The history of hip hop that you think you know is probably not correct. In fact, let’s think back. The history of hip hop that you think you know may not be accurate. Or rather, the origins of hip hop are not what you think they are. Okay, enough of the corrections. I think you get the point.
That’s essentially the point Tariq Nasheed makes in his latest documentary, Microphone Check: The Hidden History of Hip Hop.
An Open Conversation with Tariq Nasheed: Exploring the True History of Hip Hop
“We hear a lot about how hip hop was born out of African, Caribbean and Latino cultures, but the foundational black American culture is often overlooked. It’s often ignored, but that’s where hip hop came from. So I wanted to tell the truth of the history and pay tribute to the pioneers who are still alive today and who are still being ignored. They want to tell their stories.”
In a candid interview with resident conversationalist Dan Gohl, Tariq discusses the motivations and aims of his latest creative endeavor, which isn’t a huge departure from his previous projects, but it is nonetheless transformative.
“I’ve done a lot of documentaries about history, especially the untold history of Black people. That’s my specialty,” he says, referring to the five-part documentary series “Hidden Colors,” which explores the untold histories of Aboriginal peoples, Moors and people of African descent and their marginalization in America and around the world.
Mic Check
There’s a conspiracy closer to home about his interest in hip-hop culture.
“I’m a historian, so I like uncovering a lot of things that haven’t been told. Plus, I’m also an avid hip-hop fan. I’ve been a big fan of hip-hop culture since I was a kid.”
He speaks of overlapping cycles of revisionism, bringing us back to the topic at the beginning: constant revision.
“As hip-hop’s 50th anniversary approaches, people are starting to revise history.” Naturally, he asks, “Why are they trying to revise the culture? Why are they trying to revise the origins of what was?”
“Anyone can enjoy it. Anyone can participate. But you have to respect where it came from…”
Unearthing the true stories of hip-hop pioneers
A clear mission: to tell the truth about the origins of hip hop and how it really happened. But getting to the truth may not be so easy. Dan asks how this process – exploring and learning the stories of others – has impacted Tariq’s life.
“Having the pioneers tell their stories was a big thing for me and I learned a lot from them. Especially as we talk about in the film, there was a difference between disco DJs and hip-hop DJs. There were a lot of disco DJs in the ’70s who rapped, but they weren’t considered hip-hop yet because they weren’t involved in all of that – rapping, mixing, beat boys, graffiti, everything. So there was an internal conflict about that.”
Mic Check: The Hidden History of Hip Hop (Official Trailer)
More poignantly, Tariq explains why many of hip hop’s true founders are misrepresented.
“What’s really interesting is that a lot of the pioneers who were really creating things from the beginning are often underrated. We have the first hip-hop breakdance with Trixie in the film. We have the first female MC, Sharoc (Sharon Greene). Cornbread, from Philadelphia, was the first creator of modern-day graffiti.”
“A lot of these pioneers are under-represented because what do they do when a lot of documentaries go into hip-hop? Because a lot of these documentaries are funded by corporate structures, [in] “With the corporate structure, with the record labels and wanting to promote their artists, they’re talking about Kool Herc’s party in ’73, then they jump to the ’90s or whatever, and then they start talking about more modern rappers and pushing that agenda.”
“Why are they trying to revise the origins of what was?”
Here, Tariq makes it clear that Microphone Check is a real opportunity to glimpse into the origins of a culture – not diving in after the scene has been established, but much earlier, when the nascent creative storm is just forming.
“I wanted to focus on the ’70s. If you watch the film, most of what we’re talking about is [then] I don’t know much about the 80’s [by then] Hip hop is well established and most of what happened in the ’80s is pretty well documented.”
“But what happened after the ’73 party and what happened before the ’73 party has long been a murky grey area. Nobody wants to talk about it. And that’s why we [cover] In this movie.”
There is no 50-50 historical revision
Tariq returns to the revisionist movement and discusses how this has played out throughout the history of media and entertainment, particularly music; how certain historical movements have come to be ignored;
“In our culture, when we created a genre and it started to look like something positive, we had to take it away from ourselves and give credit to other people. When hip-hop was seen as something negative – as corrupt, criminal, damaging records, noise – it was all black. Nobody wanted to share it with us. People were being prosecuted, [there were] There were accusations of censorship, people going to jail for hip hop, and it was all because of black people.”
As cultures evolve, so do the associated emotions.
“It became an Olympic sport, big corporations were backing hip-hop, and everybody wanted to claim a part of the origin story. This happens in a lot of genres. It happened with rock ‘n’ roll, which was the foundation of black American culture. When rock ‘n’ roll started, it was the devil’s music, people protested about it, it was the worst thing ever, it corrupted society. Same with jazz. Jazz was the devil’s music. Black people were turning people into marijuana addicts. Once rock ‘n’ roll and jazz became commercially successful, to some extent, it was taken away from us.”
Again, Microphone Check takes hidden, unwritten history and brings it to light, not so that we may become weaker, but so that society can continue to grow on the right foundations.
“So they’ve always done that with the genre we make. We’re saying no. We’re going to take control of it and let people know where it comes from. Everybody can enjoy it. Everybody can participate. But we have to respect where it comes from. That’s the foundation of Black American culture.”
It would be foolish to think that a culture so far-reaching and transformative to modern society could grasp the kind of challenges Tariq poses. Many of us respect and love the movement, so why ignore its hidden truths?
Now is our chance to right that wrong, and Tariq is leading the way, but more importantly, he’s giving a voice to the true pioneers of hip-hop culture – a voice that has struggled to find until now.
