what is 'old skool'?

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To me old skool is 'illmatic'/'e 1999 eternal/'da chronic'/'doggystyle'/'lethal injection'/'liquid swords' but thinking about it, these records aren't even that old. I guess it's because hip hop trends move so fast. But can there really be an accepted 'old skool' genre when everyones' old skool is different? I understand the accepted conception of old skool as sugarhill gang and rakim and run dmc all that business, but obviously i was pretty small back then so it's not MY old skool. What about the confinement of genres to time in general? Like, is it possible for 'authentic' ragtime jazz to still exist in the year 2004 for example? What do you lot think?

― peckham rye, Tuesday, 6 January 2004 10:08 (twenty-two years ago)

it depends whether you consider oldskool to be a personalized thing or a more concrete genre as you say above. i think oldskool doesnt have to be your oldskool, in this case. i kind of think of it as pre-88, but, yeah, this is something that may well change in years to come, and oldskool as in hip hop is a lot more mutable than oldskool rave/hardcore, which is fairly fixed as a genre, to mean 91-93 (i mean, it was called oldskool even in 94, a year after its demise!)

― gareth (gareth), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 10:17 (twenty-two years ago)

busta rhymes' crew was called 'leaders of the new school' back in 1990, so ... i guess the general conception is that ol skool is circa pre gangsta rap (the dividing line seems to be wobbling about abit somewhere between 1988 and 1990), but of course this is a concept that will change with time. i mean, i recently watched a tv show on danish television, where the host always did this greeting that changed a bit with every show. about 6 months after the show had started out, he suddenly went back and did the initial greeting, exaxtly as he had done it in the very first show. and then he winked at the camera and said: "old skool!". so there you go. old skool is 6 mths ago ...

― Jay Kid (Jay K), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 10:46 (twenty-two years ago)

yeh in hip hop it's all pre-NWA stuff really. the term only seems to be used within this genre and the acid/house/garage and acid/techno/rave/hardcore/possibly jungle stuff - old skool club anthems which tends to encompass everything between 1986 and 1994

― stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 11:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Tru old skool=pre-Sugarhill exploitation, but for a full guide just listen to 'Under Construction': Missy knows what's what.

― Enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 11:49 (twenty-two years ago)

futura (the graffiti guy) was being interviewed saying anyone who thinks the 80s is old skool is obviously not old skool, he was arguing that 75-80 should be considered old skool as far as hiphop is concerned cos thats when all the groundwork was done. he was quite passionate about it. i think phase too is the same way.

as far as uk garage goes 95-97 is old skool if you ask me, jungle 92-94

― lex luka, Tuesday, 6 January 2004 11:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Everything from before Run-D.M.C.'s first record came out in 1983 I would say is old school.

1983-1988: new school
1988-1991: golden age

After that it becomes ver more murky with yer gangsta, jiggy, underground, crunk whatever era's all overlapping.

― JoB (JoB), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 12:41 (twenty-two years ago)

JoB is pretty much OTM....old-school rappers saw a big line of demarkation with the debut of Run-DMC...they used a more minimal style of production, dressed like street guys, not with furs and leathers, etc....

I saw a thing where ?uestlove from the roots ended the Golden Age with the release of Tribe's Midnight Marauders and Wu-Tang's Enter the 36 Chambers, which (both released on the same day), he felt were the last "golden age" records....also, I supposed Dre's Chronic would probably be the beginning of our current age....

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 18:59 (twenty-two years ago)

That actually reminds me of a good Billy Childish quote I saw in Mojo, where he said, "People think of punk as the beginning of now, when actually it was the end of then."

I think that's applicable to alot of early 90s stuff....Like Dre and Biggie are the beginning of now, but Tribe and Wu-Tang (and maybe Tupac, truth be told) are the end of then (the 80s hip hop world)....

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 19:01 (twenty-two years ago)

yes obviously all the important stuff was happening when futura was there and you weren't. just ask the editors of rolling stone.

― vahid (vahid), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 19:04 (twenty-two years ago)

'oldskool' works bad as a genre, kind of. because there are lots of old skools and if you pick just one, everyone will be upset. even if you just pick the oldest skool and call it oldskool because people will think you sound like the editors of rolling stone.

anything before 1989 or so sounds totally different from what i think of as hip-hop and it's really unappealing. it sounds horrible, mostly.

