Original subtitles

LL COOL J: So, yo, you perform all over the world.

What makes New York unique when it comes to hip hop?

For me, what makes New York unique

is because it's these five boroughs.

Each one of these boroughs is like a different culture.

It's a different feel.

- It's a different flavor. - Yeah.

So, for you to make it in New York

and to hit all of these boroughs

and for these boroughs to accept you, you're actually

ahead of the game... - No question.

...because it's like five cities in one.

Yep, yep.

I just think New York trained us differently.

- I agree. - We think differently.

- We move differently. - [siren whoops]

In the beginning, hip hop was just one of those things

in the community that people really didn't understand.

And we just kept doing it,

and we did it so much that it was hard to...

stop it. - Amen.

[hip hop music playing]

LL COOL J: Hip hop is everywhere,

every corner of the globe.

To understand the power of hip hop today,

you gotta go back to where it all started...

♪ Ain't no love... ♪

LL COOL J: ...my hometown, New York City.

Because listen when I tell you, hip hop was born here.

SINGER: ♪ In the heart of town ♪

♪ Ain't no love ♪

[horns honks]

LL COOL J: New York, New York.

[siren wailing in distance]

Nowhere else in the world has an energy like this city.

Street strong on NYC.

Nowhere else sounds like this city.

I'm rhyming about the Bronx.

It's a place that you can point to on your map.

LL COOL J: These are the streets where it all began.

♪

50 years after its inception,

the hip hop we know is a global phenomenon,

an industry built for and supported by the masses,

heard around the world,

instantaneously injected into the mainstream...

through the Internet and social media,

added to playlists,

reshared

before half the planet even wakes up.

But it wasn't always like that.

- [whirring] - It wasn't always so easy.

♪

Before streaming on the Internet...

♪

Before hip hop hit the mainstream...

♪

...artists had to grind just to get their music heard

outside of their own neighborhood.

♪

To truly understand the path from then to now,

from a local scene to a global movement,

is to recognize and appreciate the pioneers who were hell bent

on spreading the word of hip hop by any means necessary.

♪

I'm on my way to meet one of those pioneers

at the former location of Chung King Studios,

a studio I named myself,

inspired by its location

just outside of Chinatown in Manhattan.

Now, the biggest names in the game recorded here--

2Pac, Biggie, Run-D.M.C., and yours truly.

But before all of us,

the Cold Crush brothers,

led by their fearless captain, Grandmaster Caz.

Take one.

Grandmaster Caz.

Yes, indeed.

- Casanova Fly. - [chuckles]

♪

- Well, who are you? - Well, I'm Caz!

♪ So what? What do that mean? ♪

♪ That I'm the baddest MC lover on the hip hop scene ♪

You have to understand something,

and this is not hyperbole.

This ain't hype. This ain't bullshit.

You and the Cold Crush are...

definitely one of the most important groups

in all of hip hop culture.

Am I right in saying that Cold Crush

initially were reluctant to record records?

GRANDMASTER CAZ: Yeah, we was the hottest group

in the streets without a record,

We like, "We good. We ain't gotta make no record."

♪ Ashes to ashes and dust to dust ♪

♪ We are the brothers, don't ask the Cold Crush ♪

- ♪ Not one, not two - LL COOL J: Understand,

when Caz and the Cold Crush Brothers came up,

there was no industry

or distribution network in place of any kind.

♪

The Cold Crush Brothers and the entire genre

existed in New York City, in the Bronx.

That was it...

until...

hip hop discovered the cassette tape.

All right, now, who were the first tapes that you heard?

So, well, me.

I came up with an idea to record what I was doing.

'Cause I thought it was cool,

and I thought other people would think it was cool.

You should have seen how ancient my tape recorder was, okay?

[LL Cool J laughs]

And the cassettes-- they were live.

They was us performing live.

♪

After flyers, the tapes was the next best way

to find out what was going on.

That's the way you put the voices to the names.

You like, "Okay, that's who that is that sounds like that."

♪

Tapes were how we got music circulated throughout the hood.

♪

I discovered hip hop with Cold Crush Brothers

and Kool Moe Dee.

That shit was a fucking tape.

You know, a TDK tape.

♪

Memorex or TDK would give you the little sticker, right?

