagship record labels: Epic Records , and former longtime rivals, RCA Records and Arista Records as the latter two were originally owned by BMG before its 2008 relaunch after Sony's acquisition alongside other BMG labels. The Columbia Phonograph Company was founded on January 15, 1889, by stenographer, lawyer, and New Jersey native Edward D. Easton (1856–1915) and

45360-426: The name; Paley acquired the fledgling radio network in 1928.) On January 3, 1939, Wallerstein left RCA Victor to become president of the CBS phonograph subsidiary, a position he would hold for twelve years. CBS kept the ARC name for three months. then on April 4, it amended the New York Department of State record of "Columbia Phonograph Company, Inc.," naming several of its own employees to directorships, and announced in

45612-399: The now accepted medium of the record business." Despite Wallerstein's stormy tenure, in June 1948, Columbia introduced the Long Playing "microgroove" LP record format (sometimes written "Lp" in early advertisements), which rotated at 33⅓ revolutions per minute , to be the standard for the gramophone record for forty years. CBS research director Dr. Peter Goldmark played a managerial role in

45864-406: The people who helped establish hip hop culture, including DJ Kool Herc , DJ Disco Wiz , Grandmaster Flash , and Afrika Bambaataa were of Latin American or Caribbean origin. DJ Kool Herc is widely recognized as the creator of hip hop, credited with pioneering the technique of extending the instrumental "breakbeat" on a record during a party in the Bronx on August 11, 1973, which is considered to be

46116-446: The percussion breaks, creating a musical accompaniment or base that could be rapped over in a manner similar to signifying . Rapping , also referred to as MCing or emceeing, is a vocal style in which the artist speaks lyrically and rhythmically, in rhyme and verse, generally to an instrumental or synthesized beat . Beats, almost always in 4/4 time signature , can be created by sampling and/or sequencing portions of other songs by

46368-400: The play named Bayes says: "Ay, is't not, I gad, ha? For, to go off hip hop, hip hop, upon this occasion, is a thousand times better than any conclusion in the world, I gad." This play and two other later sources are mentioned as an entry "Hip-hop" in a multi-volume dictionary from 1901 called A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles , in Volume 5 H to K , on page 296; the definition

46620-414: The positive reception, DJs began isolating the percussive breaks of popular songs. This technique was common in Jamaican dub music , and was largely introduced into New York by immigrants from the Caribbean, including DJ Kool Herc, one of the pioneers of hip hop. Herc has repeatedly denied any direct connections between Jamaican musical traditions and early hip hop, stating that his own biggest influence

46872-462: The possibility that both deep groove and ledge varieties could be original pressings. The changeover took place starting in late 1961. In 1961, CBS ended its arrangement with Philips Records and formed its own international organization, CBS Records International , in 1962. This subsidiary label released Columbia recordings outside the US and Canada on the CBS label (until 1964 marketed by Philips in Britain). The recordings could not be released under

47124-405: The practice of the entire subculture. The term hip hop music is sometimes used synonymously with the term rap music , though rapping is not a required component of hip hop music; the genre may also incorporate other elements of the culture, including DJing , turntablism , scratching , beatboxing , and instrumental tracks . Hip hop as both a musical genre and a culture was formed during

47376-450: The predominance of songs packed with a mix of boasting, 'slackness' and sexual innuendo and a more topical, political, socially conscious style. The role of the MC originally was as a Master of Ceremonies for a DJ dance event. The MC would introduce the DJ and try to pump up the audience. The MC spoke between the DJ's songs, urging everyone to get up and dance. MCs would also tell jokes and use their energetic language and enthusiasm to rev up

47628-416: The recording and manufacturing of wax cylinder records after arranging to issue celluloid cylinder records made by the Indestructible Record Company of Albany, New York , as "Columbia Indestructible Records". In July 1912, Columbia decided to concentrate exclusively on disc records and ended production of cylinder phonographs, although Indestructible cylinders continued to be sold under the Columbia label for

