Topic: The problem of acknowledging African Americans as the vanguard of anything


“I find I have a growing dislike of rap music that comes out of the USA and a growing fascination with rap from other parts of the world.”
“And in musicological terms, rap can be traced back to the recitativo in 17th century Italian opera.”

Mitchell, Tony. “Australian Hip Hop as a 'Global' Subculture,” Presented at the Ultimo Series Seminar, UTS 18 March, 1998, www.cia.com.au/peril/youth/tonym2.pdf, p.2, 8.


VERSUS


“Rap’s forebears stretch back through disco, street funk, radio DJs, Bo Diddley, the bebop singers, Cab Calloway, Pigmeat Markham, the tap dancers and comics, the Last Poets, Gil Scott-Heron, Muhammed Ali, acapella and doo-wop groups, ring games, skip-rope rhymes, prison and army songs, toasts, signifying and the dozens, all the way to the griots of Nigeria and the Gambia. No matter how far it penetrates into the twilight maze of Japanese video games and cool European electronics, its roots are still the deepest in all contemporary Afro-American music.”

Toop, David. 1991. Rap Attack 2: African Rap to Global Hip Hop. London: Serpent's Tail, p.19.