And then you'd write all the songs.

You have to remember what songs were on what side.

And, uh, LL Cool J is on this, you know?

♪

You could take your boombox,

listen to the radio, tape that and press the button

and then start it, and then play another and press the button,

and you can make your own mixtape.

- Everyone was doing that. - Taping off the radio--

we used to do that. That was probably not legal.

♪

TONE: If someone in your neighborhood had a tape,

you would run up to their crib, make a copy of the tape,

and now you had a tape.

ROXANNE SHANTÉ: The mixtape did get to mixing around.

Like, I thought that was the reason why they called it

a mixtape, because that's how it mixed all around.

♪

[clack]

Okay, so what was your favorite tape back then,

outside of your stuff? - Nah, nah, good question.

There was a lot of other influences out there.

- Okay? - Yeah.

GRANDMASTER CAZ: The Treacherous Three was some

of the dopest tapes you'll ever hear in hip hop.

I also like to hear old DJ Hollywood tapes.

And the first person I heard talking on a microphone

while the DJ was playing was Coke La Rock.

People rarely ask me, "Who inspired you?"

- Because I'm one of the first. - Right.

But we all were inspired by something else.

We all were inspired by something we heard,

something we saw, something we liked,

and emulated it.

INTERVIEWER: Um, you're considered New School.

You're considered the new generation of rap artists.

- What's the difference? - What's the difference?

The difference is I grew up listening to them,

you know, the first rappers to grow up

listening to rappers. You know what I'm saying?

Grandmaster Flash, Furious Five, Treacherous Three,

Fearless Four, Crash Crew, all those brothers.

♪ We came here tonight to throw down ♪

Listen to all those rappers.

Okay, so these incredible vibes--

I think we should go to the Bronx real quick.

- You gon' guide LL. - Let's get it.

We gon'--we gon' see where it was born.

All right, so we gon' head over to the Bronx, baby.

- Make it happen, baby. - Let's get it.

♪

When I said...

♪ I got bodyguards, got two big cars ♪

♪ That definitely ain't the wack ♪

- ♪ I got a Lincoln Continental - And?

♪ A sunroof Cadillac ♪

I didn't have none of that shit.

- Yeah. - I was talking about aspiration.

- Right. - But that's where

the creativity come into play.

You say it, and then you become it.

"LL" stands for Ladies Love, Legend and Leather

Long and Lean Love of Ladies Last

for the red hot Lovers Looking for a Little,

Look and Learning the one you're Liking.

Just a lot of L's, you know what I'm saying?

We wanna be way up there, like... pssh!

Just like that--the jet going through the sky over there.

GRANDMASTER CAZ: That's what I love about hip hop.

I was talking about what I aspire to have,

- Right. - ...what I wanna have.

I didn't have none of that shit.

♪

- We here. - There it is.

♪

Here we are. 1520 Sedgwick Avenue.

Gotta pay homage. This is the birthplace, baby.

♪

1520 Sedgwick Avenue.

This is the place where Kool Herc and his family live.

And this is the site of the first documented

hip hop party-- August 11, 1973.

♪

LL COOL J: When you think about this place,

what does it mean to you, like, for real?

Like, in your soul, what does it mean to you?

Origins. I live right up the block.

You can walk to where I lived from here. And I was a shorty.

I was too young to go to the party,

but the energy that came out of this room

permeated the whole neighborhood.

So, it's like Kool Herc party, Kool Herc party, Kool Herc.

Who the fuck is Kool Herc?

♪

Now, a little past this building,

it's like a little makeshift park.

- Uh-huh. - Right?

That's the area where Herc took the music outside.

♪

That corner right there--

that's where Kool Herc used to set up his equipment.

- Used to set up in that corner? - Yep.

LL COOL J: Man.

GRANDMASTER CAZ: And the park would just be packed.

You saying a little party here, outside, playground,

breakbeats playing. - Yep.

And this thing went worldwide from right here?

Just from this.

That's crazy.

♪

- [sizzling] - [children shouting playfully]

LL COOL J: Let's talk about one word.

GRANDMASTER CAZ: All right.

Legacy. What does the word "legacy" mean to you?

I think it's more important than--than the present,

than the here and now, because this is gon' be over.