47880-412: The reggae world but when I worked with Damian, the whole workout was perfect". A portion of the profit was planned to go towards building a school in Africa. He went on to say that it was "too early to tell the title or anything like that". The Los Angeles Times reported that the album would be titled Distant Relatives . Nas also revealed that he would begin working on his tenth studio album following

48132-462: The release of Distant Relatives . During late 2009, Nas used his live band Mulatto with music director Dustin Moore for concerts in Europe and Australia. After announcing a possible release in 2010, a follow-up compilation to The Lost Tapes (2002) was delayed indefinitely due to issues between him and Def Jam. His eleventh studio album, Life Is Good (2012) was produced primarily by Salaam Remi and No I.D, and released on July 13, 2012. Nas called

48384-402: The restored first electrical sound recording system from the 1920s. He performed "On the Road Again", a 1928 song by the Memphis Jug Band , which The Hollywood Reporter describing his performance as "fantastic" and the Financial Times praising his "superb cover of the Memphis Jug Band's "On the Road Again", exposing the hip-hop blueprint within the 1928 stomper." "On the Road Again", and

48636-400: The roster and catalogue was moved to Columbia Masterworks Records . Columbia released its first pop stereo albums in the summer of 1958. All of the first dozen or so were stereo versions of albums already available in mono. It was not until September 1958, that Columbia began simultaneous mono/stereo releases. Mono versions of otherwise stereo recordings were discontinued in 1968. To celebrate

48888-497: The same rhyming, cadence laden rap style. Once the white owned stations realized the new upstarts were grabbing their black market share and that Big Band and swing jazz was no longer 'hip', some white DJ's emulated the southern 'mushmouth' and jive talk, letting their audience think they too were African American, playing the blues and Be-Bop . John R Richbourg had a southern drawl that listeners to Nashville's WLAC nighttime R&B programming were never informed belonged not to

49140-411: The same time however, hip hop music was also a backlash against certain subgenres of late 1970s disco. While the early disco was African American and Italian-American-created underground music developed by DJs and producers for the dance club subculture, by the late 1970s, disco airwaves were dominated by mainstream, expensively recorded music industry -produced disco songs. According to Kurtis Blow ,

49392-459: The same year, Columbia executive Frank Buckley Walker pioneered some of the first country music or "hillbilly" genre recordings with the Johnson City sessions in Tennessee, including artists such as Clarence Horton Greene and "Fiddlin'" Charlie Bowman . He followed that with a return to Tennessee the next year, as well as recording sessions in other cities of the South. Moran and Mack as The Two Black Crows 1926 recording 'The Early Bird Catches

49644-447: The second Time cover story on a jazz musician (the first featured Louis Armstrong 's picture) had been earned by Duke Ellington , not himself. Within two years Ellington's picture would appear on the cover of Time , following his success at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival. Ellington at Newport , recorded on Columbia, was also the bandleader-composer-pianist's best-selling album. Moreover, this exclusive trinity of jazz giants featured on

49896-415: The show, Jay-Z announced to the crowd, "It's bigger than 'I Declare War'. Let's go, Esco!" and Nas then joined him onstage, and the two performed Jay-Z's " Dead Presidents " (1996) together, a song that featured a prominent sample of Nas's 1994 track, " The World Is Yours " (1994). The reconciliation between Nas and Jay-Z created the opportunity for Nas to sign a deal with Def Jam Recordings , of which Jay-Z

50148-493: The sixth and final collaboration between Nas and Hit-Boy on an album. On April 19, 2024, it was announced for the 30th anniversary of Illmatic, that Nas and DJ Premier would be releasing their collaboration album in late 2024. Nas executive produced the 2024 concept album by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Eisa Davis , Warriors . Nas has been praised for his ability to create a "devastating match between lyrics and production" by journalist Peter Shapiro , as well as creating

50400-408: The song " East Coast/West Coast Killas " from Dr. Dre Presents the Aftermath . In late 1998, Nas began working on a double album, to be entitled I Am... The Autobiography ; he intended it as the middle ground between Illmatic and It Was Written , with each track detailing a part of his life. In 1998, Nas co-wrote and starred in Hype Williams 's feature film Belly . I Am... The Autobiography

