As we get closer and closer to March Madness, and I whimper to the reverberations of confirmation that Little Brother will put out there last album this year I thought this would be a good time not only to start this series of articles called The Starting 5, but to focus this first edition on Groups in Hip-Hop. The premise of the series is simple, who/what would be my starting 5 in a particular category. So come with me as I unveil my Starting 5: The Group Edition.

Point Guard: A Tribe Called Quest
The Point Guard (PG) job is to distribute the ball, call the plays, see the court, control the tempo and when needed to, score (of course, depends on the player.) The ideal PG is fast AND quick, makes good decisions, and can spread the floor with his quicks and range. This position is embodied in the music of A Tribe Called Quest. When you thought they were going to sound a certain way, they sounded different. When you thought they would do this, they did something different. Each album they came with made folks take a new notice of who they were while never compromising quality. With music that was clearly influenced by blue lights and smokey evenings, and lyrics that were the product of dedication and the long lost ability to construct a rhyme that even at bar 40 still has relation to bar 1 while not being so complex you had to pause and rewind just to “Check The Rhyme”, this group is one of the standards of group mastery not only in Hip-Hop, but in music. When you think about what other groups ATCQ has brought us or touched, this choice becomes even clearer. There were the Jungle Brothers and De La Soul which with ATCQ formed the Native Tongues. You also had classic work with Leaders Of The New School, Mos Def, Common, Queen Latifah, Monie Love, and Black Sheep. Nuff’ said.

Shooting Guard: N.W.A.
Typically, one of the best fusions of offensive skill on the court, the Shooting Guard (SG) is often asked to be the first scoring option for the team. They tend to have the ability to slash or hit the jumper, they have some handle and can pass well, and are generally the ideal look outside of the paint. With the primary goal being offense, I have to go with N.W.A. I wrote about them before in Classic Material but I’m not sure you understand. This group is probably the toughest group on record, period. I don’t mean that in any colorful, creative way nor is there any cryptic meaning behind that choice. Simply put, nobody has come harder or more direct than N.W.A. The way they played the game, they influenced the ENTIRE Hip-Hop culture and STILL have lasting impact well after the group has since disbanded and lost a core member in Eazy-E. Disagree, but lets check out a few rappers you may know that were influenced by or involved in this group shall we? Notorious B.I.G., Jay Z, Lil Wayne, Tupac, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, The Game, Eminem, and 50 Cent to name a few. How are they connected? Before N.W.A. Made gangster cool to mainstream America, this type of thuggery was only known locally. Gunplay and lyrics were dating before, but now they were married. Drugs and the dark life of the hood were myths before, but now they were fact. You can debate it all you want, but the idea of what it meant to be black and what it meant to love this Hip-Hop was not understood by the outsiders until N.W.A. With their best defense being offense and offensive, I’d have no other group shooting the rock….

Small Forward: Outkast
We can debate this one, but in my opinion, the Small Forward or Shooting Guard is the most important position on the court. The SF has to be able to not just shoot the J, but play with his back to the basket. He needs to be able to handle the rock inside as well as make the open pass. He needs to be offensively capable as well as be defensively minded. Let’s not forget they often have to be able to get the rebound as well as lead the break. This position is for someone who can do whatever you need done. Insert Outkast here. For my money, Outkast is the greatest group of all time. From the moment they touched the mic and blessed us with “Player’s Ball” from the classic album Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, it was undeniable that we were in the era of Outkast. If you look forward from that album, they went on to give us what is largely regarded as 3 more classic albums. It’s hard to argue with over 25 million albums sold and 6 Grammy Awards. As many groups and artists do, they are responsible for putting their city on the map, Atlanta. The flip side is that they put an entire region (The Dirty South) on the map as well. I have all of their music and had to chop some stuff out to make it fit on one CD to play in the car. I had that CD in there so long, I had to press the eject button SEVERAL times to get it out. I don’t have anything negative to say about them or the music at all and for those of you that slept on Speakerboxxx, your loss.

Power Forward: Run DMC
One of the two largest players on the court traditionally, the Power Forward (PF) may have more responsibility to score or rebound depending on the team and player skill set. Someone like a Tim Duncan is the Point Guard of the big men where someone like Bosh is more of a Shooting Guard up top. Either way, they have to be able to pick up the pieces, occasionally score, but at all times contest anything around the paint. Run DMC (the first mainstream rap supergroup) is the Tim Duncan of Hip-Hop Groups. They are consistent, seemingly un-hyped in most “greatest” discussions, but easily have carried the genre further than any other group in the game (similar to how many players have won rings with Duncan at PF). They are the alpha of groups success in Hip-Hop and one of the cornerstones of the very culture we adore. With a group of firsts that would challenge even the most stubborn critic, there is no denying the greatness of this group.

