Sometimes it just grabs you that something you are looking at is a real labor of love. I recently ran across two volumes of Ed Piskor’s “Hip Hop Family Tree” and this is one of those things. It’s a lengthy comic that covers the history of hip hop from the mid-1970’s to the early 1980’s, and it’s an absolute blast. These are history books, but they are great combination of funny, entertaining, educational, and, for some of us, a nice trip down memory lane.
Ed does a great job of tying together the many strands of hip hop history. There are stories of people you probably never heard of along with those that went on to international acclaim. He does a wonderful job showing links – how one DJ influenced another, how one innovation led to the next, etc.
Although I wasn’t in NYC at the time, I knew some of these stories because the scene was leaking out to other places. I happened to live somewhere that had a great “urban” radio station and I recall hearing the Fatback Band song “King Tim III (Personality Jock)” which was the first rap on vinyl (and is, of course, discussed here). Around the same time I recall visiting a club near a local college campus and the DJ was spinning and rapping from the booth. It was an exciting time musically from my more remote location; the panels in these books do a great job of conveying the excitement and constant evolution that was occurring at the source.
He pulls no punches, laying out the good, the bad and some of the ugly. His drawings are great and they include fun touches, like Afrika Bambaataa always being drawn about twice the size of everyone else, which probably somewhat reflects his actual size and also figuratively represent his influence on the scene.
One thing I learned? I got the background story on Pumpkin. I had a 12” single called “King of the Beat” by Pumpkin that was basically a beat used to mix with other records. I had no idea that he was linked to Bobby Robinson who ran Enjoy Records through his record store and had laid down beats for him.
Ed also adds some nice discography detail at the end of each volume with will send you to youtube or your local used record store. If you appreciate these books, the series continues on boing boing, where Piskor regularly posts new drawings and stories which presumably will eventually find their way into book form.