Can't Stop Won't Stop

by Jeff Chang

  Latyrx. Latyrx. CD. Quannum, 2003. Originally released 1997.

  Lauryn Hill. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. CD. Ruffhouse, 1998.

  Mary J. Blige. Share My World. CD. MCA, 1997.

  Meshell Ndegeocello. Bitter. CD. Maverick, 1999.

  Missy Elliott. Supa Dupa Fly. CD. East West, 1997.

  Mr. Lif. I Phantom. CD. Definitive Jux, 2002.

  Outkast. Aquemini. CD. LaFace, 1998.

  No More Prisons. CD. Raptivism, 1999.

  The Roots. Things Fall Apart. CD. MCA, 1999.

  Shame the Devil. CD. Freedom Fighter Music, 2002.

  SoleSides’ Greatest Bumps. 2-CD. Quannum, 2001.

  Talib Kweli. Quality. CD. Rawkus, 2002.

  For more articles and research resources, visit the Can’t Stop Won’t Stop Web site at http//www.cantstopwontstop.com.

  Notes

  Author’s note: Quotations not cited in the text are from personal interviews.

  LOOP 1. Babylon Is Burning: 1968–1977.

  1. Necropolis: The Bronx and the Politics of Abandonment.

  1. Reggie Jackson with Mike Lupica, Reggie: The Autobiography (New York: Villard, 1984), 170–171. Ed Linn, The Great Rivalry: The Yankees and the Red Sox, 1901–1990 (New York: Tickner and Fields, 1991), 287. Roger Kahn, October Men (Orlando: Harcourt, Inc., 2003), 158–159.

  2. Maury Allen, Damn Yankee: The Billy Martin Story (New York: Times Books, 1980), 200.

  3. Jackie Robinson and Malcolm X in “An Exchange of Letters,” The Jackie Robinson Reader, ed. Jules Tygiel (New York: Dutton, 1997), 236–247.

  4. Arnold Rampersad, Jackie Robinson: A Biography (New York: Knopf, 1997), 391–392.

  5. Phil Pepe, Talkin’ Baseball: An Oral History of Baseball in the 1970s (New York: Ballantine Books, 1998), 290.

  6. Robert Caro, The Power Broker (New York: Knopf, 1974), 860.

  7. Ibid., 840–841.

  8. Camilo José Vergara, The New American Ghetto (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1995), 49.

  9. Richard Plunz, A History of Housing in New York City: Dwelling Type and Social Change in the American Metropolis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), 257, 267–273.

  10. Marshall Berman, All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982), 291.

  11. Paul Cowan, “On a Very Tense Frontier: Street-Fighting in the Bronx,” Village Voice (June 22, 1972), 1, 16, 18, 20, 22.

  12. Policeman Anthony Bouza, “The Fire Next Door,” CBS Reports, broadcast March 22, 1977.

  13. Jill Jonnes, “We’re Still Here”: The Rise, Fall and Resurrection of the South Bronx (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986), 125–126.

  14. Amalia Batanzos, Youth Services Agency Commissioner, said, “In the South Bronx, the young male Puerto Rican unemployment rate is 80 percent. He sees that there’s no way out and if there’s no way out, it really does not matter if you’re violent.” “New York Illustrated: The Savage Skulls with Piri Thomas,” produced and directed by Abigail Child, WNBC Community Affairs Program (New York), aired November 18, 1973.

  15. Joseph B. Treaster, “20% Rise in Fires Is Adding to Decline of South Bronx,” New York Times (May 18, 1975), 1, 50.

  16. CBS Reports, “The Fire Next Door.”

  17. Joe Conason and Jack Newfield, “The Men Who Are Burning New York,” Village Voice (June 2, 1980), 1, 15–19. Jack Newfield, “A Budget for Bankers and Arsonists,” Village Voice (June 2, 1980), 13.

  18. H. Rainie, “U.S. Housing Program in South Bronx Called a Waste by Moynihan,” New York Daily News (December 20, 1978), 3.

