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TO THE BREAK OF DAWN WILLIAM JELANI COBB TO THE BREAK OF D AWN A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic a New York University Press • New York and London For Don-Dee & Deb:The Best Man & Woman new y ork university press New York and London www.nyupress.org © 2007 by New York University All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cobb, William Jelani. To the break of dawn : a freestyle on the hip hop aesthetic / William Jelani Cobb. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN–13: 978–0–8147–1670–0 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN–10: 0–8147–1670–9 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Hip-hop. I. Title. ML3918.R37C63 2006 782.421649—dc22 2006029844 New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 In spite of and because of marginal status ,a powerful,indigenous vernacular tradition has survived,not unbroken,but unbowed,a magnet,a focused energy,something with its own logic,rules and integrity connecting current developments to the past. An articu- late,syncretizing force our artists have drawn upon, a force sus- taining both individual talent and tradition. —John Edgar Wideman You criticize our methods Of how we make records You said it wasn’t art So now we’re gonna rip you apart —Stetsasonic,“Talking All That Jazz” Contents Microphone Check: An Intro 1 1 The Roots 13 2 The Score 41 3 Word of Mouth 77 4 Asphalt Chronicles: Hip Hop and the Storytelling Tradition 107 5 Seven MCs 139 Conclusion 167 Shout Outs 171 Notes 175 Index 183 About the Author 200 vii Microphone Check An Intro NEW YORK,CIRCA 1986 That was us: the sweat-baptized, blue-light basement apostles of the breakbeat. We, the b-boy delegates of our five-borough universe, eyes hidden beneath baseball caps pulled low, uniformed in ?Guess, Kangol, and Adidas Olympic Team training gear. Our ranks cued waaayback to the subway lines that had delivered us to this place: Union Square, the nightspot deriving its name from the section of Manhattan whereit was located. If you came from around our way, South Queens, specifically, then you gathered your tribe at 163rd Street and Hillside Ave and took the E to Lexington. Then you caught the downtown #6 to 14th Street, which delivered you to the far end of the Square. At the front you encountered Muscle D, a brother swollen to a rip- pled abstraction, barely contained by his nylon tees and capable of lit- erally moving the crowd. Down below was a consecrated dance-floor, the theater for our repertoire of movements: the Wop, the Rambo, the Fila, the Biz, the Prep. The true disciple could tell you that Rakim was there, the headlining act on the opening night at Union Square. That disciple would know that Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince were to be the second act. Or that Biz-Markie rolled up in that spot on the reg, self-ad- vertising with the boldfaced B-I-Z emblazoned on his cap—as if he was worried you would mistake him for Kool Moe Dee. You would remem- ber the smell of it, if you had ever been there, the blunt-heavy air mixed with sweat, leather, Polo cologne, and some other indefinable ele- ment—a calibrated cool, perhaps—that we were so filled with that it must have seeped from our pores into the atmosphere also. This is my romantic memory of the distant past. But the charitable will indulge my personal mythologizing for a moment. 1

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With roots that stretch from West Africa through the black pulpit, hip-hop emerged in the streets of the South Bronx in the 1970s and has spread to the farthest corners of the earth. To the Break of Dawn uniquely examines this freestyle verbal artistry on its own terms. A kid from Queens who spent h