- Legacy is forever. - Oh, wow.

- ♪ Cold Crush - ♪ Grandmaster Caz or GMC ♪

♪ I'm gonna stick ya on the board, man ♪

♪ Can't you see? ♪

I'm only gon' be here for a little while,

but the influences that I leave in other people...

- LL COOL J: Yeah. - ...and in other things,

that's always gon' be here.

- Yeah. - It's the account

of our history and let people know we were here

and what we did when we were here.

Legacy is everything...

- Yeah. - ...to me.

- Yeah. That's powerful. - Yeah.

Well, yo, I appreciate you, bro. I love you, man.

- I love you, too. - And respect, too.

The Grandmaster, the Fly One.

- The flyest of 'em all. - Got the GOAT in the BX, baby.

- [laughs] - You know what it is.

- You know exactly what it is. - [chuckles]

[children shouting playfully]

♪

LL COOL J: Over 50 years ago,

the seed of hip hop was planted in the Bronx

Thanks to artists like Caz and the Cold Crush Brothers,

the Treacherous Three, Melle Mel,

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five,

Afrika Bambaataa, and new methods of distribution

like the cassette tape,

that seed began to grow, pushing deeper into the boroughs of NYC.

So, now I'm on the move again,

following the roots of hip hop into Brooklyn

to meet up with someone who was

at the forefront of that early wave--

my man, none other than the hip hop innovator,

Brooklyn's finest, Big Daddy Kane.

[both laughing]

Greatness.

What up, baby?

- My man. - You got it, brother.

This shit look good on you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[laughs] This shit look good on you.

I'm feeling kind of back in time right now.

- You know what I mean? - Yeah.

♪ I'm coming ♪

LL COOL J: Now, this man right here

is one of the absolute icons of hip hop.

Sincerely yours, the Smooth Operator.

♪ I'm gonna love you ♪

LL COOL J: A master lyricist and wordsmith,

broke out in '86 with the Juice Crew.

And he quickly became

one of the most influential MCs in the game.

The Big Father, the Smooth Operator,

Big Daddy Kane.

LL COOL J: Rapper, producer, an actor,

Grammy Award winner,

and a hip hop style icon to this day--Big Daddy Kane.

- ♪ Ooh - Did I leave anything out?

The main element is to be intelligent.

LL COOL J: Often imitated, never duplicated.

- Big... Daddy... Kane! - [cheering]

Turntables, drum machines, and cassette tapes

weren't the only tools Kane and his hip hop peers

had at their disposal in the early days.

They also had internal combustion engines.

- I'm talking about car services. - ♪ Ooh ♪

Car services before they were on an app.

♪ I'm coming ♪

LL COOL J: They served as a distribution network

for tapes and mixes across the city.

♪ Oh, I'm coming ♪

Okay, so first of all, did you use the car services?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lots of times. We would, you know, use it to,

like, to like, go to a party. - Yeah.

Back in the days, you know, there was OJays,

Touch of Class. From a music standpoint,

did you get any hip hop influence in them cars?

Sometimes in the Black Pearl joints,

you hear master mixes.

♪

KIM OSORIO: So, car services

were a non-traditional way of spreading hip hop.

NELSON GEORGE: In New York, if you were Black or Latino,

it was very hard to get a taxi.

So, all of these different cab companies

developed to serve you in Brooklyn,

to serve you in Harlem and Uptown.

♪

We had Black Pearl, Godfather's.

There were OJay's.

Every barbershop, every beauty parlor,

every grocery store, there'd be a card in the window.

You call 'em up. That's how you got around.

- Thank you. Enjoy your day. - And a lot of these guys

in the car, it's part of their patter

to get you to take a longer ride

so they can charge you more with tapes.

You would hear new things that you wouldn't hear before.

♪

This was pre-hip hop being on radio.

♪

This is pre-hip hop getting circulated

to people's Walkmans and things of that nature.

♪

You talking to Roxanne Shanté. Now, there were OJay cars,

and people did get picked up in 'em,

and they rode around in 'em.

But, baby, I mean, I was seeing people who had cars,

so I ain't really taking car services.

♪

As things were happening in the Bronx

and obviously in the other boroughs,

what was the movement like

in those early years in Brooklyn?