  19. Geoffrey Hodgson, The Gentleman from New York: Daniel Patrick Moynihan (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000), 157–158.

  20. Deborah and Rodrick Wallace, A Plague on Your Houses (New York: Verso Books, 1998), 22–77.

  21. Lessie Sanders, quoted in Devastation/Resurrection: The South Bronx (New York: Bronx Museum of the Arts, 1980), 64. Robert Jensen, project curator.

  22. Ivor L. Miller, Aerosol Kingdom: Subway Painters of New York City (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2002), 187–188.

  23. Martin Tolchin, “South Bronx: A Jungle Stalked by Fear, Seized by Rage,” New York Times (January 15, 1973), sec. A1, 19.

  24. Ibid.

  25. Robert Jensen, “Introduction” in Devastation/Resurrection: The South Bronx (New York: Bronx Museum of the Arts, 1980), 13.

  26. The South Bronx: A Plan for Revitalization (December 1977), 8. Report prepared by the Office of the Mayor, Office of the Bronx Borough President, Department of City Planning, Office of Economic Development, Office of Management and Budget, Department of Housing Preservation and Development .

  27. “The Ups and Downs of the South Bronx,” National Journal (October 6, 1979), 1648.

  28. Martin Tolchin, “Future Looks Bleak for South Bronx,” New York Times (January 18, 1973), sec. A1, A50.

  29. Robert Fitch, The Assassination of New York (London: Verso, 1993), vii–viii. Wallace and Wallace, A Plague on Your Houses, 24–26. A decade later, Starr would apply the same logic to welfare and lead the neoconservative push toward “welfare reform” into the 90s.

  30. Gerald Eskenazi, “Delirious Fans Run Wild As Some Violence Erupts,” and “Police: ‘We Won Battle, But Lost War,’ ” New York Times (October 19, 1977), B6, B19–B20.

  31. Murray Cass, “Jackson, the Player of the Series, Is Controversial and Charismatic,” New York Times (October 19, 1977), sec. A1, B6.

  32. Dave Anderson, “The Two Seasons of Reggie Jackson,” New York Times (October 20, 1977), 19.

  2. Sipple Out Deh: Jamaica’s Roots Generation and The Cultural Turn.

  1. Verena Reckord, “From Burru Drums to Reggae Ridims,” Chanting Down Babylon, ed. Nathaniel Samuel Murrell, William David Spencer and Adrian Anthony McFarlane (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998), 245.

  2. Laurie Gunst, Born Fi Dead (New York: Henry Holt, 1995), 84. Darrell Levi notes that the political violence lasted into 1967 and that for a time a state of emergency was imposed. He also cites a 1980 Jamaica Gleaner article by PNP Secretary D. K. Duncan that portrays Seaga as violent, saying, “It will be blood for blood, fire for fire, thunder for thunder.” Darrell Levi, Michael Manley: The Making of a Leader (Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 1989), 117–118, 221, 319n.

  3. Leonard Barrett Sr., The Rastafarians (Boston: Beacon Press, 1988), 156.

  4. Laurie Gunst, Born Fi Dead, 79–80.

  5. Classic Albums: Catch a Fire Documentary, directed by Jeremy Marre (Rhino Video videotape, 2000).

  6. Norman Stolzoff, Wake the Town and Tell the People (Durham: Duke University Press, 2000), 41–43.

  7. David Katz, People Funny Boy: The Genius of Lee “Scratch” Perry (London: Payback Press, 2000), 11–24.

  8. The best discussion of the development of the Jamaican sound system is to be found in Norman Stolzoff, Wake the Town and Tell the People.

  9. This section relies on interviews with Steve Barrow. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, Reggae: The Rough Guide (London & New York: Rough Guides/Penguin, 1997).

  10. Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica’s Music (New York: Grove Press, 2000), 270.

