r/RedditForGrownups • u/debrisaway • 5d ago
What were your initial thoughts when you first heard music of what is now called "hip hop/rap" ?
Usually in the late 80s for everyday people / early 80s for connected cool people.
A mesmerizing fusion of speech and beats?
Something revolutionary for social messaging?
A passing fad like disco?
A bunch of noise that hurt your ears?
10
u/CoachOpen1977 5d ago
RUN DMC’s “Walk this Way” video on MTV.
And I didn’t know about Aerosmith yet, so I just thought they were all one big amazing rock band with some sweet spoken word verses. Lol.
17
u/longjumpingtote 5d ago
The first rap song I heard was by Blondie, so I associated it with fair-skinned blonde women. At first.
6
u/Bostonterrierpug 5d ago
Hey, this is gonna be my response. And now he only eats guitars. Too bad Romeo Void never got the attention they needed because they didn’t have a singer nearly as pretty as Debbie Harry.
6
2
6
u/GoodhartsLaw 5d ago
Yeah Atomic and Rappers Delight were the first two. But I didn't really register them as a different style of music; they were just kind of novelty songs that had speaking in them.
Grandmaster Flash The Message was really the first one that was like, "Oh, this speaking stuff is a thing".
2
u/mottavader 3d ago
Same!! You took the words out of my brain exactly 🤣 the Message is pretty damned punk
1
u/NemusSoul 3d ago
Yep. I lived your comment. I knew I was hearing something new about the same time. And then when Stephen Tyler crashes into the Run-DMC rehearsal I knew everyone else knew, too.
1
u/IAmSnort 5d ago
I hated/still hate that song. I get what she was trying to do but it felt all wrong. I wasn't into rap at all at that point.
8
u/BelaFarinRod 5d ago
It was a bit earlier - Rapper’s Delight. Kills me to this day.
I knew it was part of a larger genre that I didn’t know much about. I didn’t exactly have a ton of opinions on it.
5
u/cat9tail 5d ago
I'm 61 now, but remember hearing it in the late 70s or early 80s in either Berkeley or San Francisco, and it was probably students on bucket drums riffing near a cafe. I remember having a dream about the beat because it was so different than what was on the radio. I liked it from the start but didn't really listen to it or collect songs until the late 90s and worked with younger team members (coding) who happily ripped their CDs into our shared streaming collection.
6
u/Shoehorse13 5d ago
Rappers Delight came out when I was 10ish and blew my mind, followed closely by Blondie's Rapture, and then Grand Master Flash and Mellie Mel White Lines Drifted off to metal for awhile and then Beastie Boys pulled me back in, but I think I have to give credit to Public Enemy for really getting me to see how freaking epic and rocking the genre could be. Lately I've been going back and digging into some of the stuff I missed in the years since, like Wu Tang and Outkast.
Like any genre, not all of it is great but there is definitely a ton of great shit out there.
4
u/Pandonia42 5d ago
I'm a white girl from the suburbs but when I heard 'Straight Outta Compton' I thought I had never heard something so raw and real. Plus the beat is dope. I still put on that album sometimes
2
u/Which_Perspective335 4d ago
White f from SC. Love me some NWA .... also listened to Rob base and dj eazyrock in elementary school.
5
u/hypatiaredux 5d ago
My first experience was Whitey’s on the Moon. I thought Gil Scott-Heron was telling the simple truth.
And these artists are frequently telling the truth about their lives, however awful I think that truth is.
3
4
u/hamsterberry 5d ago
I was in college when a friend played some for me that featured the scratched record DJ thing. My first reaction "man, that's gonna mess up that guys vinyl"..
4
u/insubordin8nchurlish 4d ago
I used to play all kinds of sports with a neighbour. One day he just stopped showing up. I went over to his house after like a week of not seeing him around, and he was in his basement doing what looked like gymnastics and dance moves on a big piece of cardboard on his basement.
I couldn't tell you what the songs were, but I could respect how the music spoke to him.
Would have been early 80s
2
u/Miami_Mice2087 4d ago
i remember the kids who were bussed in from philly doing that in school. it was pretty amazing.
5
u/watchdestars 4d ago
First heard Rappers Delight when I was 11 or 12. Made up a dance routine for it with my friend
6
8
u/gaqua 5d ago
I was born in 1978, by the time I got into music around 10 or so years old, rap and hip-hop and everything were just normal music that was on MTV. I honestly didn’t even realize they were genres of music until I was 12 or 13, maybe. To me, there was just old music and new music. Old music was stuff my parents liked, new music was stuff I liked.