Bronx is a thousand miles away, sometimes

it feel like, from here. - Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Like, my first dose was '77, going to a block party.

- Okay. - I'm a kid.

You know, I'm only nine years old.

- Mm-hmm. - Everybody crowded around

like they was watching a movie or something.

Mm-hmm.

And then you saw a mic line form...

- Mm. - ...and about, you know,

20 cats got up, you know, waiting to get on a mic.

And I had never seen nothing like that before.

♪ They rally ♪

LL COOL J: You saw that passion, you saw that vibe...

- Yeah. - ...that hunger that they had...

- Yeah. - ...to get on the mic.

It had me like, "What's this?" And I knew I wanna be

a part of it, whatever this is.

Like, how did you ultimately say,

"You know what? I'm-a do this. Like, I could do this"?

Well, I was really focused on the DJ side, right?

What was your name when you was DJing?

- Sir Romeo. - Sir Romeo.

DJ Sir Romeo.

[laughter]

Fucking love it.

♪

So, then at a certain point, you went from listening

and vibing and being influenced to actually writing.

I started off really, like, just writing battle rhymes,

battling people in school. I felt like, I'm good.

- Right. - And when I heard Caz...

LL COOL J: The Grandmaster.

Yeah, like, the stuff that he was spitting,

I just was like, yeah, I'm doing everything wrong.

I'll never be dope if I'm not half as good as this guy.

So, I threw my whole rap book away. I started--

- Really? - Yeah. I started all over. Yeah.

- That's crazy. - Yeah.

So, look, I wanna see Brooklyn.

I want you to show me, point some things out.

- You know what I'm saying? - Say less.

Teach your Queens brother about Brooklyn,

you know what I mean?

- Say less, baby. - Love.

♪

[siren wailing in distance]

[engine revs]

♪

Do this feel Black Pearl, in particular, people-ish?

[laughs] Just need the pine tree air freshener.

LL COOL J: The pine tree air freshener.

- Yeah. - [laughs]

♪

So, we're gon' go up to your school,

where a lot of Big Daddy Kane battles

took place and all that?

A lot of rap battles.

The majority of time, I would be in class,

and someone would come to the door...

- "Yo." - ...and let me know that someone

outside wanted to battle. - Wanted to battle.

- Yeah. - And you'd go out there.

Yeah, I get the bathroom pass, go out there,

wear somebody ass out... - [laughs]

...then bring the pass back, like, a period later.

LL COOL J: Yo, that's hilarious.

- BIG DADDY KANE: Yeah. - [school bell rings]

[engine rumbling]

Hold up.

MAN: Peace, L.

- Peace, baby. We here. - [horn honks]

Sarah J. Hale High School.

What's the first thing come to mind when you look over here?

That sign wasn't there.

[laughter]

For my man B.D.K.,

hip hop was born here.

In here, like, it used to be me and the guidance counselor.

- Like, he knew that I rap. - Right.

So, he would, like, during official period,

he would let me get on the microphone

and say a rhyme about attendance,

about staying off of drugs. - Oh, really?

Then by noon, we go cut class and go get drunk.

[laughter]

BIG DADDY KANE: Nah. But it was, like,

so much support in this here school.

I had the whole school in my corner.

- Mm-hmm. - The whole school

rooting for me. - Mm-hmm.

BIG DADDY KANE: I felt like one day I'm-a make it.

And let me ask you a question. Why did you wanna make it?

♪

When I was younger, I always wanted to be Marvin Gaye.

- I just can't sing. - [laughing]

You know? But I knew I could rap my ass off.

INTERVIEWER: So, I understand you're the Marvin Gaye of rap.

That's what people are saying.

Are they? Good.

It wasn't about, you know, selling a bunch of records.

It wasn't about, you know, buying a Bentley or a Rolls.

- Yeah, just being the dopest-- - Just wanted to be

the dopest MC, that's all. - Yeah.

That's all I really envisioned at that time.

Everything is still the same, you know?

I'm still living the same place I was living before.

Well, I got more things than I did before,

you know, like all big jewelry and Dapper Dan suits.

♪

Okay, one word. Talk to me about it--"legacy."

I mean, nothing means more to me

than to have someone say that my music

helped them get through high school,

through college, through Desert Storm.