50652-476: The song "One on One" for the soundtrack to the film Street Fighter . In his book To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic , William Jelani Cobb writes of Nas's impact at the time: Nas, the poetic sage of the Queensbridge projects, was hailed as the second coming of Rakim —as if the first had reached his expiration date. [...] Nas never became 'the next Rakim,' nor did he really have to. Illmatic stood on its own terms. The sublime lyricism of

50904-401: The song on his 2001 album The Blueprint , Nas responded with the song " Ether ", from his album Stillmatic , with both fans and critics saying that the song had effectively saved Nas's career and marked his return to prominence, and almost unanimously agreeing Nas had won their feud. Jay-Z responded with a freestyle over the instrumental to Nas's " Got Ur Self a Gun ", known as "Supa Ugly". In

51156-543: The song that first popularized rap music in the United States and around the world. In 1982, Afrika Bambaataa released the single " Planet Rock ", which incorporated electronica elements from Kraftwerk 's " Trans-Europe Express " and "Numbers" as well as YMO 's "Riot in Lagos". The Planet Rock sound also spawned a hip-hop electronic dance trend, electro music , which included songs such as Planet Patrol 's "Play at Your Own Risk" (1982), C Bank's "One More Shot" (1982), Cerrone 's "Club Underworld" (1984), Shannon 's " Let

51408-435: The song, Jay-Z makes reference to Nas's girlfriend and daughter, going into graphic detail about having an affair with his girlfriend. Jay-Z's mother was personally disgusted by the song, and demanded he apologise to Nas and his family, which he did in December 2001 on Hot 97 . "Supa Ugly" marked the last direct diss song between Jay-Z and Nas, however, the two continued to trade subliminals on their subsequent releases. The feud

51660-513: The technical standard of Columbia's Grand Opera series was not considered to be as high as the results achieved with opera singers during the pre–World War I period by Victor, Edison, England's His Master's Voice (The Gramophone Company Ltd.) or Italy's Fonotipia Records . After an abortive attempt in 1904 to manufacture discs with the recording grooves stamped into both sides of each disc—not just one—in 1908 Columbia commenced successful mass production of what they called their "Double-Faced" discs,

51912-430: The time. However, the compilations were so successful that they led to Columbia doing such packages on a widespread basis, usually when an artist's career was in decline. Although Columbia began recording in stereo in 1956, stereo LPs did not begin to be manufactured until 1958. One of Columbia's first stereo releases was an abridged and re-structured performance of Handel 's Messiah by the New York Philharmonic and

52164-427: The title of first hip hop record. By the early 1980s, all the major elements and techniques of the hip hop genre were in place, and by 1982, the electronic (electro) sound had become the trend on the street and in dance clubs. New York City radio station WKTU featured Warp 9 's " Nunk ", in a commercial to promote the station's signature sound of emerging hip hop Though not yet mainstream, hip hop had begun to permeate

52416-528: The top recording company in the world, boasting a star-studded roster of artists and an unmatched catalogue of popular, jazz, classical and stage and screen soundtrack titles. Lieberson, who had joined Columbia as an A&R manager in 1938, was known for both his personal elegance and his dedication to quality, overseeing the release of many hugely successful albums and singles, as well as championing prestige releases that sold relatively poorly, and even some titles that had limited appeal, such as complete editions of

52668-402: The trademarks and masters of the Brunswick, Vocalion , and Melotone labels to ARC. WB would receive a portion of the sales of its catalogues, while ARC was free to use the labels for new recordings. Brunswick immediately became the premium $ .75 label, Melotone would release new hillbilly and other $ .35 dime-store discounted discs, and Vocalion, while re-releasing prior ARC records, would also be

52920-405: The two modern jazz artists who would in 1959 record albums that remain—more than sixty years later—among the best-selling jazz albums by any label—viz., Time Out by the Brubeck Quartet and, to an even greater extent, Kind of Blue by the Davis Sextet, which, in 2003, appeared as number 12 in Rolling Stone 's list of the "500 Greatest Albums Of All Time". With another producer, Teo Macero ,

