Fun Fact: At the end of the song, the group does a skit where they are minding their own on a street corner when cops pull up and arrest them. This is the only time Flash & the Furious Five rappers besides Melle Mel appear on the track - the vocals were all Melle and Ed Fletcher. There was a video made for this song which showed Melle and Fletcher doing their verses while the other five guys hang out in the background. The skit gave them a brief acting role in the clip. - This Song Was In The Game Grand Theft Auto Vice City!
I’m so glad someone answered this. I tried to Google and I looked at the image really close but I couldn’t figure it out. I didn’t it was a phone, cause I don’t think cells could run off of battery like that yet. ❤❤
I had a boom box. 8 D batteries. Yep. And battery rechargers were hit and miss in quality. Cell phones did not exist in 1980. Those brick phones seen in old TV shows came out a few years later and they were very very expensive. If the cord wasn't a mic, then perhaps it was for an ear piece. Or it could just be the radio antenna on the boom box and the camera angle the picture was taken with makes it look like a cord. The batteries lasted longer when the boom box was used to blast whatever was on the radio rather than whatever was on the tape in the deck.
Can we go back as far as 1979? And since we're in the holiday season, how about the first one about Christmas? That would be "Christmas Rappin'" by Rap pioneer Kurtis Blow, (1979). This got so much play!
As a Brit who started listening to rap about the mid-90's, and started with NWA, Dre, Cube, Snoop, Pac and Biggie, it wasn't until I started spreading my search for more artists did I realise the backing track wasn't originally from Ice Cube's "Check Yo Self". Agreed, the message certainly did change from rap's earlier period and agreed that's gotta be the industy's influence.
When you incorporate elements of another song without actually sampling them, be it using lyrics or replaying musical elements, it’s called an interpolation. Interpolation can definitely be an homage. The group didn’t actually want to do this song originally because, to this point, hiphop had mostly been party rhymes (like you mentioned in the video) and this was a song with serious subject matter. This song came out and introduced consciousness and reality into rapping, blazing the path for later groups like Public Enemy. As far as sampling, things started to change once hiphop started to prove to be more than a fad and the artists being sampled started to take notice and complain. De La Soul was sued by The Turtles for $2.5 million for using their song “You Showed Me” without permission, but the two sides settled out of court for a reported $1.7 million in 1991. Also in 1991, Biz Markie was sued by Gilbert O’Sullivan for sampling his song “Alone Again (Naturally)”. The court ruled that sampling without permission can be copyright infringement, and from that point all samples had to be cleared or face legal actions.
Thanks guys this properly took me back to a different age. The giant phone reference and your chat about the politics of the system reminded me of the classic "3AM Eternal" by KLF. The video shows the rapper using a old style phone to mimic the electronic part of the main riff. They had multiple big hits in the UK but totally rebelled against the system and deleted their entire back catalogue in 1994 and burnt a real million pounds to leave the industry! It wasn't until 2021 that they relented and allowed their music to be streamed on the mainstream sites. Hope you check them out as the song is an anthem and their story should give you plenty to talk about!
Never will forget the first time i heard this was ironically i was 12 years old and heard on a encyclopedia cd and would listen to that 30 second clip four fives time over... Rap owes this song so much respect
This was my very first introduction , to rap / hip hop music . I remember hearing it on the radio , in the early eighties , and I was sold immediately . Spend the next 3 days , listening to the radio , on my boombox , so I could record it on tape. Yes thats how old I am lol . TY very much for doing this .😊Hope U will do Run DMC with " Its Tricky " at one point , that song is a total vibe ..
🎶 I get my shoes at David’s David’s shoes in East Liberty🎶 There’s a local radio station that this shoe store used to advertise on… they used a sample from this song as their jingle. Sorry but I’m always gonna hear that when I hear this song 😆🤷🏻♀️
Every time I hear this song I remember getting in my ride on GTA Vice City and cruising the streets to this. Even though I knew the song before Vice City really made an impression in my mind that I'll never forget this. Gotta do some Das EFX, ONYX or the Pharcyde next.
Morning guys! Old-school! Love it! This is a great one! It also makes me think of Andre Nickatina's "jungle"... also a great one... but can't beat og stuff like this!😉
Although this was very early in the history of Rap, people didn't hear this until after Run Dmc and the Beastie boys opened the doors from Manhattan to the rest of the world.
