This Still Ain’t the Future of Rock & Roll
Rock raised me but hip-hop saved me
“They used to do it out in the park” —MC Shan
Editor’s note
After soft-launching our Substack this week, a friend asked me about the name URB and its relationship to “urban” music (I promise to go deeper into the name's origin in a future post). From this diatribe from 2004, it’s clear I sold my teenage soul for rock n roll, but URB was my freak flag planted for hip-hop culture and other progressive urban sounds. Check out my thoughts from almost 20 years ago, and let me know what you think below.
We have a ton of great stuff to share with you, culled from 20 years of documenting culture in print and online. And while we plan on introducing new topics, interviews, contributors, and maybe even a podcast, we’re kicking things off by digging through our first 159 issues. What do you want to see from the archive? What stories are you curious about? Let us know in the comments, and please hit subscribe if you haven’t already.
P.S. And to my fellow metalheads, I’ll see you in October \m/
From the Archive: Issue 113 | February 2004
I love hip-hop.
But there’s no hiding the fact — if you’ve read this magazine for any time — that I am a huge Black Sabbath fan. Their lumbering and gloomy mechanics are the prototype for all good heavy metal, and Ozzy Osbourne’s tormented wail is, I believe, the coolest voice in rock. I spent my high school career defending my Sabbath turf against haters and heads that didn’t get it. Years later, I would read an interview in Spin where Outkast’s André 3000 mentioned how Sabbath influenced his music. It was a small but poignant victory over the mullet-as-a-required-accessory stereotype of metal fans.
Rock music has always been a sonic thread in hip-hop, returning to Run DMC’s “Rock Box,” where a clichéd ’80s guitar riff shrouds the drum-mining beats. This track was the inspiration that led me into hip-hop’s loving arms. Led Zeppelin, Bill Squire, ACDC, Aerosmith, Queen, and other long-haired kings of the stoned age all lent their beats to hip-hop’s arsenal from day two. And it’s no wonder they were sought after, considering our seminal rap heroes would have all been coming of age in metal’s heyday. In the ’90s, rap made its affair with rock official with the age of rap metal. Today, few seem to care if there are lines between the genres.
With last year’s “return” of rock & roll to the mainstream and underground, much was stated about how rock was now supplanting hip-hop’s status as the preeminent force in music (note: I couldn’t get enough of the White Stripes last year). At the very least, rock music had won a creative victory with the cognoscenti, even inspiring our competitor to virtually abandon hip-hop on their covers in search of the next big thing. This all played well over the moans of the mortally wounded music industry still reeling from declining hip-hop sales, which had long since given up on electronic dance music “succeeding.”
So the intelligentsia, the music magazines, and the fair-weather fans boarded the bus to Lollapaloozaville and kissed the South, South Bronx later days. I say good riddance. Like URB’s masthead has said for at least the last decade, “This ain’t the future of rock & roll . . .” That’s not a player-hating statement; it’s a declaration of independence. It’s saying that despite what some would like to see, the assimilation of all music from young America under the banner of ROCK, the drum we roll to is different.
Hip-hop music and culture are built on a very different framework of traditions and legends, handed down like tribal rules but rarely spoken. Hip-hop, like punk, started as the audio marching orders of a generation that would follow. Plenty of today’s hip-hop has fully adopted rock’s excess, posture, and corporate and media addiction. And admittedly, some of the distinctions between the two can come down to semantics, but that’s partially the point. If hip-hop — at the very least, in spirit — doesn’t claim its raison d’etre as independent from rock, then what’s the point? URB was founded on the belief that this music and life were not just an offshoot of the rock-carved script laid out by the record labels of the ’70s. And it wasn’t simply a new twist on pop.
Hip-hop, at its best, takes from all musical influences, gets the DJ to cut that shit up, and puts the dope on plastic in its way. Hip-hop, at its most earth-moving potential, understands its ability to alter lives, lead revolutions, destroy stereotypes and bomb the suburbs. They used to do it out in the park. 4758 days since its inception, and URB is still for those who do.
Enjoy the issue.
Raymond Leon Roker
(P.S. Please leave a comment below or share your hip-hop origin story.)
URB magazine in the early 90's was such an influence in the So Cal Underground / Rave scene.... I loved the articles, and lived for the DJ Lists not to mention checking the pictures of all sorts of underground raves or events.... URB was part of the Vibe back then, and it was a good reason to make a trip to Melrose to get a copy.
Hip Hop Origin Story: I’m a white guy from a white town. I was born in 1979. The 1st time I remember hearing/seeing Hip Hop was Run DMC & Aerosmith doing “Walk this Way” on MTV. That moment changed my life. I knew I loved this new sound but I had no idea how to find more. License to Ill blew up around the same time but besides that I lived in a Hip Hop desert. It wasn’t until about 1991 when I had some allowance money and the freedom to ride my bike to the record store that my real education started. For me it was Black Sheep “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing”. The single “The Choice is Yours” had been on MTV but that was all I knew about them. I grabbed the CD (new tech in my house) and cowardly walked up to the register hoping they let me buy a cd with the Parental Advisory sticker on it. To my delight the black teenage guy working complimented my choice and started blaring his copy on the store stereo. I never felt so fucking cool in my life. If you are a crate digger like me, that album is still top 5. Some of the best beats in the history of Hip Hop. Shout out to Mista Lawnge. Anyway as most fans know ‘91 was a big year. By the end of it I was blasting Cypress Hill, A Tribe Called Quest, & De La Soul too. Not a bad introduction to the music I still love to this day.