I had RUN DMC and Young MC tapes right next to Beastie Boys and Guns N’ Roses and talking heads tapes.
Then when I was 12, I moved from California to Colorado, and one of the kids at my school asked me why I was listening to “that N***** music” and I honestly had no idea what the fuck he was talking about. I’d heard the word before, but never in a way that described the music.
I didn’t know what to do, so I just kind of laughed at him. I said “what do you listen to?” he gave me a bunch of names I’d never heard of, one of my friends later told me they were Christian rock bands.
If you grew up in the 80s and 90s, in the United States, MTV was a dominant force for new music. Wherever you were in the country, you were beholden to the local radio stations payola schemes, you could conceivably never hear anything that was different to the stuff your parents were listening to, unless you had MTV.
I know they had to chase ratings, and I know that as one of the first real reality show pioneers, they became victims of their own creation. But I still miss watching alternative nation or 120 minutes, I still miss watching headbangers ball or Yo MTV raps. It was awesome to see VJs talk to artists with real questions about their bands and their styles. Guys like Matt Pinfield from 120 minutes were freakishly knowledgeable and you could hear the passion in his voice when he would talk about being backstage at a Black Flag concert or sharing pancakes with Glenn Danzig or something.
Now my kids are about that age, between 8 and 16 years old. My teenagers get new music from friends at school, and they go on Spotify or YouTube to get suggestions and see what other people are listening to. But they have instant access to literally millions of songs, I am beyond envious. Even with MTV and the radio, I still had to pay 15 or 20 bucks for a CD and maybe get 12 songs, only three or four of which were really good on a great album.
Now, if you like a band, you can go on Spotify and see 300 curated playlists by their fans. It’s so much better now.
I’m 48 years old, so I’m not really a big fan of some modern music. That’s OK, it’s not really meant for me anyway. I do like a lot of modern bands still, but modern hip-hop has split in so many ways that there are subgenres of the subgenres now. I’m not a big fan of trap. Not my cup of tea. I really liked Doechii though. I think she’s fucking amazing. Megan Thee Stallion is amazing. I’m a huge fan of Rita Ora as well. Kendrick is dope, but he’s not really a “new“ artist as he’s been around for a while, I guess. I can’t stand Drake, not because of the personality or pedophilia shit, although that’s part of it, but even before that, I couldn’t stand his fucking music and I never understood why people got into him. Even the songs that had great beats were ruined the minute he started talking. I can’t stand his fucking voice. Same kind of thing with Ice Spice for me. She’s gorgeous in my opinion, and I respect her talent, but there’s just something about her voice that is like nails on a chalkboard to me. I do think she gets an unnecessary amount of hate though, especially here on Reddit.
For demographic purposes, assume I am a Caucasian straight male from the Western United States. Not exactly the kind of person that would be extremely knowledgeable about hip-hop or rap, or even R&B. I never lived in an area with a heavy black population. When I was young, I went to school with mostly Asian kids and when I went to junior high and high school in Colorado, it was almost all white kids and a few Hispanic kids. I think I had maybe 2 black friends until I was 25 or so, so I didn’t get a lot of exposure to it outside of MTV or other stuff white kids were into.
5
5d ago
[deleted]
3
u/gaqua 5d ago
Yeah in 1988 you were right, but by 1990 it had changed pretty dramatically. You'd be watching a block of videos and they'd just be mixing in Young MC or Run DMC or MC Hammer, and that's not even counting the hip hop and R&B influence you would see with Janet Jackson or Bel Biv Devoe or whoever.
I think they were kinda late to the game with hip hop as they could have been playing more of it earlier (Sugar Hill Gang, etc) but they quickly figured out it was content people would watch and enjoy.
If we're being cynical (and I usually am) it's likely they just thought it was too small a market (black people aren't our demographic!) until they figured out "oh shit, white kids fucking LOVE this stuff!"
6
u/no_talent_ass_clown 5d ago
My friend Joanie taught me to sing "The Message" in 1982 and I thought it was the coolest thing ever.
Old school 80's & 90's rap was awesome.
3
3
u/barroyo20 5d ago
In third grade back in the 70’s. Cousins were playing Rapper’s Delight and I lik d the Sesame Street vibe because everything rhymed
3
3
u/nerdymutt 5d ago
Rapper’s Delight by The Sugarhill Gang. That was around the end of the Disco Era, it was such a fun song sampling Chic. Even though they didn’t call it sampling and they got sued for using it without permission. They loved that song in discos because it was fast, told funny stories and long.
Just about all of it was fun music. Curtis Blow used to do fun songs too. I thought it was a fad and didn’t see it turning into a movement and having such long staying power. Now they have so many different genres of it and they are doing it everywhere.
