Abstract
As with all great emcees, LL Cool J was a target for dis records during the latter half of the 1980s. Concurrently, the boombox (or, radio, as many referred to them as) was a significant personal and collective accessory, and during the period of LL Cool J’s debut album Radio, boomboxes of desire had to be big, bold, and as powerful and loud as possible. In addition to the increasing presence of both LL Cool J and the boombox, the dis record also became a prominent delivery device for hip hop artists to either progress their status, defend their position, or gain currency. This article seeks to forge a relationship between these three phenomena of 1980s hip hop culture, and by drawing upon object-oriented ontology, arrives at three main conclusions: first, that the status, representation and significance of the radio in hip hop is not limited to its own physical qualities, second, that the invention of the dis record fostered a new approach to the content, context and delivery of battle raps, and an evaluation platform for the depth of quality of rappers and emcees; and third, that upon examination of the dis records aimed at LL Cool J, the opposite was achieved of what they were intended to do, insomuch that they affirmed and enhanced LL’s status and currency in hip hop. What follows is part 1 of 3 of this extended article.
Introduction: “…believe me I like it loud…
…I’m the man with the box that can rock the crowd” (LL Cool J, ‘I Can’t Live Without My Radio’ 1985). LL Cool J’s arrival on vinyl was in 1984 with his hard-hitting ‘I Need A Beat’. What followed were four further single releases until the release of ‘I Can’t Live Without My Radio’,1 and whilst the song encapsulated the relationship between boombox and owner clearly throughout the entirety of the lyrics, the Radio album cover achieved similar through its visuals. The front cover boldly illustrates a close up elevation of LL’s JVC RC-M90, a machine he proudly boasts, “…vibrates the concrete…” (‘I Can’t Live Without My Radio’). ‘I Can’t Live Without My Radio’ is an ode to the boombox, an expression of its prestige and position in hip hop culture and its role as an active support mechanism for the human in hip hop.
Throughout the early 1980s, boomboxes were found wherever there were breakdancers, providing a vessel for music for throwdowns and battles, but it was LL’s championing of the radio that enthused hip hop headz – certainly those outside the immediate context of hip hop in the US – to take their radios out into the street, the park, fields, bus shelters and under bridges to help transform those spaces into temporal territories of hip hop. Thus, the boombox becomes a recoding device for defining spatial identity.
The dis record also came into prominence during this period. The first obvious dis records in hip hop arrived in 1984 and were the formative recordings from the Roxanne Wars, particularly The Real Roxanne’s ‘The Real Roxanne’ (a choreographed retort to U.T.F.O.’s ‘Roxanne Roxanne’) and Roxanne Shanté’s ‘Roxanne’s Revenge’ (a freestyle attack which propagated the entire Roxanne saga). A swathe of Roxanne themed records were released by a vast number of aspiring recording artists soon after, each attempting to stake their position in the Roxanne Wars. In 1985, Doug E Fresh & The Get Fresh Crew’s ‘The Show’ came under fire, firstly by the Herby Luv Bug produced ‘The Show Stoppa (Is Stupid Fresh)’ by Super Nature (Salt ‘N’ Pepa), and secondly Symbolic Three Featuring DJ Dr. Shock with ‘No Show’ (curiously released on Reality Records, Doug E’s label). Another widespread dis series of records arrived during 1986 with The Bridge Wars (largely consisting of dis records between KRS-One/BDP and MC Shan/The Juice Crew, but also included one-off’s by artists such as Cool C and M.C. Mitchski “The Rappin’ Comedian”). One of the finest lyrics from BDP’s ‘South Bronx’ (the original retort to MC Shan’s ‘The Bridge’), was the line, “Instead of tryin’ to take out LL / You need to take your homeboys off the crack” (KRS-One 1986). I will return to MC Shan later, but here, the argument turns to the formative dis records directed towards LL.
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