The Telegraph reports that an American Professor is claiming rap music, specifically freestyle battles, actually originated in Scotland centuries ago.  The Scottish tradition of flyting is, as Professor Ferenc Szasz claims, a battle of “verbal jousting” that was done in verse.  
Szasz claims that Scottish slaveowners brought the practice over to the US and that slaves there adopted it and it lead to, ultimately, the birth of hip hop.  
Frankly, I think that’s a bit of a stretch.  There are some similiarities between rap and flyting, mainly that both consist of a verbal tussle where individuals take turns …

It’s become a tradition that Dave Barry will release his “year in review” article each December, and I’ve started to look forward to them.
This year is no exception.
Some highlights:
-In politics, Barack Obama addresses the issue of why, in his 20 years of membership in Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, he failed to notice that the pastor, Jeremiah Wright, is a racist lunatic. In a major televised address widely hailed for its brilliance, Obama explains that . . . OK, nobody really remembers what the actual explanation was. But …

Wu: The Story of The Wu-Tang Clan is a documentary film that traces the rise and fall of the infamous Wu-Tang clan.
It looks like a pretty interesting take on their storied career.  NPR reports that the film is partly a biography, and partly just a kick ass hip hop movie.
I appreciate their focus on the fact that the Clan came from Staten Island and did their best to represent it wherever they were.  At that time, hip hop was clearly more territorial than it is now, and there was a …

Some of you may have noticed our penchant for following the RIAA while they pursued a ridiculous plan to sue as many people as they could in America to try and discourage downloading.  At last count they had filed 35,000 law suits.
Finally, the evil behemoth has come to its senses.  CBC is reporting that they have announced a new plan to stop suing people and instead will focus on working with ISPs to try and cut off internet access to those they think are downloading.  Personally, I don’t think this …

Maybe the most professional of the early hip-hop film classics, Beat Street was released in 1984 and tells the story of aspiring superstar* b-boys from the South Bronx.  Unlike its contemporaries – think Wild Style and Krush Groove – Street transcends camp and, even today, remains more than a mere curiosity of hip-hop’s original Golden Age.  A genuinely decent film, it will make you wish you were present for that fleeting period when being a b-boy meant dabbling in all four of hip-hop’s elements and fights were settled on the dance floor rather …

President Bush is hilarious in this scene.  An Iraqi tv journalist literally threw two shoes at him during a press conference and called him a dog.  A pretty major insult from muslims (dogs are considered unclean and you shouldn’t show the sole of the foot to anyone, let alone throwing a shoe).
In case you remember way back when, Iraqis were throwing their shoes at the big statute of Saddam that was being pulled down shortly after the invasion.

One thing you gotta say is that he handled it with remarkable aplomb.  …

Despite the ridiculous juxtaposition of terms in this headline, please bear with me.  Maxwell Schnurer is a columnist for the Times-Standard, a tiny paper in Eureka, California, and he has decided to play political theorist.  Well, to be fair, he’s also a prolific blogger and the proud owner of one of the worst designed livejournal pages I’ve seen.  It’s difficult to determine if this is the same person, but the odds are pretty strong that he is also an Assistant Professor of Communication at Humboldt State University.
Now I’m not sure …

okayplayer is, without a doubt, one of my all-time favourite hip-hop websites. The digital home of cats like The Roots, Jean Grae, Erykah Badu and Common, okayplayer features fresh content of all types, from videos to interviews to news to the occasional free track or two.  The best part about it, though, is the sense of community that pervades the site.  Unlike other, newer hip-hop sites (okayplayer turns 10 next year), okp, as it’s known, has a fiercely loyal readership.  The people who are in to okayplayer are in …

Ever wonder how the labels on your records evolved over time?  Well have no fear, thanks to a find on Metafilter 4080 Records presents to you Ted Staunton’s archive of labels.
Some interesting labels in there, all arranged by decade.

A couple of days ago our boy Twice dropped a link to a movie called Freestyle – The Art of Rhyme.  It got me thinking about some of the classic hip-hop movies that’ve been made over the years, and I figured it’d be dope to post a couple of ‘em here on 4080 for your viewing pleasure.
The first in the series is perhaps also the best: Wild Style.  The story of a graf artist called Zoro, the movie features some of the biggest name in early hip-hop.  The best part …