On 28 Feb 2002 at 9:07, Gil Lamont wrote: > Randy Remote wrote: > > >Rap's dirty little secret is that it was invented by white people. > >The first rap song was the train sequence from "The Music Man" circa > >1962. The whole cadence and everything is there, the train wheels > >taking the place of the drum machine. > > The Music Man premiered on Broadway in December 1957, after six years > of work and 40 drafts. "Rock Island" is the train song, and that was > in the show at the premiere. > > Given that the musical is Willson's reminiscences of being 10 years > old in 1912, chances are even the "rap" song is based on earlier > models. > > So rap is probably at least as old as rock'n'roll?!
I think you'd have to go back at least to the early '50's when music was being played over sound systems in Jamaica and the announcers who talked over the music and became known as toasters. No one was really commercially interested, so I suppose it's unlikely that there are any recordings of that. There's a direct line from that to the Bronx and Jamaican born DJ Cool Herc who essentially invented turntablism. Brenda n.p.: KCRW