53172-412: The use of breakbeats, including cutting and scratching. As turntable manipulation continued to evolve a new technique that came from it was needle dropping. Needle dropping was created by Grandmaster Flash, it is prolonged short drum breaks by playing two copies of a record simultaneously and moving the needle on one turntable back to the start of the break while the other played. The approach used by Herc

53424-404: The voice of a woman ('Sekou Story') and even of a gun ('I Gave You Power')." Robert Christgau writes that "Nas has been transfiguring [ gangsta rap ] since Illmatic ". Kool Moe Dee notes that Nas has an "off-beat conversational flow" in his book There's a God on the Mic – he says: "before Nas, every MC focused on rhyming with a cadence that ultimately put the words that rhymed on beat with

53676-419: The word "nigger", Nas called him "the biggest player hater", stating "His time is up. All you old niggas' time is up. We heard your voice, we saw your marching, we heard your sermons. We don't want to hear that shit no more. It's a new day. It's a new voice. I'm here now. We don't need Jesse; I'm here. I got this. We the voice now. It's no more Jesse. Sorry. Goodbye. You ain't helping nobody in the 'hood and that's

53928-399: The works of Arnold Schoenberg and Anton von Webern . One of his first major successes was the original Broadway cast album of My Fair Lady , which sold over 5 million copies worldwide in 1957, becoming the most successful LP ever released up to that time. Lieberson also convinced long-serving CBS President William S. Paley to become the sole backer of the original Broadway production,

54180-419: The world to consumers of its social concerns." In late 1979, Debbie Harry of Blondie took Nile Rodgers of Chic to such an event, as the main backing track used was the break from Chic's " Good Times ". The new style influenced Harry, and Blondie's later hit single from 1981 " Rapture " became the first single containing hip hop elements to hit number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 —the song itself

54432-431: Was James Brown , from whom he says rap originated. Even before moving to the U.S., Herc says his biggest influences came from American music: I was listening to American music in Jamaica and my favorite artist was James Brown. That's who inspired me. A lot of the records I played were by James Brown. Herc also says that he was not influenced by Jamaican sound system parties, as he was too young to experience them when he

54684-408: Was 10 pages. Columbia's ties to Edison were severed in 1894 with the North American Phonograph Company 's breakup. Thereafter, it sold only records and phonographs of its own manufacture. In 1902, Columbia introduced the "XP" record, a molded brown wax record, to use up old stock. Columbia introduced black wax records in 1903. According to one source, they continued to mold brown waxes until 1904 with

54936-449: Was Jamaican. The roots of rap in Jamaica are explained in detail in Bruno Blum 's book, 'Le Rap'. DJ Kool Herc and Coke La Rock provided an influence on the vocal style of rapping by delivering simple poetry verses over funk music breaks, after party-goers showed little interest in their previous attempts to integrate reggae-infused toasting into musical sets. DJs and MCs would often add call and response chants, often consisting of

55188-480: Was a 'slow jam' which had a dub influence with its use of reverb and echo as texture and playful sound effects. " Light Years Away ", by Warp 9 (1983), (produced and written by Lotti Golden and Richard Scher) described as a "cornerstone of early 80s beatbox afrofuturism," by the UK paper, The Guardian , introduced social commentary from a sci-fi perspective. In the 1970s, hip hop music typically used samples from funk and later, from disco. The mid-1980s marked

55440-436: Was a commercial failure, over the course of the decade the 808 attracted a cult following among underground musicians for its affordability on the used market, ease of use, and idiosyncratic sounds, particularly its deep, "booming" bass drum . It became a cornerstone of the emerging electronic, dance, and hip hop genres, popularized by early hits such as Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force 's " Planet Rock ". The 808

55692-419: Was a shell corporation set up by Consolidated Films Industries, Inc. ("CFI") to hold the Columbia stock, while its subsidiary, American Record Corporation ("ARC"), operated the label. This assumption grew out of the ease which CFI later exhibited in selling Columbia in 1938. On December 3, 1931, CFI made a deal with Warner Brothers Pictures, Inc. ("WB") to lease Brunswick Record Corporation , which included