If I can give you just something motivational

to make you do better in life,

I feel like then I did a good thing with my music.

I'm not trying to tell nobody, you know, to do this or do that,

you know, trying to tell nobody right from wrong.

I'm just trying to show you that I was

in that same position where I had a choice,

you know, to go this way or that way.

And I believe that I went the right way.

It's like, we're not paying the fans.

- Mm-hmm. - They're paying us.

Right. They're paying for that inspiration and that escape.

- Right. - It's our spirit

sharing with their spirits. - Exactly.

There it is. You know what I'm sayin'?

My man. King Asiatic, baby.

That's what it is.

♪

SINGER: ♪ Brooklyn, Brooklyn, Brooklyn, Brooklyn ♪

♪ We go hard ♪

♪

LL COOL J: From B.D.K. to B.I.G. to Lil' Kim,

countless more,

there's no doubt Brooklyn goes hard.

Now I'm headed north to visit a Harlem rapper who,

in my humble opinion, is hip hop personified.

[beatboxing]

[continues beatboxing]

- Yo. - What's up, man?

- My man Doug! Doug with an E! - Come on, man. Come on, man.

Chillin' with... uhh!

♪ Hit it ♪

LL COOL J: Doug E. Fresh,

the human beatbox.

While other MCs and DJs used drum machines and turntables,

the equipment that Doug E. Fresh used

was basically Doug E. Fresh himself.

♪ Somebody say... [high-pitched] "Oh, my God!"♪

LL COOL J: The most ionic beatboxer of all time.

Doug E. took the art mainstream

with his partner, Slick Rick and the Get Fresh Crew.

The toast of America's rap generation,

Doug E. Fresh.

LL COOL J: The single, "The Show/La Di Da Di"

is a hip hop classic

and one of the most sampled tracks in all of music.

[beatboxing]

- ♪ Excuse me, Doug E Fresh - ♪ Yes ♪

Me and you, in terms of our industry, we are true peers.

We really came out together. How were you exposed to hip hop?

You know, my sister just came home

and started talking about DJ Hollywood.

She started saying the rhyme-- "ring-a-ding-a-ding,

da-dong, the dong-dong, the dang, the dang-dang,

the ding, the dong-dong to the hip hop..."

And all of a sudden, I said,

"Wow, that's crazy. Do that again."

Right now, rap music is number one over here.

Rap music is ruling.

The main message to our rap music is have something

to believe in and be yourself and let people hear

that we're not as stupid and as ignorant as they think we are.

Know what I'm saying?

I used to write poetry all the time.

- Oh, wow. - So, I wrote poetry in school.

I won the Langston Hughes award. But when hip hop started,

it turned from poetry into just coming up with rhymes.

Y'all be beatin' on the lunch table.

Yeah.

So, all of these different things collectively

just changed my whole perspective.

[cheers and applause]

LL COOL J: As Doug E. was evolving

into the hip hop icon he is today,

something else popped on the scene

that completely changed the game

and further spread the gospel of hip hop in an all new way.

Now let's talk about the boombox.

The boombox is like an icon of hip hop culture.

GEORGE: The boombox is not just music that you can hear--

everybody can hear.

OSORIO: The whole point was to make sure that everybody heard

so when you hear the music,

you can start looking for what's going on.

It really was a way to call people in.

♪

Whoever it was that had the biggest boombox

had the party on the block.

GEORGE: It played cassette tapes.

It also had a radio component.

You could carry it outside. You have enough D batteries,

then you can take your boombox outside.

♪

SHANTÉ: We're talking anywhere from 12 to 18 D batteries.

They also had to have money

'cause D batteries was expensive.

♪

The boombox came from the b-boys.

♪

They needed to dance to some music,

so the bigger the radio, the louder the music,

the more people gon' come around

and make that circle again.

♪

The boombox became a fashion statement.

LL--he was the first one to be talking

about how big his radio was.

SHANTÉ: Then they got the two speakers,

then they got the four speakers, then they got the six speakers,

then they got the three parts.

[laughs] We're talking about a big strap

and somebody having a strong back.

♪

LL COOL J: When I would see a dude

walking down the street with a boombox,

it was so much power.

