By Mr. Davey D
By now all of us involved in Hip Hop have heard about the 2 disses Cam’ron launched at Jay-Z. For many, the one that stands out the most is not Killa Cam’s 7 minute song of personal attacks, but instead Cam’s narration of the ‘I’m Biter Not a Writer’ megamix which was done several months ago.
For those who are unfamiliar, this was medley put together sometime last year that illustrates certain rhymes that Jay-Z lifted from other artists-most notably the Notorious BIG and Snoop Dogg. Cam’ron replays this piece and with his humorous and yet stinging commentary, he left many with the impression that Jay-Z is a straight up plagiarist who creditability is shot because he violated one of Hip Hop’s cardinal rules ‘Thou Shall Not Bite’.
What’s interesting about this is, if you go back to Hip Hop’s early days before there were any rap records and this rule was first established, you would find a lot of emcees including myself devoted more then a few lines to warning other emcees to not bite our rhymes. Coming original was paramount, but if you took some time to really examine some of our early rhymes you find we were just as guilty as Jay-Z.
Many of us reworked old mother goose nursery school rhymes. Some of us bit double-dutch rhymes from our sisters. Still others generously lifted rhymes from verbal word games that our fathers and grandfathers played including; the Dozens, Signifying Monkey and the Sinking of the Titanic to name a few. If we’re to really gonna be honest many of us ‘borrowed’ and reworked choice rhymes that we heard on those early block party tapes featuring then well known and popular artists like Grandmaster Caz, Funky Four Plus One More, Mele-Mel, Cowboy, Kid Creole and the rest of the crew that made up the Furious Five MCs.
Now, many of us didn’t really see what we were doing as biting. Snatching lines from here and there and slightly changing it was all too common and basically seen as fair game as long as you added your own flava and didn’t bite an entire stanza as was the case with Sugar Hill Gang’s Big Bank Hank. The story of him ‘borrowing’ Grand Master some lines from Grand Master Caz rhyme book and never giving him credit or paying him when they recorded the landmark song ‘Rapper’s Delight’ is well known. But unlike Jay-Z, Hank recited an entire stanza including Grand Master Caz’ nickname ‘Casanova Fly’ and passed it off as his own.
Much of this memorable verse came from Grandmaster Caz
Check it out, i'm the c-a-s-an-the-o-v-a
and the rest is f-l-y
ya see i go by the code of the doctor of the mix
and these reasons i'll tell ya why
ya see i'm six foot one and i'm tons of fun
and i dress to a t
ya see i got more clothes than muhammad ali and i dress so viciously
i got bodyguards, i got two big cars
that definitely aint the wack
i got a lincoln continental and a sunroof cadillac
so after school, i take a dip in the pool
which really is on the wall
i got a color tv so i can see
the knicks play basketball…..
Now that’s a bite and a huge one at that…That’s not what Jay-Z did. He took a couple lines and added his own take which is a natural process that emcees have been doing forever. For example, let’s go back to this Rapper’s Delight Record.
In Hank’s second verse he kicks the following lines:
Well, I’m hemp the demp the ladies pimp
the women fight for my delight
but I’m the grandmaster with the three mcs
that shock the house for the young ladies
and when you come inside, into the front
you do the freak, spank, and do the bump
and when the sucker mcs try to prove a point
we're treacherous trio, we're the serious joint….
Hank referencing himself as ‘the Grandmaster with the 3 emcees’ is an indication that he was taking from Grandmaster Caz. We know this because Sugar Hill Gang only had 3 emcees including Hank, hence his rhyme makes no sense. On the other hand, Grandmaster Caz rolled with three other emcees Easy A.D, Almighty Kay Gee and JDL, so you can see it was his rhyme. In fact back in the days they often referred to themselves as the Cold Crush Four. But now here’s the irony to all this.
The rhyme ‘I’m Hemp the Demp the ladies pimp and women fight for my delight’ is one that can and has been found in other places long before the release of ‘Rapper’s Delight’ or for that matter anything Grandmaster Caz had done.