55944-412: Was acquired by the Grigsby-Grunow Company , the manufacturers of Majestic radios and refrigerators. When Grigsby-Grunow declared bankruptcy in November 1933, Columbia was placed in receivership, and in June 1934, the company was sold to Sacro Enterprises Inc. ("Sacro") for $ 70,000. Sacro was incorporated a few days before the sale in New York. Public documents do not contain any names. Many suspect that it

56196-422: Was also awarded 'Emcee of the Year' in the HipHopDX 2008 Awards for his latest solo effort, the quality of his appearances on other albums and was described as having "become an artist who thrives off of reinvention and going against the system." At the 2009 Grammy Awards , Nas confirmed he was collaborating on an album with reggae singer Damian Marley which was expected to be released in late 2009. Nas said of

56448-472: Was also considered to be the first genuine concept album . Since the term "LP" has come to refer to the 12-inch 33 + 1 ⁄ 3 rpm vinyl disk, the first LP is the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor played by Nathan Milstein with Bruno Walter conducting the New York Philharmonic (then called the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York), Columbia ML 4001, found in the Columbia Record Catalog for 1949, published in July 1948. The other "LP's" listed in

56700-430: Was born multicultural", gaining influences from African American and Anglo-Caribbean musical traditions, as well as African American and Latin American dancing traditions. Hip hop music in its infancy has been described as an outlet and a voice for the disenfranchised youth of marginalized backgrounds and low-income areas, as the hip hop culture reflected the social, economic and political realities of their lives. Many of

56952-430: Was brought to tears when he heard the diss because he idolized 2Pac. The two later met in Central Park before the 1996 MTV Video Music Awards and ended their feud, with 2Pac promising to remove any disses aimed at Nas from the official album release; however, 2Pac was shot four times in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas , Nevada , three days later on September 7, dying of his wounds on September 13, before any edits to

57204-468: Was called "disco rap". Ironically, the rise of hip hop music also played a role in the eventual decline in disco's popularity. The disco sound had a strong influence on early hip hop music. Most of the early rap/hip-hop songs were created by isolating existing disco bass-guitar bass lines and dubbing over them with MC rhymes. the Sugarhill Gang used Chic 's " Good Times " as the foundation for their 1979 hit " Rapper's Delight ", generally considered to be

57456-403: Was chiefly produced by Tone and Poke of the Trackmasters , as Nas consciously worked towards a crossover-oriented sound. Columbia Records had begun to pressure Nas to work towards more commercial topics, such as that of The Notorious B.I.G. and had become successful by releasing street singles that still retained radio-friendly appeal. The album also expanded on Nas's Escobar persona, who lived

57708-428: Was completed in early 1999, and a music video was shot for its lead single, " Nas Is Like ". It was produced by DJ Premier and contained vocal samples from " It Ain't Hard to Tell ". Music critic M.F. DiBella noticed that Nas also covered "politics, the state of hip-hop, Y2K , race , and religion with his own unique perspective" in the album besides autobiographical lyrics. Much of the LP was leaked into MP3 format onto

57960-473: Was completed, Combs requested his crucifixion scene be edited out of the video. However, the unedited copy of the "Hate Me Now" video made its way to MTV. Within minutes of the broadcast, Combs and his bodyguards allegedly made their way into Steve Stoute 's office and assaulted him, at one point apparently hitting Stoute over the head with a champagne bottle. Stoute pressed charges, but he and Combs settled out-of-court that June. Columbia had scheduled to release

58212-425: Was critical in the power struggle between Nas and Jay-Z in the hip-hop industry at the time. In an article at the time, Joseph Jones of PopMatters stated, "Whether you like it or not, "Ether" did this. With God's Son , Nas has the opportunity to cement his status as the King of NY, at least for another 3-4-year term, or he could prove that he is not the savior that hip-hop fans should be pinning their hopes on." After

