Hiphop – Jarrett House North

I had an idea to make an Exfiltration Radio show all about the hip-hop/electronic music style called electro. Days later, I feel like I’m deep in the rabbit hole and just starting to scratch the surface of this music.

What to know: electro is rooted in the rhythms and sounds produced by the Roland TR-808, a budget-oriented drum machine that substituted synthesized drum sounds for the fully sampled sounds of its market competitor, the Linn LM-1 (which at the time cost almost 10x more). While the 808 was a market failure, its fully synthesized drum sounds created a ruckus that could be felt across the dance floor, and its distinctive sound created an effect that felt futuristic in 1983.

Combine that with an esthetic borrowed from pioneers like Gary Numan and Roger Troutman of Zapp, with sizzling synthesizer sounds and vocoder-processed vocals, and you had a sound that enjoyed a huge amount of chart karma, picking up momentum from both the aftermath of disco and funk and the rise of hip-hop, and only losing popularity when Prince’s more florid Minneapolis sound elaborated it out of existence. But you can hear electro’s impact in some of Prince’s early material as well as in bands like Flyte Tyme (where Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis got their start).

There are two songs in this mix that are arguably iconic: “Planet Rock” is an early hip-hop classic that is still referenced in unexpected ways, and “Freak-A-Zoids” has become a Tiktok meme. Beyond that, I don’t know if anyone other than certain GenXers remember “Freaks Come Out at Night,” but I certainly do, and “Computer Games” showed that George Clinton had a creative life beyond Parliament/Funkadelic.

As for the rest? Ryuichi Sakamato’s “Riot in Lagos” predates the rest of the material here by at least two years, showing that things really did happen earlier in Japan. Warp 9’s “Nunk (New Wave Funk)” was an early electro track that bubbled up in New York in 1982, as was Man Parrish’s “Hip-Hop, Be Bop (Don’t Stop),” which ran afoul of identity politics when African-American hip-hop influencers found out that Parrish was white and gay. Cybotron’s “Clear” brings a strain of Detroit to the melting pot, courtesy of band member Juan Atkins, now considered a co-founder of the techno sound. Elektrik Funk’s “On a Journey” was a one-off single from the depths of 1982 electro heaven, and Hashim’s “Al-Naafyish” was a 1983 one-off from a New York DJ.

Friends, this could have been a three-hour mix. There are so many threads to follow in this sound. Phil Collins used the TR-808 on No Jacket Required, for heaven’s sake. But we’ll start here, with the famed battle cry: Freak-a-zoids… report to the dance floor!

Track listing:

“Drummers, they kind of get bored…” – Phil Collins (Exfiltration Radio: the bumpers)
riot in Lagos (2019 Remastering) – Ryuichi Sakamoto (B-2 Unit (2019 Remastering))
Planet Rock – Afrika Bambaataa & The Soulsonic Force (Smithsonian Anthology Of Hip-Hop And Rap)
Nunk (New Wave Funk) – Warp 9 (12 Inch Classics)
Hip Hop, Be Bop (Don’t Stop) – Man Parrish (Hip Hop, Be Bop)
Freak-A-Zoid – Midnight Star (No Parking On the Dance Floor)
Clear – Cybotron (Enter (Deluxe Edition))
On a Journey (I Sing the Funkelectric) – Elektrik Funk (Rare Preludes, Vol. 1)
Freaks Come Out At Night – Whodini (Funky Beat: The Best of Whodini)
Al-Naafyish (The Soul) [Radio Version] – Hashim (Al-Naafyish (The Soul) – EP)
Computer Games – George Clinton (Computer Games)

Album of the Week, November 16, 2024

I’ve hinted at it, I’ve teased it, I’ve done all but say it outright. Finally today we take a left turn out of jazz and into early hip-hop, following the steps of Herbie Hancock.

When not cutting traditional jazz albums like Herbie Hancock Quartet, Herbie had been making fusion records since at least 1972’s Head Hunters (a giant album that will melt your head if you aren’t prepared). But his taste radar seemed to go astray as he went further afield from funk into commercial R&B. Some of the late 1970s albums in between the VSOP dates are … well, calling them an acquired taste is probably accurate. They didn’t perform especially well commercially and were savaged by critics.

In the early 1980s he began to make changes, leaving longtime producer David Rubinson to cut Lite Me Up with Quincy Jones (RIP), which had a strong disco influence but didn’t move buyers (or critics). But other winds were blowing, and the duo of bassist Bill Laswell and keyboardist/producer Michael Beinhorn, collectively known as the band Material, approached Herbie to collaborate on material that left more traditional fusion behind for a postmodern, hip-hop sound. The result was the album Future Shock, which both went platinum and earned critical acclaim.

The standout track on the album, the one I remember being played on my school bus, at the bus stop, in the streets, really everywhere I went, was “Rockit.” As part of the work on the album the track was remixed by Grand Mixer DXT, together with other songs from the album (“Autodrive,” “Future Shock,” “TFS,” and “Rough”) and an updated version of the lead song from Head Hunters, “Chameleon.”

The resulting track, “Mega-mix,” was one of the first such remixes, a genre that built a medley out of whole sections of songs, often played over a single beat and joined together with scratching or other DJ techniques. As such, Grand Mixer DXT was a natural artist to innovate in this style, as he is credited as the first turntablist. The mix was issued as both a 7 inch single and a 12 inch extended play; I’m reviewing the single today.

“Mega-Mix” opens with an echoing clatter of percussion over which the beat from “Rockit” plays, interspersed with a man”s voice saying “Herbie… Herbie… Herbie” and the bass line to “Chameleon.” As the track carries on DXT intersperses samples of spoken word and synthesized percussion across the different segments of the track. It’s disorienting and danceable. It sounds like the future. But it also sounds like riding the bus in fifth grade and listening to this tune, and other pieces of electro-funk, coming in over slightly static-y airwaves. There’s very little direct performance by Herbie on it, save for the prominent synth line that is the main melody of “Rockit”—as well as the bass line from “Chameleon,” which he played on the ARP Odyssey.

“TFS” is less influenced by DXT, but that’s not to say it resembles a traditional Herbie Hancock track. The dominant voice here is producer and bassist Bill Laswell. Laswell got his start playing in funk bands in Michigan before moving to New York City in the early 1970s, where he started the long-running project Material with Beinhorn and drummer Fred Maher. The track he wrote for “TFS” is nervous and twitchy, with a squelchy bass line and gated percussion underlying Herbie’s melody piano and synth lines.

Herbie did three albums with the “Rockit” crew, but remained artistically restless, also recording collaborations with kora player Foday Musa Suso (who appeared on the second album, Sound System). In the early 1990s he made a definitive return to acoustic jazz on A Tribute to Miles, a sort of reunion of the V.S.O.P. band with Wallace Roney filling in for Freddie Hubbard, who had injured his lip. Aside from concert performances and one last Bill Laswell collaboration, he’s stayed in the acoustic vein since. A frequent collaborator on those records, especially 1+1 and River: The Joni Letters, was his fellow Miles Davis band mate Wayne Shorter. We’ll hear from Wayne next time.

You can listen to today’s music here: