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Rap 3


In addition to the DJ jive talking/rappin' style, Hayes's style of soul music of rappin' loosely over music can also be attributed to the Jamaican popular tradition. In an interview, hip-hop artist Lumumba "Professor X" Carson noted that "Blacks growing up in the Caribbean … call rap toasting. A lot of toasters [came] out of Kingston" (Carson quoted in Keyes 2002, 50). Some of these include Big Youth, I-Roy, U-Roy, and Yellowman, to name some. If a direct source of hip-hop's Caribbean connection undoubtedly lay with the dub poetsIndividuals who altered audio using fading techniques. of Kingston, the ingenious contributions of sound engineer Osbourne Ruddock, better known as King Tubby, are even more significant. In the late 1960s, King Tubby "accidentally stumbled across a way to fade out the vocal and instrumental parts on the two-track recording machine. The technique of fading certain parts in and out or altering them in creating several varied cuts from the original resulted in dub versions" (Keyes 2002, 54).

David Rodigan looks at the life of King Tubby and the influence of dub on today's music

Big Youth performing in 2010

Big Youth performing in 2010

Other trademarks of the dub style include "riddims," a distinct bass line recorded over several dub tracks. In addition, the 1970s ushered in toasting, a sing-song rappin' style that uses patois over recorded or dub versions called talk-overs. The toaster credited as initiating this trend is U-Roy with the song " Version Galore" from hIs 1971 album of the same name. Soon a bevy of competitors, including Big Youth, I-Roy, Prince Buster, and Mutabaruka, led the way until the transformation of the technique in the Bronx, New York, by way of DJ Kool Herc.

Rakim

The golden age was when people were starting to understand what hip-hop was and how to use it. I was lucky to come up then. Everybody wanted to be original and have substance; it was somewhat conscious...There was an integrity that people respected.

Russell Simmons

The thing about hip-hop is that it's from the underground, ideas from the underbelly, from people who have mostly been locked out, who have not been recognized.