Center: Public Enemy
The Center is usually the largest and strongest player on the team. They are often asked to score inside 5 feet of the hoop, control any rebound and defend any shot taken in the same area. Of course there are variations a’la Shaq and Yao Ming, but the thing all successful centers have in common, the ability to dominate. With a focus on defense and defensive rebounding, no group is more of an obvious choice than Public Enemy. I don’t think there has ever been a more militant or socially conscious visible group in Hip-Hop than PE. Their focus was clearly set on the struggle and strife of the voice of Hip-Hop in a world that had us on mute. They weren’t the gangsters of the West Coast, the flashy, braggart thugs of the East Coast, the different jazzy sound of the Couth, nor the pop funboys of the genre that some other groups were. They were The Voice of a people, the Voice of a culture. Public Enemy probably helped sell as many leather Africa medallions as Run DMC did Adidas and Kangol Kid did Kangols. Before PE, we had no one to spearhead the lyrical Black Panther movement and say what we wanted to say in the same arena we wanted to say it. The music of PE in the music industry (largely controlled by the same people that oppress the common folks) was the collective fuck you to the bosses that had the knees on their knees on our neck when we got to work at 9:01am even though they knew about the accident on the highway and that you took that route to get to work.

Notable Subs: (PG) De La Soul, (SG) Little Brother, (SF) The Roots, (PF) Wu-Tang*, ( C) Blackstar

*there are two reasons WU is a sub and not a starter, 1) I don’t think they have near the accomplishments of any of the previous 5 mentioned, and 2) they weren’t as much as a they were a collection of artists…kinda like a label. That’s my opinion I guess, but I think RZA said something like this too.

Anyway, who are your starting 5?

I will state this now. This column is NOT an issue of color or race. It’s a deeper issue that happens to be rooted in it, unnecessarily I might add. I debated writing this a number of times, but I feel somebody needs to say it; and if it gets through to one, maybe the effort was worth it.

First, my reason for writing this. I think back to a trip to Alabama with a good friend of mine for a wrestling show [Youtube “Kareem Abdul Jamar”, check my pedigree :p] and I find myself rattled by some commentary he made about what I was playing at the time. Gym Class Heroes was in the CD player, the track was “New Friend Request”.

I’m grooving and he’s laughing, so of course I want to know what the joke is.

Friend: “Man, why you listening to this white people rap?”

Me: “White people rap? Didn’t buy this CD in THAT section. Must’ve missed it.”

Friend: “Pssh. Even my SON knows that’s white people rap.”

I was willing to write it off. I’ve come under fire all my life for my musical tastes, dreams, style, and grammatical syntax [peep the grammar]; often being described as being the “White Black Guy”….I fucking hate that. I’m always black enough when I get pulled over, and my interests aren’t color-coded; open your mind.

I digress, my friend is a grown man with his own thoughts and Lord knows, that’d be a task to change. His kid though? It bothered me all day. His child is going to view music as white, black, and whatever else instead of what it should be at the end of the day….

Good or bad.

Not to sound like the older cat at the barbershop where everything was better in “his day”; but in what I’d consider the golden era of rap, 1980-1992, you had EVERYTHING. Experimentation, storytelling, mashing, consciousness, raw styles, flash, trash talk, and so much more. Everything was done just enough; not too excessively. Rap from the early 80’s to the early 90’s had to be the most exciting genre to watch unfold, because it was open to being whatever you needed it to be. There were no definitions. The most creative musical form out there.

Now, it seems like the artists that still believe in that notion are pushed to the backburner and considered irrelevant. Trap-stars, self-proclaimed killers, and hood figures are the order of the day. They all boast about the same things, their stories an unoriginal tapestry of uninspired wordplay. A dark society demands dark figures to place on a pedestal, AND OUR CHOICES ARE ENDLESS!

What people are failing to understand is that your soundtrack, the music you take in, has a huge effect on who you are and what you think. Especially in the case above where it molds our youth. African Americans already have a complex where ignorance is glorified and education/outside the box thought is considered weak or selling out. What other culture do you know where you’d gain more widespread respect holding a glock then cradling a schoolbook?

Ludacris wants to tackle serious issues in Release Therapy, wins a Grammy, and gets called a sellout for his troubles.

Wayne, wants to add a little rock to his sound and he’s already got people saying he’s “gone white”. At least he’s trying something different, whether it will be good remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, OJ Da Juiceman and Gucci Mane receive praise for wearing ignorant values on their chest; lacking the talent and creativity to make their stories worth a damn. Their stories used as motivators for people with no idea what that life is truly like. They see the flash and hear their boasts and think that’s the way to escape mediocrity and poverty. All they find for themselves is a trap more expensive then whence they came. The streets are harsh. The means to survive them are even worse and I ask this question to any fan of rappers who love to tout their body count or total bricks sold.