  11. Gunst, Born Fi Dead, xvii.

  12. Evelyne Huber Stephens and John D. Stephens, Democratic Socialism in Jamaica (London: Macmillan, 1986), Table A-20, 397.

  13. Omar Davies and Michael Witter, “The Development of the Jamaican Economy Since Independence,” Jamaica in Independence: Essays on the Early Years, ed. Rex Nettle-ford (Kingston: Heinemann Caribbean, 1989), Table 4b, 85. Director Stephanie Black contrasts Michael Manley’s views with those of IMF official Stanley Fischer while documenting the effects of IMF, Inter-American Development Bank and World Trade Organization policies on the island’s dairy farming, beef, carrot and banana industries. She also covers the disastrous “free trade zone” experiment, where sweatshops producing Tommy Hilfiger and Brooks Brothers clothes are closed after work
ers begin demanding better working conditions. Life and Debt, directed by Stephanie Black (Tuff Gong Pictures, 2001).

  14. Melville Cooke, “A Killer Interview,” Jamaica Gleaner (August 23, 2001).

  15. Stephens and Stephens, Democratic Socialism in Jamaica, 132–135.

  16. Michael Manley, Struggle in the Periphery (London: Third World Media Limited, 1982), 140.

  17. Katz, People Funny Boy, 246.

  18. Steve Barrow, liner notes from The Abyssinians and Friends, Tree of Satta, Volume 1 (Blood and Fire Records compact disc BAFCD 045, January 2004).

  19. Laurie Gunst, Born Fi Dead, 96–106.

  20. Ibid., 105.

  21. Katz, People Funny Boy, 305–307.

  22. “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” was reportedly adapted by Union Army band-leader Patrick S. Gilmore from an African-American spiritual.

  23. Gunst, Born Fi Dead, 106–108.

  24. Katz, People Funny Boy, 411.

  3. Blood and Fire, With Occasional Music: The Gangs of The Bronx.

  1. Grady-Willis, Winston A., “The Black Panther Party: State Repression and Political Prisoners,” in The Black Panther Party Reconsidered, ed. Charles E. Jones (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1998), 370–372. Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall, The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI’s Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States (Boston: South End Press, 1990), 138–139.

  2. Hoover in Churchill and Vander Wall, The COINTELPRO Papers, 111.

  3. Afeni Shakur, “We Will Win: Letter from Prison by Afeni Shakur,” in The Black Panthers Speak, ed. Philip S. Foner (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott and Company, 1970), 161, 163.

  4. “New York Illustrated: The Savage Skulls with Piri Thomas,” produced and directed by Abigail Child, WNBC Community Affairs Program (New York), aired November 18, 1973.

  5. Pete Hamill, “The Gangs,” New York Post (circa May 1972); from the papers of Rita Fecher.

  6. “Execution in the Bronx,” New York Times (June 17, 1973).

  7. In 2004, Eddie Perez, a former Ghetto Brother from Hartford, Connecticut, became mayor of the city.

  8.Ain’t Gonna Eat My Mind , directed by Tony Batten (1972).

  9. Gene Weingarten, “East Bronx Story: Return of the Street Gangs,” New York (March 27, 1972), 35.

  10. Ibid., 34.

  11. Jose Torres, “Ghetto Brothers,” New York Post (November 6, 1971).

  12. Jerry Schmetterer, “Trouble Was His Scene,” New York Daily News (December 3, 1971), 3.

  13. See “Ain’t Gonna Eat My Mind” in Eric C. Schneider, Vampires, Dragons and Egyptian Kings: Youth Gangs in Post-War New York (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999), 243–245.

  14. Edward Kirkman, “Gangs Hold Rap Session on Cops,” New York Daily News (December 17, 1971).

  15. See “Ain’t Gonna Eat My Mind” in Schneider, Vampires, Dragons and Egyptian Kings.

  16. Aida Alvarez, “Savage Skulls Feared As Worst Bronx Gang,” New York Post (September 15, 1975), 28.

  17. “Execution in the Bronx,” New York Times (June 17, 1973).

