The origins of rap-rock: What was the first song to blend rock and hip-hop?
Once rejected by the music industry and forced to exist on the margins of society, hip-hop is now an utterly unavoidable aspect of the musical mainstream. Some of the biggest artists of recent years have been rappers, and it continues to be among the most popular and successful genres year after year. Today, rap has a presence in countless different genres, from commercial pop to hardcore punk. Since its very early days, however, hip-hop has had a particularly interesting relationship with rock and roll.
Emerging from the MCs and vinyl junkies of the Bronx in New York City during the 1970s, hip-hop provided a channel for young people, particularly young Black people living in poverty-stricken areas, to express themselves artistically. Tragically, however, this bold new era for music was written off as rubbish by the powers that be. Aside from a few notable outliers, such as Kurtis Blow, hip-hop did not trouble the musical mainstream during its early years, reserved instead for local communities and underground artists, predominantly in New York City.
In fact, it was only when successful rock artists started to take note of this blossoming world of hip-hop that music industry executives began to take an interest in the emerging genre. Prominent examples of rap-rock include old-school pioneers Run-DMC, who collaborated with Aerosmith on a remake of their track ‘Walk This Way’ in 1986. Becoming a major hit for both artists, that track helped to establish hip-hop and rap-rock both as a captivating new musical style and as a commercial success.
Although Run-DMC played a colossal role in the popularisation of rap-rock, they were certainly not the first group to combine elements of hip-hop with rock and roll. Years prior, Mick Jones of The Clash was exposed to the exciting new sounds of hip-hop while on tour in New York City. Captivated by the creativity of hip-hop and graffiti culture, it would not take long before Jones and The Clash embraced hip-hop in their own work.
In contrast to many of their punk contemporaries, The Clash were never a band to shy away from incorporating the influences of other genres. Over the course of their discography, the Joe Strummer-fronted group drew upon everything from old-school rockabilly to dub reggae. Some of their most interesting moments, however, came when the band started to take note of America’s hip-hop movement.
In 1980, the band recorded the blistering single ‘The Magnificent Seven’, a song heavily inspired by the music of the Sugarhill Gang as well as Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. Although the single did not chart in the USA, it became a hit on underground radio stations and, crucially, showed that rock and rap could easily go hand-in-hand with each other.
Although ‘The Magnificent Seven’ was, arguably, the first rap-rock song to be recorded, its release came months after fellow punks Blondie dropped ‘Rapture’. Blending elements of new wave, disco, and–as the name implies–rap music, the trailblazing anthem took notes from hip-hop pioneer Fab 5 Freddy and, unlike ‘The Magnificent Seven’, it became a colossal hit.
Reaching the top of the US singles chart and fifth place in the UK, ‘Rapture’ is rightly credited with establishing the sounds of hip-hop music in the musical mainstream for the very first time. So, while the track might not have been the first song to blend rap and rock together, it is certainly among the most important. Without its pioneering influence, it seems unlikely that groups like Run-DMC, Beastie Boys, or Public Enemy would have created their own rap-rock sound years later.
What was the golden age of rap-rock?
Rap-rock’s origins might stretch back to the early 1980s, with groups like The Clash and Blondie leading the charge, but it took a lot longer for the style to become a powerful genre in its own right. The emergence of groups like Rage Against the Machine, Limp Bizkit, and the landscape of nu metal provided rap-rock with its indisputable golden age.
During this period, towards the latter half of the 1990s, the vast majority of mainstream rock music incorporated elements of rap and hip-hop. Limp Bizkit’s 1999 record Significant Other arguably marked the peak of the rap-rock era, spawning colossal hit singles and featuring contributions from Method Man of Wu-Tang Clan. Records like this seemed to suggest that the two styles had become invariably linked.