You know, look, when you growing up

in New York in that time, you feel invisible.

- Right. - Your friends get killed.

It means nothing to anybody. Nobody cares.

- Right. - But there was so much joy

and such high vibration around this.

And it was all about the dude walking

down the block like this. He just walking.

LL COOL J: No doubt. Or with it on his shoulder.

- Right, right, right, right! - With it on his shoulder.

And it's so crazy because it's right in his ear.

- Blowing his ears off the frame. - [laughs]

LL COOL J: All right, so this what we gon' do.

This what we gon' do. We gon' hit the rooftop,

and you gon' be able to see the whole city from where we at.

And I'm-a show you where the beatbox was first done.

All right, let's get to it, baby.

♪ Ain't no half steppin' ♪

[siren wailing in distance]

[speaking Dutch]

...the human beatboxer.

[resumes in Dutch]

...in studio, Doug E. Fresh and the Get Fresh crew.

Doug here... [speaks Dutch] and Rick. [speaks Dutch]

Uh, could you explain what a human beatbox is, Doug?

[beatboxes] Ladies...

[beatboxes]

...and gentlemen... [resumes beatboxing]

We are...

[resumes beatboxing]

ALL: The Get Fresh Crew!

♪

[seabirds calling]

So, yo, origins of the beatbox.

Okay. All right. I went to a school over here.

LL COOL J: Mm-hmm.

- I had a teacher... - Mm-hmm.

...who wanted me to play the trumpet.

Mm-hmm.

So, I'm taking this trumpet home.

Every day I'm practicing. I'm practicing.

And then one day I come to school,

and he is no longer there.

It ain't 'cause of your trumpet playing, is it?

- No, no, no! [laughs] - Terrible teacher. That's...

But I--what it was is that they cut the music program

in most of the urban schools.

- Of course. - And that's what happened.

So, long story short, I'm walking home.

But while I'm walking home,

every day I'm hearing these musics.

I'm hearing... ♪ It was a party night ♪

♪ Everybody was breakin' ♪

- ♪ Was breakin' in the house - Oh, man, that gave me... Whoo!

♪ And it won't be long till everybody knowin' that ♪

♪ On that beat box goin' that... ♪

- [laughs] - And...

♪ Sha-na-na ♪

♪ Italian, Caucasian, Japanese ♪

♪ Spanish, Indian, Negro, Vietnamese ♪

DOUG: We hear that, Spoonie, Treacherous, everything.

So, I'm walking home. I'm hearing...

[hums]

So, now you got the bass and the beat box, right?

- Yeah. - Then you got...

[humming, clicking]

Then you putting the hi-hat in there, and the crash is...

[humming, clicking]

Then you putting the other thing in there.

[humming, clicking, making blooping sounds]

And now you starting to-- now you going...

Now it's starting to get real crazy, right?

- [laughing] - So, now I'm doing it outside.

Everybody lost they mind.

That was the beginning, and then it took off.

[beatboxing]

Yeah. Come on.

♪

[beatboxing]

No, I'm working out, y'all.

♪

LL COOL J: Okay. And this is something

I've been asking people-- your legacy.

What's legacy mean to you?

What is my legacy? Uh...

I never really put too much thought into that.

I'm so busy living in the now,

in this moment right now,

that I don't even really think about the legacy.

I think it writes itself.

I think it writes itself. You know that?

Yep.

And I mean this so sincerely.

There's no words.

There's nothing that I can ever say

to thank God enough...

Amen.

...for giving me this moment right now

and the opportunities that I've had

and just to be here now with you

and us growing up together and us standing here

from the time when we were little kids, man.

- Doug E. Fresh. - Appreciate you, brother.

- You already know. - Hip hop was born here.

- Yes, sir. - Here.

- Yes, sir. - No doubt, no doubt.

- Let's roll. - Yeah.

[Boogie Down Production's "South Bronx" playing]

♪ South Bronx ♪

♪ The South, South Bronx ♪

I got the GOAT with me, baby.

LL Cool J! Get over here!

[laughter]

[crowd cheering and laughing]

♪ South Bronx, the South, South Bronx ♪

♪ South Bronx, the South, South Bronx ♪

♪ South Bronx, the South, South Bronx ♪