"Don't push me 'cause I'm close to the edge!" Original hip-hop. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five "The Message" from 1982. Hip-hop was still a New York thing when this song dropped. Ice-T might be the first rapper from the West coast. I'll leave the details for others to fill in, but regionalism in hip-hop was a decade away from becoming a thing. Also check out Grandmaster Flash "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel", Melle Mel "White Lines (Don't Don't Do It)", Frankie Smith "Double Dutch Bus", The Clash "Radio Clash", Tom Tom Club "Genius of Love", Malcolm McLaren "Buffalo Girls", William Onyeabor "Fantastic Man" ...
Damn I remember listing to this on my old Panasonic boom box when I was 15, bought the cassette tape from Record & Tape World that used to be in Newton Plaza! Yall should definitely check out the video ✌💖☮
there used to be head phones that djs used that looked like an old school phone ....also from my knowledge (i could be off a bit) kool herc was who or was one of the first to blend the breaks from tracks ..and flash perfected it with scratching and back spinning
Record Companies destroyed rap the way they destroyed Grunge or punk. They found a good premise and tried to purposely make it all like that. MTV would not put rap on the air early on. They resisted most black artists. There is a famous interview with David Bowie, of all people, who call them out on it to their face
Another song that addressed similar deep issues wasn't a rap. "Inner City Blues", by the late, great Marvin Gaye, 1971. The groove on these songs make you move, while the lyrics should make you think.
One of the first - still one of the best. You want more OG hip-hop/rap, try Disposable Heroes' "Television". Good points about the change in rap - it got commercialised, and now a lot of rap is simply people bragging about how great they are, their bling and guns, how all the girls want them, etc. Back in the early days, it had a deeper purpose. As the track says, they had a message. And Americans care too much about race - people are people, music is music, and if you're good, you're good - whether you're white, black, yellow, green, or purple.
Speaking on lyrical omaj, Jmann from Mushroomhead says a line from this in the song "Born of Desire" Rats in the front room, roaches in the back Junkies in the alley with a baseball bat
when I was kid I bought this Album in cassette, my close friend borrowed it for a Day, playing this song over and over the same some song last song on the second side, fucker fucked up my cassette, got tight wouldn't turn anymore,,,,,,,,,hahahaha! RIP Harry (my friend)
The thing about the message and other songs similar very little people got message I guess I mean just look at the way things are now should be a lot different
It was big. Karate. Martial arts. That's all. The movies of time. Ninja Turtles. Karate Kid. So on. Everybody was into it whether they were a student or not and if you put it in your own art it was just going to sell it to a demographic.
Can you guys please do Snap! - Who Stole It, where Turbo B has some opinions on samples lol :- D ua-cam.com/video/WhyOHn9ihtE/v-deo.html Also it's a fantastic track. Have a good one guys!
Should do White Lines by Grandmaster Flash next. That's a jam.
And the cover version by Duran Duran w/them!!!
Its a good christmas song
Fun Fact: At the end of the song, the group does a skit where they are minding their own on a street corner when cops pull up and arrest them. This is the only time Flash & the Furious Five rappers besides Melle Mel appear on the track - the vocals were all Melle and Ed Fletcher. There was a video made for this song which showed Melle and Fletcher doing their verses while the other five guys hang out in the background. The skit gave them a brief acting role in the clip.
- This Song Was In The Game Grand Theft Auto Vice City!
This song reminds me that not much has changed in the last 50 years for the different classes. Still have the same problems.
The progression of rap is wild but.. I rock with the old skool cause I'm an OLD HEAD 😎👍🏽
My oldest brother had a boom box like that. The cord was for a microphone. Think it used 8 D batteries for about 4 hours of power.
I’m so glad someone answered this. I tried to Google and I looked at the image really close but I couldn’t figure it out. I didn’t it was a phone, cause I don’t think cells could run off of battery like that yet. ❤❤
I had a boom box. 8 D batteries. Yep. And battery rechargers were hit and miss in quality. Cell phones did not exist in 1980. Those brick phones seen in old TV shows came out a few years later and they were very very expensive. If the cord wasn't a mic, then perhaps it was for an ear piece. Or it could just be the radio antenna on the boom box and the camera angle the picture was taken with makes it look like a cord. The batteries lasted longer when the boom box was used to blast whatever was on the radio rather than whatever was on the tape in the deck.
I had one as a kid.
Can we go back as far as 1979? And since we're in the holiday season, how about the first one about Christmas? That would be "Christmas Rappin'" by Rap pioneer Kurtis Blow, (1979). This got so much play!
