Hip Hop Appreciation Week Pt 5

Mixtape 5 of 5 Back to the Roots

Finally the end of my set, but certainly not the end of my devotion to all things Hip Hop. While Eminem had got me back into rap with the Marshall Mathers LP, it was a couple of hooligans from Adelaide with a CD called The Calling that I borrowed from the library who got me passionate again. The rise of Australian Hip Hop made me realise there was a way forward - upwards and out of the gangsta quagmire. ...giggidy ;)

• Hilltop Hoods - 1979 : It wasn't til after I had lent The Calling that I discovered Hilltop Hoods and downloaded Matter Of Time from their website archives. This song for me covers everything I've been saying about where rap went wrong and how it can be fixed. Plus, you can feel a genuine passion for the culture in every rhyme Suffa and Pressure drop. "It's not Hip Hop / It's something more sad, sick and seedy / What's popping that Gucci got to do with graffiti?"

• Bliss N Eso - That Feeling : Thanks to my initial foray into Skip Hop, I discovered Bliss N Eso via an iTunes free song of the week. Again, these guys had a love for the culture and were telling their own tales of how they got into it, where it took them and where it's heading. It genuinely felt good to hear people tell stories like my own - much the way I figure Bronx kids felt when Run DMC blew up. It got me all the more passionate about the music and made me rediscover the old school stuff I used to love.

• Pegz - Back Then : Yet another great Australian Hip Hop song about the old days of the culture from an AU perspective. When Pegz says "Who remembers Ice-T was king? Flat tops were in, Swatches were bling" you just try and stop me putting my hand up (with my Swatch on).

• Hilltop Hoods - The Calling: As mentioned, this was really the album that put me firmly back on the Hip Hop track. This song is an ode to the almost religious hold of the culture and being down for the joy of it and not for money, fame or girls. "So from the cradle to the grave, turntable to holy father / I swear I didn't slit my wrists, I've got the Hip Hop stigmata".

• Public Enemy - So Whatcha Gone Do Now? : The first piece of positive flow I had heard come out of America for a while was of course from the great PE. On this track, PE use soundbites from Spike Lee's School Daze from the likes of Laurence Fishburne and Giancarlo Esposito to punctuate Chuck D's rant about what he percieves is a lack of self respect from the men in his race. Chuck spits vitriol at those who are "talking that drive-by $#!&", "that gangsta $#!&" and call each other by the N word. And, like Fishburne's Dap in School Daze says when an arch rival accuses "You're all N----s just like us, and you're gonna be N----s forever." Chuck's point is "You're Not N----s".

• Hilltop Hoods - She's So Ugly : So you can probably guess the importance of the Hoods to me with three tracks in my final ten. State of the Art dropped this year and it continues the great work of the Adelaide trio with rhymes that mean something, that have a tale to tell and do it with impressive flow. This track again touches on what others have been saying about Hip Hop being at a low point - with the great sample "Hip Hop right now she's an ugly b!%#&" At the same time, the Hoods again proclaim how much they once loved 'her'.

• Brother Ali - Watcha Got : I don't recall how I found Brother Ali, but he has quickly become my favourite US rapper. The hulking albino with a cheeky grin and a whole swag of arrogance has no time for the empty rhymes and disrespect for women and Hip Hop pioneers so prevalent in much of rap in the early 2000s. This track spoke right to me from the opening line "I came in the door 1984, paint on the wall got chased by the law / Once got stole in the face for the flow, was never given a zone, had to create my own." It's like Ali grew up in Perth in the 80s too.

• Nas - Hip Hop Is Dead : Featuring wil.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas and samples from In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida and Apache (the latter fittingly among Hip Hop's earliest and most iconic tracks) Nas proclaims the death of Hip Hop from over-commercialization and the pursuit of conspicuous wealth. Meanwhile, he reminds us what is right about the culture with talk of its pioneers and its roots - proclaiming he's "on my second marriage; Hip Hop's my first wifey."

• Nas - Carry On Tradition : As well as declaring Hip Hop as we know it DOA, Nas offers advice on how to revive it on his 2006 LP Hip Hop Is Dead. Despite some dubious antisemitic statements, this song is a protective hand over the culture demanding that up-and-comers show it respect or get out. As Nas spits, there's no point calling yourself Hip Hop if you can't even quote Daddy Kane.

• Double Dee & Steinski - Lesson 3 History of Hip Hop : Winners of the 1983 Tommy Boy Records remix contest, Double Dee & Steinski were turntablist pioneers who layed down in 3 lessons the bare essentials of just about every iconic cut in Hip Hop history, ever. I have included Lesson 3 as a celebration of the fourth element (DJing).

And so that is my full set of 50. It has been an enjoyable experience writing about the songs that have kept me in Hip Hop's grasp or pulled me back in through all these years. For anyone who read this, I hope you learned a few things and maybe want to go out and hear some new tracks. If you read this and you lived it all too, I hope you felt a little of the joy that reminiscing about all this brought me.

Now throw your hands in the air and wave them like you just don't care... Yes, yes ya'll. And it don't stop.