― cloverlandthug, Tuesday, 6 January 2004 19:23 (twenty-two years ago)

yale

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 19:24 (twenty-two years ago)

the prairie school is old skool.

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 19:26 (twenty-two years ago)

really, it's anything not current.
it's the rap equivalent of classic rock.

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 19:28 (twenty-two years ago)

with fewer beards

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 19:29 (twenty-two years ago)

anything before 1989 or so sounds totally different from what i think of as hip-hop and it's really unappealing. it sounds horrible, mostly

Are you talking about production or rhyme styles, because I hear alot more old-school sounding production nowdays than I have for a long time....like Grindin' by Clipse or Can't Stop, Won't Stop by Young Gunz....

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 19:29 (twenty-two years ago)

with fewer beards

Philly rappers love their beards.

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 19:33 (twenty-two years ago)

people will think you sound like the editors of rolling stone

just to be really clear here, i think my issue here is with the insistence that things were better before i got into it. i have a friend who's about six years older than i am and it seems like he stopped listening to rap about the time g-funk started. which is when i started to listen to rap. and he has some strange argument about how things went all lopsided around the time of "fear of a black planet" but to me it just sounds like things started to wane when his appreciation started to wane. which is just suspicious.

― vahid (vahid), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 19:35 (twenty-two years ago)

to me it just sounds like things started to wane
when his appreciation started to wane
otm

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 19:36 (twenty-two years ago)

w/the exception of Rakim, I think old-school/new-school shift was the shift from basic party lyrics to more societal or novelistic stuff. It's tempting to think of old-school as a basic rhyme style or instrumentation style but I think that's just a coincidence. Rhyme styles are always getting more complicated and sophisticated. Run-DMC is TOTALLY old-school on either count. Whodini, Kurtis Blow, LL, people like that. Stetsasonic were some of the first new-schoolers even though their rhyme style wasn't all THAT different. Gangstarr were new-schoolers. Black Sheep. De La Soul. Tribe. Public Enemy. NWA.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 19:38 (twenty-two years ago)

But everything I've read with interviews from old-school rappers felt that DMC was the beginning of the new school, primarily because they used drum machines instead of the live-band disco funk type stuff the old Sugar Hill label groups did.

Rhyme styles are always getting more complicated and sophisticated.

Also, this is not necessarily true....complexity on the order of early 90s freestyle fellowship or organized konfusion is pretty hard to top....(not that complex = better)

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 19:42 (twenty-two years ago)

and - although this isn't strictly to do with the music - Run-DMC's image and style of dress was really important as well..

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 19:43 (twenty-two years ago)

basic party lyrics to more societal or novelistic stuff.

where does MC Hammer fit into your schema?

― vahid (vahid), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 19:46 (twenty-two years ago)

fewer beards = less fun

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Tuesday, 6 January 2004 19:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, but vahid you seem to be projecting a value judgement onto a hypothetical 'old school' distinction. Just cuz we might try to formulate some aesthetic criteria for it, doesn't mean we're claiming one period is necessarily better than any other.

Tracer, are you actually suggesting that Run-DMC didn't address "societal stuff"? For that matter, that Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five didn't? Not that I'm trying to nitpick; those are probably the two most iconic early 80s groups.

― Broheems (diamond), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 20:03 (twenty-two years ago)

I like to think Old Skool Rap ended around the times between Run-DMC's first album came out and Beastie Boy's Licensed to Ill.

although there were still some good old skool records being released after that still. Fat Boys, Doug E. Fresh, etc.

― Andrzej B. (Andrzej B.), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 20:31 (twenty-two years ago)

No I'm not Broheems; but the context - the "school" - was party-down. Of course they addressed societal stuff (even when the lyrics were about nothing but parties; parties are part of society too), but it was in the context of being a party band, and the juxtapos gave their music a lot of its power and unexpectedness. Now when Missy Elliott does "4 My People" it's in the context of being a new-school rap artist, more of a Beatles-mode author type, which gives her party jams such a neat twist. Are you actually suggesting that you don't get this??

