Early Rap. Does it Sound Dated?

Originally posted on February 15, 2008

What occurs to me when listening to a collection of early rap (First Generation Rap—The Old School Sampler [Collectibles]), is not how the elements in today’s rap are germane to the first things, but how it could have developed at all out of those first attempts.

Grandmaster Flash and Doug E. Fresh, to take two examples, seem little more to me than cheerleaders for the disco scene in general and themselves and the dance audience in particular. That's what it comes out of, of course, but it just doesn't sound like something that will be remembered years from now. Simply said, it doesn’t speak to me at all today.