The footage provided by Timothy Brown was presented as further evidence of this because of her presence in that early film of a party at a place called The Eastwood in 1977. The discussion on female MCs came up because MC Sha-Rock is considered by many to be the first female MC, a position she embraces and was very adamant about establishing. This was a welcome difference from discussion that reeked to me of gender conformity and referencing women as “queens” as a term of respect, which I fear is just another way to objectify them.

Afrika Bambaataa, however, was on point when in the discussion of contemporary female MCs introduced us to Sa-Roc, and the moderator quickly searched You Tube and played us a bit of one of her videos. All the panelists spoke in generalities and there was a little too much grumbling about the current state of hip-hop music that came off in some instances as old folks talking about how good the old days used to be. While being in the presence of these early hip-hoppers was an honor, I was disappointed that the discussion was not as detailed as I would have liked it to be. (both of which are probably most famous from their appearances in Wild Style). There were also other hip hop pioneers in the audience, like Queen Lisa Lee and Lil Rodney C. (who shot the earliest known footage of a Hip Hop performance in 1977). The first panel I attended included Afrika Bambaataa, Raheim and MC Sha-Rock (both of Funky Four +1 fame, the former also a member of the Furious Five) and Timothy C.

It included several panels and events involving the luminaries of early hip hop. On Friday I drove up to Ithaca, NY to attend Hip Hop: Unbound from the Underground, a conference sponsored by the Cornell University Hip Hop Collection – the largest national archive on hip hop culture. Note: This post was updated/corrected on January 20, 2014.

Once upon a time not long ago remix