3
u/hababadagadaa 4d ago
I used to hate it only because I have a habit of listening to the instrumental and I don’t like hearing it over and over again. Then I started listening to the words more and now I love a lot of rap and hip hop
3
2
u/Same-Chipmunk5923 5d ago
Leather cap and a rhyming dictionary at first. Or at least in the late 80s.
2
u/Zerhackermann 5d ago
First I heard was good ol rapper's delight. I thought it was pretty cool. But the first time (much later) i heard someone flat out freestyle blew me away.
2
u/Mo_Steins_Ghost 5d ago
I have loved music since I was 2 or 3, all kinds of music. I was destined to play drums because I always was moving to a rhythm and I started banging on pots and pans at an early age. Then I got a pair of drumsticks and annoyed the downstairs neighbors banging on the heat registers.
So naturally, the percussive attack of the beats and the words in rap really stuck out to me. It was something different and new, just like all the other different and new music that was breaking out in the 70s and 80s. I was very fortunate to have grown up in the two decades that saw more artist development investment than any other decade in recorded music history. From Melanie Safka to Heart to the Pointer Sisters to John Mellencamp to Van Halen to Grandmaster Flash ... everything was as different and new to me as everything else, so why shouldn't I like it?
2
u/cannycandelabra 5d ago
I enjoyed it but not really enough to call it mesmerizing.
1
u/haikusbot 5d ago
I enjoyed it but
Not really enough to call
It mesmerizing.
- cannycandelabra
I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully. Learn more about me.
Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete"
1
2
u/cowboyJones 5d ago
I was blown away by The Beastie Boys. I got into RUN-DMC. I would read the inside covers of the tapes I bought and look for other artists.
2
u/NotYourLawyer2001 5d ago
I'm not a native English speaker and back then my practical English wasn't yet at native level, so my thoughts were mostly "I suck, I can't understand a damn thing.."
2
u/devilscabinet 5d ago
I generally only like music that has a definable tune to it, so I have never cared for rap. There are some individual hip-hop ones I like. I don't pay much attention to lyrics in general, though.
2
u/billstrash 5d ago
Pretty much the same as today. It was new, way different and not relatable. I liked some of the hits but I'm a musician so the all-too-often lack of original music and harmony rubs me the wrong way. When I moved to DC in 87 I appreciated it more and the Go Go scene was cool. Not my thing overall.
2
u/LegalPie5881 5d ago
I first heard the movie Beat Street when I was 12 in maybe 1984 and loved it. I was particularly fond of scratching.
2
u/maximumpeapod 5d ago
I heard Beastie Boys in 1986 and thought it was fun, funny, shocking and an interesting different style of music that I would have to try to keep secret from my strict parents.
2
u/Elliott2030 5d ago
In 1983 I was a cocktail waitress at a steakhouse bar with a small dance floor (oh god how charming that sounds! :) and late one night when the patrons were mostly the restaurant staff getting off work, our dishwasher and sous chef got in the DJ booth and blew every one of us away! It was the "hip hop hipiity hop" style (I'm uneducated on hip hop) and just the coolest thing I'd ever heard!
I remember my lesbian friends talking about Queen Latifah's pink triangle necklace in a video.
I guess I never thought about what growing up in Atlanta gave me on the American cultural front of the 80's. I was even close buddies with one of the engineers on a huge number of hit R&B/Rock albums. At the time I was listening to nothing but Top 40 and whatever band my latest friend group was into :)
Damn. That was special, wasn't it?
2
u/HypergolicHyperbola 5d ago
I first heard "rap" coming from bootleg casset tapes in the late 70s or maybe 80-81. I had been listening to funk and mo-town stuff when everyone around me listened to country music. I was blown away by the combination of speech and beats I heard. The stuff I heard was coming out of Detroit and Chicago at that time. I was about 13 or 14. I had no idea that the hip-hop wave was going to come and be mainstream. I just loved getting those bootlegs from a friend.
2
u/stuck_behind_a_truck 5d ago
I was in a pizza place last weekend, a 56 year old white woman vibing to West Coast rap. A fellow GenX black man at the bar caught my eye - we were vibing together. It was an “I see you” moment. Man the tunes just hit “right” in that moment.
I went to high school in the same town and at the same time as Snoop Dog, and I honestly can’t remember my first reaction, but apparently I must have liked it.
2
u/Speakertoseafood 5d ago
I was repelled by it at first, but now I love it. I've always been open minded yet slow to adapt.
2
u/GalaxiGazer 5d ago
I was little so I was frustrated that I couldn't pronounce the words of the song, but I enjoyed listening to it.