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 20:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, I guess I'm not sure what to think; in yr initial post, you set-up a 'party / societal' dichotomy, and in yr second one you subsume the party stuff back under society. But more importantly, wouldn't that context / juxtaposition, which you rightly point out gave the music power, indicate a real change in the music? That's why I'm wondering how you claim Run-DMC to be "TOTALLY old school". I mean, yeah, all I know is that hearing songs like "Hard Times" and "Wake Up" (lyrically, that is; to say nothing of the pounding, abrasive production style) come on the radio as a kid felt like a real revelation; there was no turning back.

― Broheems (diamond), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 21:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Also, I recall this older thread on the subject being pretty darn good :

please explain to me the appeal of old OLD old skool hip-hop

― Broheems (diamond), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 21:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Broheems is OTM....Run-DMC's production (which is the most important reason they are not old school) was a very clear and distinct break from the past. Plus, their rhyming style was aggressive, clear, and forceful, far from the old style.

Also, you say Stetsasonic was new school (and DMC was not) but their early singles (esp. On Fire) are blatant Run-DMC rip offs.

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 22:02 (twenty-two years ago)

OK, so why is it only hip-hop and various dance genres have this idea of an 'old skool'? Do other styles have it and just not talk about it?

― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 23:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 23:15 (twenty-two years ago)

I think other genres have an idea of "old school", they just don't call it "old school". For example, you could consider Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis to be old-school rock & roll, and Benny Goodman to be old-school jazz, and so on.

This makes me curious about the etymology of "old school" though. Was it first coined in connection with hip-hop?

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 23:17 (twenty-two years ago)

because rock is entirely based around everything being old school so they can't say it in case anyone finds out nothing new has happened in 30 years.

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 23:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes, right. There is no difference between Little Richard and Slipknot.

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 23:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Zing!

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 23:20 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.foolsgold.co.uk/

― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 23:20 (twenty-two years ago)

was little richard as recently as 30 years ago? also that argument makes little sense since you're comparing two bands who are different anyway, who are not equivalents, whom the same crowds would never be interested in anyway.

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 23:22 (twenty-two years ago)

I just think it's silly to say that nothing changes in rock music, when the evidence clearly shows that popular styles have changed dramatically over the years.

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 23:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Wait, so Ludacris is now equivalent to Kurtis Blow?

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 23:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Would "Slipknot sounds just like AC/DC" have been a better diss?

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 23:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Mainstream rock music thrives on "good old days" type marketing, it's obvious even at a glance.

I was joking mainly but I do think there has been way more development in hip-hop/dance than rock in an even shorter space of time, even the greater prominence of technology dictates this. whether that's a value judgement is your choice.

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 23:29 (twenty-two years ago)

A strand of mainstream rock music does thrive on "it was better when we all had long hair and were protesting Vietnam whilst being bankrolled by our parents at university", but garage revival music has been nowhere near as succcesful in sales, radio airplay, public recognition etcetera in the past five years as nu-metal, which was a "new" genre, with no real historical precedent prior to, what, 1992?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 23:33 (twenty-two years ago)

There is still a lucrative market for good old-fashioned boomer rock music, whereas there is a much smaller market for old-school dance or hip-hop. I'd agree with you on that point. This may indicate that there is a nostalgic camp within rock music fans that the other genres don't have. However, there is also a lot of popular rock music that is more forward-looking, aiming for a younger market that doesn't want to listen to something their parents might like.

(xpost)

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 23:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Surely the retro fetishism occurs when the genre itself isn't performing too well? Actual "alternative" rock bled into nu-garage when the hits stopped coming, and nowadays there are more "old skool" dance compilations being put out than standard ones.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 23:36 (twenty-two years ago)

There is a nostalgia market for rap, just like rock. I bet a million I could find a load of 37 year old rap fans that bitch about the new stuff and stick by their Big Daddy Kane, etc....just like 70s rock dudes swear by Zep and the like.

Also, Ronan, you say "more development in a shorter period of time", but I don't know. Look at the development and change in rock from mid-50s to the early 70s (comparing that era of rock to rap would be more accurate as rap is still fairly young in comparison.)....Tell me there is not a huge, huge, huge change (for good or ill) between Elvis, Chuck Berry, et al to early 70s acts like Yes or Roxy Music or Zeppelin or Black Sabbath or Jim Croce or David Bowie.