You hear this rhyme being kicked in during a barbershop scene in the movie ‘Five on the Black Hand Side’ which came out in 1973. You will also find that rhyme written out and accompanied by an entire stanza in the book ‘Die Nigger Die’ written in 1969 by 60’s Black Freedom Fighter, H. Rap Brown who is now known as Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin.
Now if we were to follow the logic put forth by Cam’ron and readily accept the outrage and indignation expressed by everyone who thinks Jay-Z is a biter, then we would in effect have to apply that to damn near every emcee who has blessed the mic. I’m certain that if we check Cam’ron’s full body of work we will discover that he’s borrowed rhyme or two from someone.
The key phrase here is ‘full body of work’. We have to put all this into context. Jay-z has released 7 or 8 albums and has recorded hundred of songs since the early 90s. It’s not like he was flipping entire stanzas like Hank did in Rapper’s Delight’, He’s taken a line or two and went on to add his own flava before and after the line was spit in a song.
One should also take into account that Jay-Z supposedly doesn’t write down his lyrics when he records. If such is the case, then we definitely should not be surprised if he kicks a line or two from somebody else. It would be the equivalent to him using the time and trued stanza/hook ‘Yes Yes Y’all to the Beat Ya’ll, Ya Don’t Stop Keep On’ as he either caught is breath and got back on beat or as a reference point to kick off a new set of verses. In other words he might kick a well known Biggie line to reference himself and move onto whatever he has to say in the next verse. What I’m describing is not only commonplace, but a natural cultural aesthetic when it comes to Hip Hop music and Black music in general.
A couple of years ago I wrote a column about sampling and addressed the music critics who accused Hip Hop artists of being lazy and not being original. They felt that sampling was nothing more then stealing music and that it should be banned. Hip Hop producers countered that that all they were doing was borrowing from the past and adding onto it to create a new body of work. They felt what they were doing was helping preserve our musical heritage.
When I wrote this column, I consulted with then UC Berkeley music Professor Ricky ‘Uhuru Maggot’ Vincent who wrote the excellent book ‘History of Funk’. He pointed out the blatant contradictions of some of these rap critics who would lambaste Hip Hop but give a pass to jazz, blues and even classic artists who always borrowed riffs and melodies from past works and added their own take. He noted that many jazz musicians called it riffing (borrowing) and vamping (twisting) and that everyone from Duke Ellington on down to Count Bassie to James Brown and Average White Band all engaged in the practice.
Vincent went to point out, that many of the harmonies and melodies used by the Beatles 41 years ago were probably inspired by this riffing vamping technique from the blues and be-pop and race music architects who proceeded them. We should also note that the riffing and vamping concept also extends into the vocalization aspect of music. It’s not unusual for singers to reference past song lyrics and even melodies to their new body of work. This riffing and vamping concept Vincent noted, was not just a major part of black music but a cornerstone of all music.
Lastly, Vincent noted how on many levels that riffing and vamping gave music a timeless feel because it connected and honored one’s to past. This is important to note because as I noted earlier Jay-Z kick a verse before reciting somebody’s rhyme he straight up said that it was his way of giving props.
I’ll just add this before I close out..The biggest problem artists are facing is that this natural occurring process of developing music is being stifled by major record labels, short sighted artists and greedy individuals who have twisted all these new laws governing intellectual property and copyright. So anytime someone goes in this naturally occurring direction that connects past to present, we have somebody trying to get an injunction or filing a lawsuit. Last week’s lawsuit filed by the owner of the 2 Live Crews copyrights against 50 Cent for lifting a line from the ‘It’s Your Birthday’ song where Luke raps ‘Go Sheila It’s your Birthday’ to ‘Go Shorty It’s your Birthday’ in 50’s song ‘In Da Club’ seems to be a perfect example. But that’s a whole other story and column for another time..
These are just a few things to ponder the next time somebody starts suggesting that Jay-Z is a plagiarist….