58464-455: Was declining, artistically and commercially, as both I Am... and Nastradamus were criticized as inconsistent and overtly-commercialized. In 2000, Nas & Ill Will Records Presents QB's Finest , which is popularly known as simply QB's Finest , was released on Nas's Ill Will Records . QB's Finest is a compilation album that featured Nas and a number of other rappers from Queensbridge projects, including Mobb Deep , Nature , Capone ,

58716-406: Was dominated by groups where collaboration between the members was integral to the show. An example would be the early hip hop group Funky Four Plus One , who performed in such a manner on Saturday Night Live in 1981. The earliest hip hop music was performed live, at house parties and block party events, and it was not recorded. DJs would play breaks from popular songs using two turntables and

58968-515: Was eventually used on more hit records than any other drum machine; its popularity with hip hop in particular has made it one of the most influential inventions in popular music, comparable to the Fender Stratocaster 's influence on rock. Over time sampling technology became more advanced. However, earlier producers such as Marley Marl used drum machines to construct their beats from small excerpts of other beats in synchronisation , in his case, triggering three Korg sampling-delay units through

59220-417: Was hired by Wallerstein as "Associate Director Popular Recording" (at 7th Ave). Another executive from ARC, Art Satherley , was not expected to transition over as easily. "It is understood that CBS and the Levys are not interested in retaining American Record's hillbilly department, and that Art Satherly, who has been running this section for many years, will take it out of the company with him". Fortunately, to

59472-437: Was in Jamaica. In a 2020 interview, DJ Kool Herc's sister Cindy Campbell said that she wanted Jamaica to reclaim hip hop because, as she put it, "we are the ones who bought the style and the technique to America, which [later] became hip-hop." Because the percussive breaks in funk, soul and disco records were generally short, Herc and other DJs began using two turntables to extend the breaks. On August 11, 1973, DJ Kool Herc

59724-408: Was inefficient and therefore needlessly costly. Starting in the summer of 1959 with some of the albums released in August, they went to the "paste-over" front slick, which had the stereo information printed on the top and the mono information printed on the bottom. For stereo issues, they moved the front slick down so the stereo information was showing at the top, and the mono information was bent around

59976-410: Was instrumental in steering Paley towards the ARC purchase. He set his talents to his goal of hearing an entire movement of a symphony on one side of an album. Ward Botsford writing for the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Issue of High Fidelity Magazine relates: "He was no inventor—he was simply a man who seized an idea whose time was ripe and begged, ordered, and cajoled a thousand men into bringing into being

60228-541: Was mainly produced by Hit-Boy; however, it was notably Nas's first studio album to forgo any guest appearances from outside artists. Upon release, King's Disease III would become one of the most critically acclaimed albums of Nas's career, becoming his highest-scoring new studio album on review aggregator Metacritic and receiving critical praise for the cohesion of Hit-Boy's production with Nas's storytelling and lyricism. Praising King's Disease III, British music publication NME stated that Nas, "three decades in, [is] still

60480-549: Was named the "Greatest MC of All Time" by About.com in 2014. The following year, Nas was featured on the "10 Best Rappers of All Time" list by Billboard . Outside of recording, he serves as associate publisher of Mass Appeal magazine, and co-founded its spin-off division Mass Appeal Records , a record label that has signed artists including Dave East , N.O.R.E. , Run the Jewels , and Swizz Beatz , among others. Nas has released seventeen studio albums since 1994, ten of which are certified gold , platinum or multi-platinum in

60732-412: Was not something that changed at a certain date, but rather, pressing plants were told to use up the stock of old (pre-CBS) labels first, resulting in a mixture of labels for some given releases. Some are known with the CBS text on mono albums, and not on stereo of the same album, and vice versa; diggings brought up pressings with the CBS text on one side and not on the other. Many, but certainly not all, of

60984-410: Was officially brought to an end in 2005, when Jay-Z and Nas performed on stage together in a surprise concert also featuring P. Diddy , Kanye West and Beanie Sigel . The following year, Nas signed with Def Jam Recordings , of which Jay-Z then served as president. After Nas was removed from the 2002 Summer Jam lineup due to allegedly planning to perform the song Ether while a mock lynching of