I'd say there is as much (if not more) difference between early Roxy Music and early Elvis than there is between Ying Yang Twins and Afrika Bambaataa.

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 23:55 (twenty-two years ago)

In one Run-DMC song, I forget which, they actually rap that they're "never old school" so to claim them as such is kinda specious. But hey, why take it from them?

― hstencil, Wednesday, 7 January 2004 00:49 (twenty-two years ago)

The question is about what constitutes the school, not Run-DMC, which, like probably a lot of artists we could name, can fall onto both sides, especially in the mid to late 80s. Every attempt I've made to think about old-school in terms of technology or sound or lyrics misses something. I think with rap these days you CAN bring something "genuinely" old-school, in the sense that people might hear it, turn to one another, and go "that's OLD-SCHOOL!!" even if it just came out. They might mean a particular sound (wiki wiki wiki) or a rhyme pattern, like "Camel Toe" or whatever. But I think it can also mean how the artist rlates to the dancefloor, or a general party spirit. It's funny how hard it is to nail down. I think it's impossible, ultimately, which is why it's such a great word.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 01:14 (twenty-two years ago)

I wasn't responding to the question, I was just responding to the mention of Run-DMC and their relationship re: the old school, which they actually mention in a song. It's more interesting to me that, in their definition of it, it's got a negative connotation. Sometime long after Raising Hell it was no longer negative, in the way it was used.

― hstencil, Wednesday, 7 January 2004 01:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Why do you think it's negative?? I think they're just saying what almost every rap band ever has said (except Jurassic Five), that they're on some next shit so get ready etc.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 02:09 (twenty-two years ago)

possibility that recent past is something to be escaped, past father back is something to be invoked as a golden age (often used to contrast again recent past).

also, im not sure artists are the best judges of what genres they are in. just as they are not always the best judges of whether they are good or not

― gareth (gareth), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 08:48 (twenty-two years ago)

anything before 1989 or so sounds totally different from what i think of as hip-hop and it's really unappealing. it sounds horrible, mostly.

Say what? I don't think 'old skool' is like 'classic rock' becuz there are far fewer rap artists who hold up old skool as the only legit music in the way that The Thrills or Oasis do with early 70s rock. I think it applies to when hip hop was a local, basically non-recorded music -- of course it's slightly mythical. So yeah, I'd say the global success of Def Jam artists is the cut-off. About 1984-6.

― Enrique (Enrique), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 09:27 (twenty-two years ago)

If recorded/unrecorded or local/global are your criteria Enrique then the range of years most people could agree is old-skool hippity hop would be roughly equivalent to Leadbelly. And people would argue that Leadbelly became an international star so couldn't possibly be considered truly old-skool, or fell on the divide, etc.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 09:42 (twenty-two years ago)

well, pre-79 it wasn't too global was it? or recorded? like i said, it's a slightly mythical set of criteria, and was already myth when 'wildstyle' came out. but old skool iconography belongs to that era, i think.

― Enrique (Enrique), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 10:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Did you read what I wrote? I'm agreeing with you! And further suggesting that by your criteria classic rock isn't the rock equiv for old-school hip hop, pre-Leadbelly folk music is. But I'm not sure where this kind of equivalence game leads, if anywhere.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 10:20 (twenty-two years ago)

It's funny how hard it is to nail down. I think it's impossible, ultimately, which is why it's such a great word.

I'd say the global success of Def Jam artists is the cut-off. About 1984-6.

These are both great points, but couldn't you say that ol skool also has something to do with an age of 'innocence', having fun and playing around with this new thing? Could you say that any given ol skool era ends when the explicit agendas (money, fame, political messages, social awareness) step blatantly in the arena and change the game to something that's not just about raising the roof anymore?

― Jay Kid (Jay K), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 10:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Sorry, Trace! Explantation is: I dunno what/who Leadbelly is, really. A bluesman, I'm guessing, but beyond that zip-zero.