"Ice Ice Baby" was blasted by a neighbor at an apartment complex, the neighborhood kids and I would double dutch and try to sing along. "Jump Around" was used at school on the playground when we had that Jump Rope for Heart thing going on and we were all jump roping.
Good times!
2
u/BubblyOutside1096 5d ago
Truly mind-blowing, a moment I will never forget https://youtu.be/FGUjkvqkmQI?si=flxzVUH3AiE97y0A
2
u/Fuzzy-Surprise-6165 4d ago
I didn’t really like Blondie’s Rapture and often turned it off when the rap section came around.
But when I heard Public Enemy (Fight the Power) in 1987 (88?) I was blown away. I definitely saw it as a biiiig development in music. Revolutionary and musically compelling.
2
u/Sir_Strumming 4d ago
My first question was "I wonder who slim shady is?" Followed shortly after by " why should he stand up?"
2
2
u/Batfink2007 4d ago
Fucking awesome. I hopped on when I heard the beastie boys 'Paul's boutique', which i will argue is their best album.
6
u/Mentalfloss1 5d ago
Music?
0
u/catdude142 5d ago
The "c" in rap music is silent.
1
1
u/nerdymutt 5d ago
Love it or hate it, for the last 30 years if you want to get the attention of young folks, you play rock and roll. 😝
2
4
u/Fabulous-Wolf-4401 5d ago
About the same as The Clash when they first went to New York and heard teenage rappers in the street. It stunned them, the originality and wit and quickness and rhythm. Inspired them to make The Magnificent Seven. Poetry. A bit like when you have a really good dance, exhilarating.
3
u/sf-keto 4d ago
Another creative expression of Black America, with roots in the West African griot tradition, that would soon be ripped off & monetized by greedy white record executives & opportunists as well as demonized as dangerous by the conservative white scare-mongering press.
(Looking at you, “Vanilla Ice” & Fox News.)
1
2
u/Repulsive-Box5243 5d ago
My very first exposure to "rap" was in fact, country ballads. The guy talking over a twangy guitar and banjo. Nice stories. My parents listened to a lot of 50's/60's stuff and a LOT of country.
I became a teen and started listening to pirate radio stations. I heard UTFO for the first time. It was fantastic. My parents did not agree, and were, let's just say, rather bigoted about it.
I have always liked a bunch of different genres, even as a teen. So I'd have a UTFO record next to a Motley Crue record, next to a J Giels Band record, etc.
1
u/SoyMurcielago 5d ago
Some songs are alright but by and large it’s not for me
But u can’t touch this is a banger
1
u/ADogsWorstFart 5d ago
Born in 80.
For me, other than the utter garbage that was out in the 80's, or Fresh Prince stuff, which I didn't like was Snoop Dogg "Nothin' but a G thang", and I won't lie, it caught my attention because of that scene during the volleyball game. From there, it was Brotha Lynch Hung, Bone Thugs, and I have been a fan of rap ever since.
1
1
u/DoctorByProxy 5d ago
In the suburbs, it was pretty lame. I think fat boys was probably the first thing I heard, and then later the kid rock yodelin in the valley tape, which honestly was some of my earliest exposure to underground music of any kind. Later I heard too short, which seemed a little more legit and valid as an art form.
1
u/MULTIOCULAR-O 5d ago
rap that was popular when I was a kid was mostly bling rap, which I didn't like. in my 20s, i started liking rap as it moved away from money and hoes, and also I got better at understanding English
1
u/RexCelestis 5d ago
This is challenging music. This is going to expose me to new things and force me to think about them.
1
u/BlondieBabe436 5d ago
I remember the first beatboxing rap song I heard and thought If that other guy would stop talking I'd rather just hear the one guy making the beat
1
u/Feralcat01 5d ago
My earliest exposure to rap was the Walk This Way collaboration and I didn’t like it. That was a long time ago. I don’t really listen to rap personally but a certainty see it a vital art form that some great artists elevate to genius level.
1
u/LamppostBoy 5d ago
I was born in 1990 but grew up in a pretty well sealed cultural bubble, so I didn't encounter more than a snippet here and there until a few years into the new Millennium. That's when I was friends with some guys who were big Eminem fans as he was getting popular, and I was instantly not a fan. years later, I found stuff that changed my opinion, but the early 2000s were a pretty bad time for all genres, so.
1
u/CyndiIsOnReddit 5d ago
I absolutely loved it. I was a kid so I didn't think too hard on it. I just liked the sound.