  18. The 51st State: Bronx Gangs, hosted by Patrick Watson, WNYC (New York), broadcast in 1972.

  4. Making a Name: How DJ Kool Herc Lost His Accent And Started Hip-Hop.

  1. Jack Stewart, Subway Graffiti; An Aesthetic Study of Graffiti on the Subway System of New York City (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1989), 148–190.

  2. “TAKI 183 Spawns Pen Pals,” New York Times (July 21, 1971), 37.

  3. Greg Tate, “Graf Rulers/Graf UnTrained,” One Planet Under a Groove: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art (New York: Bronx Museum of Arts, 2001), 38.

  4. Herbert Kohl and James Hinton, Golden Boy As Anthony Cool: A Photo Essay on Naming and Graffiti (New York: The Dial Press, 1972), 120. This great little book offers insight on how far Herc had now moved from the gangs: “On gang rosters we sometimes see inscriptions such as ‘Clarence as Lefty.’ However, they are not common; the ‘as’ phenomenon is more often found on lists of names of people from the same block or of boys and girls that ‘hang out’ together. It is more likely that ‘Lefty’ would stand alone on the gang roster. The name Clarence, identifying ‘Lefty’ as the son of his parents, is more thoroughly renounced through gang membership than through becoming part of a more loosely structured and less demanding peer group.”

  5. Steven Hager, “The Herculords at the Hevalo,” Record Magazine (February 1985), 34.

  6. Davey D, interview by Afrika Bambaataa for Hard Knock Radio, recorded at KPFA-FM, Berkeley (November 29, 2002).

  7. It’s interesting that these beats shared the element of cinema or theater. While David Toop believed the Incredible Bongo Band was a Jamaican disco band, they were in fact a band put together by sometime film composer Michael Viner, featuring another soundtrack composer, Perry Botkin Jr., and the formidable bongo playing of King Errisson, a Jamaican immigrant. Dennis Coffey was a studio musician whose career was furthered by his work for blaxploitation soundtracks. James Brown’s “live” record was actually recorded in a studio and given live audience overdubs. It was later marketed as a performance in his hometown of Augusta, Georgia.

  8. The Rock Steady Crew’s Jorge “Popmaster Fabel” Pabon, a respected hip-hop historian, said in 2001, “The most respected b-boy crews was the Zulu Kings, the Twins formerly known as the Nigger Twins. There was a group that the Twins told me about called ‘The B-Boys.’ They have a very interesting claim. They say that the word ‘b-boys’ was really referring to those guys. Like for instance, the Lockers. There was a similar argument that came up where one of the Lockers recently [was asked], ‘What do you do?’ And he said he’s a Locker. And then some young kid said, ‘I’m a Locker,’ and he looked at him and he said, ‘No you’re not, I’m a Locker.’ In other words, it gets into semantics like you know how to lock, okay, but I’m the Locker, I’m one of the original Lockers. And that same argument I heard pop up with b-boying. Where the Twins said, ‘Well I don’t know why everyone’s calling himself a b-boy. Those guys were the B-Boys!’ Hey, I have an open mind and it’s an interesting concept. I’m not gonna debate it, I don’t have any artillery to debate it with!” (Interview with the author, November 20, 2001.)

  LOOP 2. Planet Rock: 1975–1986.

  5. Soul Salvation: The Mystery and Faith of Afrika Bambaataa.

  1. Steven Hager, “Afrika Bambaataa’s Hip Hop,” Village Voice (September 21, 1982),73. Kevin Donovan is credited as the “Arranger” on the label of Bambaataa and Cosmic Force’s first record, Zulu Nation Throwdown, Volume 1. Bambaataa had no love lost for Paul Winley or his house band. This from Hager’s Village Voice article: Finally, in 1980, he succeeded in obtaining a deal with Paul Winley’s struggling label. In November, he recorded two 12-inch versions of “Zulu Nation Throwdown,” one with the Cosmic Force and the other with the Soul Sonic Force. When the first single was released, however, Bambaataa discovered Winley had added instruments without even consulting him. “It was crazy,” says Bambaataa. “I recorded the songs to just drums. When the record came out, Winley added a bass and some crazy guitar music. Then, when it came time to get paid, he started jivin’ us.”