Jay -- it's hard to say because access to pre-Sugarhill rapping is limited. Something tells me that fame and ca$hmoney were always on the agenda. 'Rapper's Delight' is all about that, and I doubt the impulse came from nowhere. And many of the big influences on old skool (Gill Scott, Sly even) were political. But I don't know what the first 'political' rap was. 'The Message' is usually cited, but I reckon there might well be others.

― Enrique (Enrique), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 10:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Enrique - yeah, you're right about 'The Message' and 'Rapper's Delight', of course. But these guys were just dreamers whose dreams happened to come true (sort of, anyway), because they had the talent. I am thinking of the time when the heavyweight movers enter the game (and this is not some nostalgia, keep it real-kind of shitty argument). When Def Jam organize this shit so it hits the world. When Public Enemy enter the game with comunication strategies and all. When Run DMC get on stage in their streamlined looks and fire it up to their psycotically effective drum machines. When serious and well-thought strategy to it, in other words, rather than just messing around with this new thing for the love of it. I dunno ...
I was thingking of the

― Jay Kid (Jay K), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 10:40 (twenty-two years ago)

oops, sorry, forget that last line

― Jay Kid (Jay K), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 10:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, I'd agree with that. 'Raising Hell' is, oddly, old school, cos the 'Peter Piper' break and the 'Walk this Way' riff were both block party standards 'repackaged' (thrillingly) for mass audience.

― Enrique (Enrique), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 10:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Okay i think this is what we've got so far:

* dreamers whose dreams just happened to come true
* party vs something else (conscious; gangsta; novelistic; societal)
* pre-NWA
* pre-Public Enemy
* pre-G-Funk
* pre-88
* pre-83
* before mass-produced hip hop records / pre-Sugarhill / pre-global
* pre-drum-machine / production differences
* rhyme style differences

1. Is there anything these definitions have in common?

2. Have some of these definitions become less relevant with time? More relevant?

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 12:53 (twenty-two years ago)

wait i've got it: it's Kraftwerk

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 13:05 (twenty-two years ago)

The original meaning of old school was pre- Run DMC, I think, but for those of us who were only kids in the eighties old school has become synonymous with pre- early 90's stuff. "Enter the Wu-Tang" and "Chronic" might be could starting points for the new new school.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 13:17 (twenty-two years ago)

My first conscious hip-hop era was post-'Chambers', pre-Jay-Z. But I'm still calling pre-DMC the old skool era.

hip-hop has gotten less sampladelic, but nonetheless the centrality of the sampler means that 'pre-drum-machine / production differences' doesn't really make sense, cos old is new and vice versa (sometimes).
cf deliberately making with the 'vinyl hiss' sound.

― Enrique (Enrique), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 13:30 (twenty-two years ago)

with so much cheese about in hip hop now I say we start a trend for "mould skool"!

― herbalizer12 (herbalizer12), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 13:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Old Skool: The Last Poets/Gil Scott Heron were forebearers to the old skool aesthetic, but these are contentious issues as every (rap) generation will have their "ownership" on what merits as old-skool after a subsequent ten-tear shift in music.

If, as many state, old skool is represented from the 1985-89 ideology, then maybe "middle skool" represents the "second coming" from 1990-95?

The term "old school" was once wholly copyrighted to hip hop only. These days - akin to the overuse of "funky" - the term has being marketed, expoloited and attached to anything that appears "street" enough to appeal to the populace at large.

The more we move along, the more this term will lose its impact as a hip hop "term of endearment".

― herbalizer12 (herbalizer12), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 13:57 (twenty-two years ago)

I've heard it used by radio DJs to mean like 'Stankonia'. But let's keep old skool terminology real. I'm sticking to pre-79.

― Enrique (Enrique), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 14:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Why 1979?

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 14:12 (twenty-two years ago)

you said pre-1984 before

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 14:17 (twenty-two years ago)

"old skool" has gone from being a genuine reflector for hip hop, to a bankable commodity for wanky advertising execs worldwide. Those that know...understand, those who don't.. badly replicate.

Nowdays, anything can be old-skool, but who knows the teachers, hey?!!

― herbalizer12 (herbalizer12), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 14:19 (twenty-two years ago)

I said 79 on one occasion. 79 cos that's when hip-hop went vinyl-wards.

― Rique (Enrique), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 14:25 (twenty-two years ago)

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