I've loved this song for so long, still listen to it regularly. Melle Mel is a rap God ❤
Impossible to not groove to this, no matter your favorite genre of music.
White Lines should be the next one 🙏
As a Brit who started listening to rap about the mid-90's, and started with NWA, Dre, Cube, Snoop, Pac and Biggie, it wasn't until I started spreading my search for more artists did I realise the backing track wasn't originally from Ice Cube's "Check Yo Self".
Agreed, the message certainly did change from rap's earlier period and agreed that's gotta be the industy's influence.
I was about to say, as rappers there’s NO WAY yall haven’t heard this before. The epitome of timeless. 40+ years later and it still bumps crazy hard
Yes, how could you forget? Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were the first rap group ever inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.
When you incorporate elements of another song without actually sampling them, be it using lyrics or replaying musical elements, it’s called an interpolation. Interpolation can definitely be an homage. The group didn’t actually want to do this song originally because, to this point, hiphop had mostly been party rhymes (like you mentioned in the video) and this was a song with serious subject matter. This song came out and introduced consciousness and reality into rapping, blazing the path for later groups like Public Enemy.
As far as sampling, things started to change once hiphop started to prove to be more than a fad and the artists being sampled started to take notice and complain. De La Soul was sued by The Turtles for $2.5 million for using their song “You Showed Me” without permission, but the two sides settled out of court for a reported $1.7 million in 1991. Also in 1991, Biz Markie was sued by Gilbert O’Sullivan for sampling his song “Alone Again (Naturally)”. The court ruled that sampling without permission can be copyright infringement, and from that point all samples had to be cleared or face legal actions.
Y'all gon' have me bustin' out some 80s Breakin' Electric Bugaloo moves! 🤣
Thanks guys this properly took me back to a different age. The giant phone reference and your chat about the politics of the system reminded me of the classic "3AM Eternal" by KLF. The video shows the rapper using a old style phone to mimic the electronic part of the main riff. They had multiple big hits in the UK but totally rebelled against the system and deleted their entire back catalogue in 1994 and burnt a real million pounds to leave the industry! It wasn't until 2021 that they relented and allowed their music to be streamed on the mainstream sites. Hope you check them out as the song is an anthem and their story should give you plenty to talk about!
Never will forget the first time i heard this was ironically i was 12 years old and heard on a encyclopedia cd and would listen to that 30 second clip four fives time over... Rap owes this song so much respect
This was my very first introduction , to rap / hip hop music . I remember hearing it on the radio , in the early eighties , and I was sold immediately . Spend the next 3 days , listening to the radio , on my boombox , so I could record it on tape. Yes thats how old I am lol . TY very much for doing this .😊Hope U will do Run DMC with " Its Tricky " at one point , that song is a total vibe ..
🎶 I get my shoes at David’s
David’s shoes in East Liberty🎶
There’s a local radio station that this shoe store used to advertise on… they used a sample from this song as their jingle. Sorry but I’m always gonna hear that when I hear this song 😆🤷🏻♀️
That’s an East Liberty from a time since past; can’t stop progress I guess.
Every time I hear this song I remember getting in my ride on GTA Vice City and cruising the streets to this. Even though I knew the song before Vice City really made an impression in my mind that I'll never forget this. Gotta do some Das EFX, ONYX or the Pharcyde next.
Morning guys! Old-school! Love it! This is a great one! It also makes me think of Andre Nickatina's "jungle"... also a great one... but can't beat og stuff like this!😉
Damn, I went to see Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five back in the 80's in Birmingham UK.
Weirdly. I listened to this last night. 😂
Although this was very early in the history of Rap, people didn't hear this until after Run Dmc and the Beastie boys opened the doors from Manhattan to the rest of the world.
"Don't push me 'cause I'm close to the edge!" Original hip-hop. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five "The Message" from 1982. Hip-hop was still a New York thing when this song dropped. Ice-T might be the first rapper from the West coast. I'll leave the details for others to fill in, but regionalism in hip-hop was a decade away from becoming a thing. Also check out Grandmaster Flash "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel", Melle Mel "White Lines (Don't Don't Do It)", Frankie Smith "Double Dutch Bus", The Clash "Radio Clash", Tom Tom Club "Genius of Love", Malcolm McLaren "Buffalo Girls", William Onyeabor "Fantastic Man" ...