By now all of us involved in Hip Hop have heard about the 2 disses Cam’ron launched at Jay-Z. For many, the one that stands out the most is not Killa Cam’s 7 minute song of personal attacks, but instead Cam’s narration of the ‘I’m Biter Not a Writer’ megamix which was done several months ago.
For those who are unfamiliar, this was medley put together sometime last year that illustrates certain rhymes that Jay-Z lifted from other artists-most notably the Notorious BIG and Snoop Dogg. Cam’ron replays this piece and with his humorous and yet stinging commentary, he left many with the impression that Jay-Z is a straight up plagiarist who creditability is shot because he violated one of Hip Hop’s cardinal rules ‘Thou Shall Not Bite’.
What’s interesting about this is, if you go back to Hip Hop’s early days before there were any rap records and this rule was first established, you would find a lot of emcees including myself devoted more then a few lines to warning other emcees to not bite our rhymes. Coming original was paramount, but if you took some time to really examine some of our early rhymes you find we were just as guilty as Jay-Z.
Many of us reworked old mother goose nursery school rhymes. Some of us bit double-dutch rhymes from our sisters. Still others generously lifted rhymes from verbal word games that our fathers and grandfathers played including; the Dozens, Signifying Monkey and the Sinking of the Titanic to name a few. If we’re to really gonna be honest many of us ‘borrowed’ and reworked choice rhymes that we heard on those early block party tapes featuring then well known and popular artists like Grandmaster Caz, Funky Four Plus One More, Mele-Mel, Cowboy, Kid Creole and the rest of the crew that made up the Furious Five MCs.
Now, many of us didn’t really see what we were doing as biting. Snatching lines from here and there and slightly changing it was all too common and basically seen as fair game as long as you added your own flava and didn’t bite an entire stanza as was the case with Sugar Hill Gang’s Big Bank Hank. The story of him ‘borrowing’ Grand Master some lines from Grand Master Caz rhyme book and never giving him credit or paying him when they recorded the landmark song ‘Rapper’s Delight’ is well known. But unlike Jay-Z, Hank recited an entire stanza including Grand Master Caz’ nickname ‘Casanova Fly’ and passed it off as his own.
Much of this memorable verse came from Grandmaster Caz
Check it out, i'm the c-a-s-an-the-o-v-a
and the rest is f-l-y
ya see i go by the code of the doctor of the mix
and these reasons i'll tell ya why
ya see i'm six foot one and i'm tons of fun
and i dress to a t
ya see i got more clothes than muhammad ali and i dress so viciously
i got bodyguards, i got two big cars
that definitely aint the wack
i got a lincoln continental and a sunroof cadillac
so after school, i take a dip in the pool
which really is on the wall
i got a color tv so i can see
the knicks play basketball…..
Now that’s a bite and a huge one at that…That’s not what Jay-Z did. He took a couple lines and added his own take which is a natural process that emcees have been doing forever. For example, let’s go back to this Rapper’s Delight Record.
In Hank’s second verse he kicks the following lines:
Well, I’m hemp the demp the ladies pimp
the women fight for my delight
but I’m the grandmaster with the three mcs
that shock the house for the young ladies
and when you come inside, into the front
you do the freak, spank, and do the bump
and when the sucker mcs try to prove a point
we're treacherous trio, we're the serious joint….
Hank referencing himself as ‘the Grandmaster with the 3 emcees’ is an indication that he was taking from Grandmaster Caz. We know this because Sugar Hill Gang only had 3 emcees including Hank, hence his rhyme makes no sense. On the other hand, Grandmaster Caz rolled with three other emcees Easy A.D, Almighty Kay Gee and JDL, so you can see it was his rhyme. In fact back in the days they often referred to themselves as the Cold Crush Four. But now here’s the irony to all this.
The rhyme ‘I’m Hemp the Demp the ladies pimp and women fight for my delight’ is one that can and has been found in other places long before the release of ‘Rapper’s Delight’ or for that matter anything Grandmaster Caz had done.