  2. Jens Peter de Pedro and TBL, “The Godfather of Hip Hop,” Underground Productions (Stockholm, Sweden, August 1997). Special shout-out to Joe Austin for the article.

  3. Gary Jardim, “The Great Facilitator,” Village Voice (October 2, 1984), 63.

  4. Steven Hager, Hip Hop: The Illustrated History of Break Dancing, Rap Music and Graffiti (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984), 6.

  5. Ibid., 9–10.

  6. The Universal Zulu Nation actually dates its anniversary to November 12, 1973, which is likely the date The Organization came into being. Its Infinity Lesson #3 reads: “The Universal Zulu Nation was founded in the year 1973 but started to come into power in the year 1975 A.D. by a young student at Adlai Stevenson High School named Afrika Bambaataa. . . .He also ran the group called The Organization for 2 years and the street gang c
alled the Black Spades for 5 years.”

  7. “Two Shot Dead in Bronx Duel,” New York Amsterdam News (January 11, 1975), B-9.

  8. Stewart, Subway Graffiti, 260 (see chap. 4, n. 1).

  6. Furious Styles: The Evolution of Style in the Seven Mile World.

  1. Luis Angel Matteo, “Origins of Breakdancing,” interview by Mandalit Del Barco, National Public Radio (October 14, 2002). Available online at http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/breakdancing/.

  2. Zora Neale Hurston, “Characteristics of Negro Expression,” in Folklore, Memoirs and Other Writings (New York: Library of America, 1995), 835. The article was originally published in 1934.

  3. Ibid.

  4. Cristina Verán, “(Puerto) Rock of Ages,” Rap Pages (September 1996), 47

  5. Stewart, Subway Graffiti, 229 (see chap. 4, n. 1).

  6. Richard Goldstein, “This Thing Has Gotten Completely Out of Hand,” New York (March 26, 1973), 36, 39.

  7. Lee Quiñones wrote this in a famous 1978 piece done with BILLY 167, but Henry Chalfant has documented other instances and Jack Stewart dates the slogan to 1974, before Lee was on the trains. Ibid., 475. Another Lee mural, called “Roaring Thunder,” has this: “Graffiti is Art, and if Art is a crime, let God forgive all.”

  8. Ivor Miller, Aerosol Kingdom: Subway Painters of New York City (Jackson, Miss.: University Press of Misssissippi, 2002), 109.

  9. Richard Goldstein, “The Fire Down Below,” Village Voice (December 24–28, 1980),55.

  10. Stewart, Subway Graffiti, 382–387 (see chap. 4, n. 1).

  11. Ibid., 457–458

  12. Phoebe Hoban, Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art (New York: Viking, 1998), 36.

  13. Style Wars, directed by Tony Silver, produced by Tony Silver and Henry Chalfant (1983).

  7. The World Is Ours: The Survival and Transformation of Bronx Style.

  1. For a recording of the Flash and the Furious Five’s live beatbox routine in its context, including Flash rocking the beatbox, find the version of “Flash It to the Beat” on the Bozo Meko label, an apparently bootlegged tape from the Bronx River Community Center in 1979 or 1980. Bonus: the Furious Five get the crowd going in a frenzied “Zulu! Gestapo!” chant! The flip-side features Jazzy Jay cutting up breakbeats on a track entitled “Fusion Beats,” an early classic of the instrumental hip-hop record genre. There is a studio version on Sugar Hill of “Flash It to the Beat,” also a great listen, but the house band sounds almost anemic, stripped down to a bass, drums and percussion.