Damn I remember listing to this on my old Panasonic boom box when I was 15, bought the cassette tape from Record & Tape World that used to be in Newton Plaza! Yall should definitely check out the video ✌💖☮
OG! Knew all the words to this back in the day.
One of the greatest songs ever recorded! 😎🤙🏻
there used to be head phones that djs used that looked like an old school phone ....also from my knowledge (i could be off a bit) kool herc was who or was one of the first to blend the breaks from tracks ..and flash perfected it with scratching and back spinning
i had a fisher boombox w a keyboard on top of it.
(1982) 🔥 pioneers OG
Need to watch the video !
Still got my boom box
With 9 D battery's used a guitar strap to hold it lol
It was so heavy
Record Companies destroyed rap the way they destroyed Grunge or punk. They found a good premise and tried to purposely make it all like that. MTV would not put rap on the air early on. They resisted most black artists. There is a famous interview with David Bowie, of all people, who call them out on it to their face
1st rap song we ever heard in the suburbs.
'77-'87 is the greatest decade in music history.
This is truly a classic, I also recommend "Word's Famous Supreme - Hey DJ" for reaction, and "The Rock Steady Crew - Hey You"
This white boy had King of Rock the week it came out. Also had a Def Jam sampler vinyl. "Gettin' Money" was a favorite.
Melle Mel is the MC on "The Message".
Another song that addressed similar deep issues wasn't a rap. "Inner City Blues", by the late, great Marvin Gaye, 1971. The groove on these songs make you move, while the lyrics should make you think.
STANDING ON THE VERGE.
Gangster Rap came along to make sure nobody got the message.
Coincidentally, right at the same time they privatized the prison system. 👿
I have this on vinyl
It's like a jungle sometimes
It makes me wonder
How I keep from going under
I LOVE THIS TRACK! Do White Lines next! It's a banger!
One of the first - still one of the best. You want more OG hip-hop/rap, try Disposable Heroes' "Television". Good points about the change in rap - it got commercialised, and now a lot of rap is simply people bragging about how great they are, their bling and guns, how all the girls want them, etc. Back in the early days, it had a deeper purpose. As the track says, they had a message. And Americans care too much about race - people are people, music is music, and if you're good, you're good - whether you're white, black, yellow, green, or purple.
Speaking on lyrical omaj, Jmann from Mushroomhead says a line from this in the song "Born of Desire"
Rats in the front room, roaches in the back
Junkies in the alley with a baseball bat
I saw them in Oakland Arena with New Edition and Jonzon Crew. I still have very bad pictures from that show 😅.
when I was kid I bought this Album in cassette, my close friend borrowed it for a Day, playing this song over and over the same some
song last song on the second side, fucker fucked up my cassette, got tight wouldn't turn anymore,,,,,,,,,hahahaha!
RIP Harry (my friend)
Should of reacted tot video it shows you so much backstory and the outfits are hilarious
Y’all remember Coolio’s “County Line”? Sample origin! 🔊👂🏽💪🏽💪🏽😎
This song is bad to the bone.😊🎉❤
You got to hit Planet Patrol play at your own risk
fascinating in a really horrifying kind of way.
I saw every iteration of Ghetto Blaster. No phone. Closed.
About the boom box. That’s a antenna. Cell phones didn’t really pop up for another 6 years and those were huge not portable
Thx
Rudy Los Angeles
You should check out Beat Street Breakdown by Grand Master Mellie Mel and the Furious Five, for some old skool goodness.
LoL, i know every word of this song.
Hollywood your rocking a MISFITS shirt just do a reaction to thier music
Checkity check yo self!!!
Flashback...
You guys should react too morbid angel
The thing about the message and other songs similar very little people got message I guess I mean just look at the way things are now should be a lot different
It was big. Karate. Martial arts. That's all. The movies of time. Ninja Turtles. Karate Kid. So on. Everybody was into it whether they were a student or not and if you put it in your own art it was just going to sell it to a demographic.
Classic hip hop..personally my favorite and I'm not a big rap fan
Try disco dave and the amazing crash crew
Is this the fastest that you recognized a song?
Can you guys please do Snap! - Who Stole It, where Turbo B has some opinions on samples lol :- D
ua-cam.com/video/WhyOHn9ihtE/v-deo.html
Also it's a fantastic track. Have a good one guys!
lol. I’m a 50 something yr old white lady in Mississippi. I admit I know these lyrics better than my own children’s names. Lol