If that life was so good, so awesome; why not do that instead of schmooze at label parties and pop expensive collars? Why grind so hard to sell rhymes to get out of the hood in the first place? They’d still be there.

Have we grown so callous that we can’t appreciate the steps The Beastie Boys, 3rd Bass, Pharcyde, Tribe, Run DMC, and so many others tried to do to make hip-hop not only innovative, but an outlet for all? By definition, the white/sellout rap that some would say Lupe, Gym Class, and others do is the true essence of the art. Unfortunately, not enough hate or guns or drugs to make it relevant to an age where vice and violence aren’t just the answer…

…it’s the punctuation.

I can’t recall when struggle and hardship was just a “black or white” thing. I’m thrown off that you can’t be real talk or create something unique without being scrutinized by masses who choose to be so closed minded, accepting of the fact that they don’t want better. Music often times is a reflection of the times. And if the music is any reflection, then we’ve grown as uninspired and cliché as ever. It’s really sad.

There is a place for the subject matter. There is not a place in thinking that’s all there is to my beloved Hip-Hop. I find myself looking to her and asking what happened? Like a relationship gone sour, but you’re still locked in. When did she let ANYONE define what she was. All Hip-Hop had to be was possibility. Much like life, possibility makes it so worthwhile.

Much like life unfortunately, you have too many who’d rather take the easy way and not blaze their own way. It’s easier to be a killer, a pusher, a follower. So they set their soundtrack to that and pray it’s not too complicated for them to understand.

Do we fear better? Fear something new and exciting? Brave? Do the masses hate on Release Therapy because Luda because he sold out for a Grammy, or because it was harsh truths we weren’t ready to hear? Is it easier to turn your swag on; while turning off issues that still plague us as spit by Nas or K’Naan? How long are we going to be mad for no reason? Hurt others and us for no reason? Believe that hood fables are all we should aspire to learn?

These questions rattle through my brain 24-7 while I defend who I am and what I listen to. The art is on the verge of collapsing under the weight of sheer ignorance and it’s the few who still realize what Hip-Hop is that keep it going. I never thought I’d see the day I’d have to defend liking Andre 3000, as if he isn’t as real as the rap game could be; with the talent to match. Too bubblegum I guess, despite FEATURES that have been more raw then whole albums of his contemporaries. Since when did a man who blends everything that rap could be and then some have to come under fire for being too watered down for Hip-Hop?

It makes me wish I could stop the madness and give up. Then I realize all I can do is keep my ears open, accept all styles and flows, and remember that it can be only good or bad. That’s my responsibility to Hip-Hop.

What are you doing to make sure it survives another day?

Or perhaps I’m just being too white for you?

But since when was having a voice, being white? Or black? I thought intelligence was human. I suppose to enjoy Hip-Hop these days; I should just stop with that, right?

Right?

In a time when folks are debating if Weezy is the best rapper alive and people are selling 3 million ringtones but only 20 albums, I think it’s important that we recognize the one’s that personified what it meant to be Emcees.

Run DMC (R.I.P. Jam-Master J) were one of the pioneers of rap. They used to PERFORM as Emcees. This wasn’t 3 dudes on stage holdin’ their crotch while 9 other dudes rapped along with the record that played in the back. The presence of being an Emcee….or MC as Rakim said “Move the Crowd”…was something they took pride in. Even to this date, with Rev. Run doing shows last year, he was still true to what he was doing, being an Emcee. I don’t know that we will ever get another group like Run DMC, and I am glad that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame realizes and acknowledges the greatness of this legendary group. They will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 4th, 2009, the second hip-hop group to be inducted (Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five).

Download: KRS-One – “I’m Still #1″ - This goes out to Slik P, he probably won’t read this, but oh well. Plus, ain’t the Fro #1?

Download: Eric B. & Rakim – “Microphone Fiend” – Could have picked from many of Rakim’s songs, this is the one I chose.

Download: Gangstarr – “Mass Appeal” – If you can’t appreciate Primo’s scratching…turn in your Hip-Hop card now.

Download: LL Cool J. – “I’m Bad” – The song that got me sprung on H.E.R.

Download: Run DMC – “Run’s House” – What, ya’ll didn’t know that Rev. Run used to be a beast on the mic.

Download: Slick Rick – “Children’s Story” – This has to be one of my favorite story telling songs…EVER!

I know I haven’t gave you guys a new wallpaper in a good minute. Well, the other day I was listening to some old school Hip-Hop and “Rock Box” came on…and the rest is history. Be part of the movement and dress up your computer with nappyafro.com.

(Click on the picture below, right click on the bigger picture, and choose “Set as Background”).

“Run DMC”