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Back when I first started listening to hip hop music (around 1982; i'm old), it wasn't easy to get your hands on it if you lived in the suburbs. Record stores i

Back when I first started listening to hip hop music (around 1982; i'm old), it wasn't easy to get your hands on it if you lived in the suburbs. Record stores in the suburbs didn't stock hip hop until the Beastie Boys' "Licensed to Ill" and Run DMC's "Raising Hell". I had a circle of friends that could get me bootlegs - basically, mixtapes from people with hip hop records. I threw all of them away years ago. And I've been kicking myself ever since. I miss those old mixtapes so much. One of them was Afrika Bambaataa's "Perfect beat", over and over, both sides of the cassette, for 60 minutes. I loved it, listened to it constantly, never got tired of it. Another was entirely "Roxanne" songs - "Roxanne's doctor", "Roxanne's a man", etc.

analog31 3y ago
I remember that time, living in a suburb of Detroit. My first exposure to hip hop was on the radio, driving to my summer job. A lot of it seemed like it was being made on the spot, for instance there were references to recent local events and politics.
mc32 3y ago
I think people often recorded off the radio on to cassettes. Local stations played local artists. Or your friends would drive in to the city and you could come across the music.
- dendrite9 3y ago
  I was addicted to the radio Make my request, and wait for it Holdin my finger on the pause button, like "now go" I guess that was the original download -Atmosphere - Don't Forget
- jimt1234 3y ago
  For me, it was Magic 108 in St. Louis, Missouri. However, I was so far out in the suburbs, Magic didn't always tune-in very well. I had lots of tapes with static. Also, in the early days, they played rap only late at nights, for a few hours before the "quiet storm". There was another AM radio station in St. Louis, a city college station, that used to have a segment called "The Rappin' Hour", where dudes would call-in and rap about their high school or whatever. I used to write rhymes in class, dreaming about calling into "The Rappin' Hour." LOL
ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
Roxanne - that name takes me back. I taped a pirate radio Tim Westwood show that was wholly dedicated to the Roxanne saga. Found this example of his show: https://archive.org/details/TheHipHopShow-19850917 https://archive.org/details/TheHipHopShow-19850917

analog31 3y ago

I remember that time, living in a suburb of Detroit. My first exposure to hip hop was on the radio, driving to my summer job. A lot of it seemed like it was being made on the spot, for instance there were references to recent local events and politics.

mc32 3y ago

I think people often recorded off the radio on to cassettes. Local stations played local artists. Or your friends would drive in to the city and you could come across the music.

dendrite9 3y ago
I was addicted to the radio Make my request, and wait for it Holdin my finger on the pause button, like "now go" I guess that was the original download -Atmosphere - Don't Forget
jimt1234 3y ago
For me, it was Magic 108 in St. Louis, Missouri. However, I was so far out in the suburbs, Magic didn't always tune-in very well. I had lots of tapes with static. Also, in the early days, they played rap only late at nights, for a few hours before the "quiet storm". There was another AM radio station in St. Louis, a city college station, that used to have a segment called "The Rappin' Hour", where dudes would call-in and rap about their high school or whatever. I used to write rhymes in class, dreaming about calling into "The Rappin' Hour." LOL

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago

Roxanne - that name takes me back. I taped a pirate radio Tim Westwood show that was wholly dedicated to the Roxanne saga. Found this example of his show: https://archive.org/details/TheHipHopShow-19850917 https://archive.org/details/TheHipHopShow-19850917