61236-438: Was performed by the Sequence , a group from Columbia, South Carolina which featured Angie Stone . Despite the genre's growing popularity, Philadelphia was, for many years, the only city whose contributions could be compared to New York City's. Hip hop music became popular in Philadelphia in the late 1970s. The first released record was titled "Rhythm Talk", by Jocko Henderson . The New York Times had dubbed Philadelphia

61488-491: Was president at the time. Jay-Z signed Nas on January 23, 2006; the signing included an agreement that Nas was to be paid about $ 3,000,000, including a recording budget, for each of his first two albums with Def Jam. Tentatively called Hip Hop Is Dead...The N , Hip Hop Is Dead was a commentary on the state of hip-hop and featured "Black Republican", a hyped collaboration with Jay-Z. The album debuted on Def Jam and Nas new imprint at that label, The Jones Experience, at No. 1 on

61740-407: Was ranked fourth on MTV's "Hottest MCs in the Game" list. His debut, Illmatic , is widely considered among the greatest hip hop albums of all time. After 2Pac interpreted lines directed to the Notorious B.I.G. on Nas's 1996 album It Was Written to be aimed towards him, he attacked Nas on the track "Against All Odds" from The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory . Nas himself later admitted he

61992-490: Was released months before the album's release, followed by the single " Bridging the Gap " upon the album's release. Although Street's Disciple went platinum , it served as a drop-off from Nas's previous commercial successes. In 2005, New York-based rapper 50 Cent dissed Nas on his song " Piggy Bank ", which brought his reputation into question in hip-hop circles. In October, Nas made a surprise appearance at Jay-Z's "I Declare War" concert, where they reconciled their beef. At

62244-401: Was soon widely copied, and by the late 1970s, DJs were releasing 12-inch records where they would rap to the beat. Popular tunes included Kurtis Blow 's " The Breaks " and the Sugarhill Gang 's " Rapper's Delight ". Herc and other DJs would connect their equipment to power lines and perform at venues such as public basketball courts and at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, Bronx, New York, now officially

62496-426: Was tall and solid; it was modified in 1961 to the familiar one still used today (pictured on this page), despite the fact that the Walking Eye was used only sporadically during most of the 1990s. Although the big band era had passed, Columbia had Duke Ellington under contract for several years, capturing the historic moment when Ellington's band provoked a post-midnight frenzy (followed by international headlines) at

62748-408: Was the 10" LP reissue of The Voice of Frank Sinatra , originally released on March 4, 1946, as an album of four 78 rpm records, which was the first pop album issued in the new LP format. Sinatra was arguably Columbia's hottest commodity and his artistic vision combined with the direction Columbia were taking the medium of music, both popular and classic, were well suited. The Voice of Frank Sinatra

63000-412: Was the DJ at his sister's back-to-school party. He extended the beat of a record by using two record players, isolating the percussion "breaks" by using a mixer to switch between the two records. Herc's experiments with making music with record players became what we now know as breaking or " scratching ". A second key musical element in hip hop music is emceeing (also called MCing or rapping). Emceeing

63252-564: Was the language of the black youth, the double entendres and slightly obscene wordplay was a godsend to radio, re-invigorating ratings at flagging outlets that were losing audience share and flipping to the new format of R&B with black announcers . The 10% of African Americans who heard his broadcasts found that the music he promoted on radio in 1949 was also in the jukeboxes up north in the cities. They were also finding other D.J's like Chicago's Al Benson on WJJD , Austin's Doctor Hep Cat on KVET and Atlanta's Jockey Jack on WERD speaking

63504-488: Was the oldest surviving record label. The repercussions of the stock market Crash of 1929 and subsequent Great Depression led to the near collapse of the entire recording industry and, in March 1931, J.P Morgan, the major shareholder, steered the Columbia Graphophone Company (along with Odeon records and Parlophone , which it had owned since 1926) into a merger with the Gramophone Company ("His Master's Voice") to form Electric and Musical Industries Ltd ( EMI ). Since

#791208