You hear this rhyme being kicked in during a barbershop scene in the movie ‘Five on the Black Hand Side’ which came out in 1973. You will also find that rhyme written out and accompanied by an entire stanza in the book ‘Die Nigger Die’ written in 1969 by 60’s Black Freedom Fighter, H. Rap Brown who is now known as Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin.
Now if we were to follow the logic put forth by Cam’ron and readily accept the outrage and indignation expressed by everyone who thinks Jay-Z is a biter, then we would in effect have to apply that to damn near every emcee who has blessed the mic. I’m certain that if we check Cam’ron’s full body of work we will discover that he’s borrowed rhyme or two from someone.
The key phrase here is ‘full body of work’. We have to put all this into context. Jay-z has released 7 or 8 albums and has recorded hundred of songs since the early 90s. It’s not like he was flipping entire stanzas like Hank did in Rapper’s Delight’, He’s taken a line or two and went on to add his own flava before and after the line was spit in a song.
One should also take into account that Jay-Z supposedly doesn’t write down his lyrics when he records. If such is the case, then we definitely should not be surprised if he kicks a line or two from somebody else. It would be the equivalent to him using the time and trued stanza/hook ‘Yes Yes Y’all to the Beat Ya’ll, Ya Don’t Stop Keep On’ as he either caught is breath and got back on beat or as a reference point to kick off a new set of verses. In other words he might kick a well known Biggie line to reference himself and move onto whatever he has to say in the next verse. What I’m describing is not only commonplace, but a natural cultural aesthetic when it comes to Hip Hop music and Black music in general.
A couple of years ago I wrote a column about sampling and addressed the music critics who accused Hip Hop artists of being lazy and not being original. They felt that sampling was nothing more then stealing music and that it should be banned. Hip Hop producers countered that that all they were doing was borrowing from the past and adding onto it to create a new body of work. They felt what they were doing was helping preserve our musical heritage.
When I wrote this column, I consulted with then UC Berkeley music Professor Ricky ‘Uhuru Maggot’ Vincent who wrote the excellent book ‘History of Funk’. He pointed out the blatant contradictions of some of these rap critics who would lambaste Hip Hop but give a pass to jazz, blues and even classic artists who always borrowed riffs and melodies from past works and added their own take. He noted that many jazz musicians called it riffing (borrowing) and vamping (twisting) and that everyone from Duke Ellington on down to Count Bassie to James Brown and Average White Band all engaged in the practice.
Vincent went to point out, that many of the harmonies and melodies used by the Beatles 41 years ago were probably inspired by this riffing vamping technique from the blues and be-pop and race music architects who proceeded them. We should also note that the riffing and vamping concept also extends into the vocalization aspect of music. It’s not unusual for singers to reference past song lyrics and even melodies to their new body of work. This riffing and vamping concept Vincent noted, was not just a major part of black music but a cornerstone of all music.
Lastly, Vincent noted how on many levels that riffing and vamping gave music a timeless feel because it connected and honored one’s to past. This is important to note because as I noted earlier Jay-Z kick a verse before reciting somebody’s rhyme he straight up said that it was his way of giving props.
I’ll just add this before I close out..The biggest problem artists are facing is that this natural occurring process of developing music is being stifled by major record labels, short sighted artists and greedy individuals who have twisted all these new laws governing intellectual property and copyright. So anytime someone goes in this naturally occurring direction that connects past to present, we have somebody trying to get an injunction or filing a lawsuit. Last week’s lawsuit filed by the owner of the 2 Live Crews copyrights against 50 Cent for lifting a line from the ‘It’s Your Birthday’ song where Luke raps ‘Go Sheila It’s your Birthday’ to ‘Go Shorty It’s your Birthday’ in 50’s song ‘In Da Club’ seems to be a perfect example. But that’s a whole other story and column for another time..
These are just a few things to ponder the next time somebody starts suggesting that Jay-Z is a plagiarist….