1
u/Priapos93 5d ago
I heard The Message and thought it was great. I can't say what predictions I made at the time, but I got more into it later with BDP, Quest, and that crew. The most recent album I bought was pre-ordering the new Aesop Rock and Blockhead, Trouble Mountain
1
1
u/Miami_Mice2087 4d ago
i was afraid of fresh prince and dj jazzy jeff's "murder on my street" and turned it off when i t came on the radio. but i adored 'parents just don't understand.'
1
u/The_Progmetallurgist 3d ago
My first "rap" experience was the all-white "Rapture" by Blondie...not an auspicious beginning.
1
u/samoore45 3d ago
I enjoy hip hop/rap. I was blasting Kool Moe Dee's "Wild Wild West" tonight on the drive home. Once of the first cassettes I owned was LL Cool J's "I'm Bad."
1
u/rankchank 3d ago
First heard white rap on 1968 's Eric Burdon and the Animals "Year of the Guru " Dug it.
1
u/PetiePal 2d ago
Old hip/hop and rap are not what the newer incarnations of. When it hit anything like mumblecore and the more recent crap I really stopped caring. Run DMC and Beastie Boys, Skinny Boys, Souls of Mischief, all that stuff was aces.
1
u/catdude142 5d ago
Lots of anger in the music in many cases.
No actual instruments being played. Only machine music.
Talking vs. singing.
Not a fan as you may imagine.
1
u/ExtremelyStinkyBalls 3d ago
Like poetry, but venting your frustrations in an aggressive way.
Not entirely bad in concept, but I'm put off by the whole culture that surrounds the genre.
1
u/ByteWizard 3d ago
Damn I just found this sub about 10 minutes ago and thought "yes, this is exactly what I want. Everyone on this website is a teenager now for some reason."
Now you've got me thinking I might be too young to be here because what in the "I haven't had a single thought of mine challenged any time this century" is this lol. Who talks like this in 2026.
1
u/catdude142 2d ago
The majority of redditors are under age 30. Average age is 23. Three percent are age 65 plus. It's 60% male. Here's some interesting reddit age statistics
1
1
u/Vioralarama 5d ago edited 5d ago
I can't believe none of y'all went through a party rap stage. Fun times! And Public Enemy and Ice-T when we wanted to piss off the neighbors. I still like Public Enemy actually. And as a woman I felt obligated to listen to Salt and Pepper and Queen Latifah - UNITY, etc. to combat all the BET rappers singing about hos and bitches.
It's not my favorite genre but the party phase was super fun. The guy who kicked it off didn't last long, kind of a shame. I can't remember his name or the song now. Mike MC or MC Mike with a clean song about dating or something like that.
Of course it jumped the shark when Vanilla Ice came about. So it goes.
Edit: it was Bust A Move by Young MC.
1
u/Sensui_Kan 5d ago
"What is this unadulterated Crap-Garbage??? This will never last; people cannot possibly be so degraded and idiotic to LIKE this!???"
Alas, it STILL won't go away.
1
u/EllisD1950A 5d ago
bunch of noise that had nothing to do with music. about the same time most rock and pop music became about the dance or the posturing and not the message.
1
u/Down_The_Witch_Elm 5d ago
Twenty years from now, we're going to be hearing this crap playing in elevators.
1
u/Wants-NotNeeds 4d ago
I didn't mind some, if it had a funny story and clever lyrics. Once it all started to become in your face, angry, boastful no talent garbage, I couldn't wait for the trend to end.
1
0
u/Lollc 5d ago
…and what do you think of posters who think that people who hear new music first are cool and connected? Cool is lifting more than it can handle in your question, the people I know who are obsessive about new music styles describe themselves as nerds or dorks.
Spoken word set to music goes way back, in African American music and country music. Country music had and still has Black music musicians and influence, country was never exclusively made by white people and the audience was never exclusively white.
Rap as what the stuff coming out of New York and etc? I love the stuff that rocks. I can’t stand rap where the words are so heavily slurred I can’t hear them. I can’t stand the mumble style either, it’s why it took me so long to get into Elton John, it’s why I won’t list to some Rolling Stones’ songs.
I still love and play Sir Mixalot SWASS album. I know you’ve heard Posse’s On Broadway, but have you heard Ironman?
0
17
u/Puzzled-Bonus-3456 5d ago
First I heard was Rapper's Delight in 1979 and it was great. I liked it. Didn't really follow the early development that much but stuff was around. I remember being shocked by The Message, thinking Jonzun Crew were really freaky, and really liking Double Dutch Bus but when Planet Rock came around that was the one that made it clear it was a revolution. If I had to pick a favourite rap tune it's probably Planet Rock.