The term “Electro” is, first and foremost, an expression that encompasses a wide spectrum of styles: Electro Funk, Electro Rap, Pure Electro and Electro Dance (Freestyle), among other subcategories, sub-genres and tangents. Curiously, Electro is one of the most misunderstood musical styles permeating the spheres of Electronic and Black Music, and perhaps the most influential to contemporary music.

At the start of the 1980s in New York City, music was innovating at an astounding rate. The diversity of music released during this period was incredible because no one could imagine what was to come…after all, anything was possible. Electro went where Electronic Music artists like Kraftwerk, Yellow Magic Orchestra and Gary Numan, as well as pillars of Black Music like Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder and George Clinton tried to go to in the 1970s through the language of synthesizers, sonic experiments and the innovative use of electronic instruments.

Illustration by Matt Gazzola — *Illustration by* *Matt Gazzola*

The fusion of Electro and Hip-Hop took shape in 1982 via the classic by Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic Force, “Planet Rock”, now considered the style’s birth certificate in the United States. But before the classic made its presence known, songs like “You’re The One For Me", by the legendary D Train, and “Thanks To You", by the US-American group Sinnamon, were already drafting an Proto-Electro aesthetic within Black Music, incorporating elements of the sound when the term “Electro” was still uncommon. And Although Electro acquired an identity from the intersection with Hip-Hop that occurred in the United States, Europe had its “Electro Wave” brought by Italo Disco experimentalists, Synth-pop enthusiasts and Electronic Music aesthetes like Art of Noise. However, the album that drove the development of this new rhythm was “The Man-Machine”, conceived by Kraftwerk in 1978, with the opening song for the album, “The Robots”, as the main track. Later on, the japanese Ryuichi Sakamoto (member of the Yellow Magic Orchestra) launched the song “Riot In Lagos” in 1980 and, the following year, the German group Kraftwerk launched “Computer World”, wich contains the song “Numbers”, with its minimalist and timeless beat; these records that spoke the language of the future and laid the foundation for this musical style. Meanwhile in the United States, singles like “Electrophonic Funk", by Shock in 1981, hinted at the direction Black Music would take in the years to come; the group Elektrik Funk even incorporated the novelty into its own name.

Electro eventually branched out in many directions over time. To comprehend it, its development and its particularities, we must take into account its historical context between the early to late 1980s, when it made way for the rise of complementary scenes, distinct phases and peculiar moments. The early scene from 1982-1983 houses the largest number of productions related to pure Electro and Electro Funk, while 1984-1985 was marked by the rise of Electro Rap. Bit by bit, scenes mingled to the point where a record of the style might be perceived as containing tracks from either of its tangents.

Old School Rap

In principle, it’s difficult to comprehend Electro as one style or one genre of music due to the myriad of concepts that sprung from it in the last forty years. According British author Stephen Neale, styles are transitory and historical phenomena that, in some way, suffer periodic transformations and can be dominated by repetition. Cycles in music, much like cycles in cinema, are located within specific periods in a limited time-frame. Electro Rap, for example, can be defined as a musical cycle that was a step forward from the “Old School Rap” aesthetic, which occurred within the sphere of Hip-Hop between the late 1970s to the early 1980s, primarily in New York City.

From 1979 to 1982, Rap was made by live studio bands, incorporating Rap versions of other successful genre-bending songs as their backdrop. This formula was embodied in Rap’s beginnings on vinyl with “Rapper’s Delight”, by The Sugarhill Gang, which contained elements from the hit “Good Times”, by Chic.

*Rapper's Delight by The Sugarhill Gang*

“Rappers Delight” may have had a commercial appeal, but it was also a timeless piece of music. Criticism and musical preference aside, one thing is true: although the first phonographic record of Rap music appeared a few months earlier with Fatback's “King Tim III”, “Rappers Delight” reached more places it introduced the world to an art form that was yet obscure to many. Little by little, other artists followed Sugarhill’s formula, resulting in songs like “Genius Rap”, by Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde and “Jazzy Sensation”, by Afrika Bambaataa & The Jazzy 5. Both were, respectively, Rap versions of “Genius of Love”, by Tom Tom Club and “Funky Sensation”, by Gwen McCrae.

In Brazil, the great composer and aesthete of MPB, Lincoln Olivetti, drank from the endless well of inspiration that was Nile Rogers to create the Brazilian version of The Sugarhill Gang’s hit. For that, he relied on the help of an omnipresent figure in the Brazilian cultural scene: Luiz Carlos Miele. Miele had composed the Rap song “Melô do Tagarela” together with the humorist Arnaud Rodrigues, one year after the appearance of this American Rap hit . And if Hip-Hop itself was born in the Bronx, then Hip-Hop’s recording industry was born in Englewood, New Jersey, pushed forward by The Sugarhill Gang’s single.

*Luiz Carlos Miele had composed the Rap song, “Melô do Tagarela”*

Looking For The Perfect Beat

In the Soul/Funk Era, the acoustic drums of Hamilton Bohannon, Bernard Purdie, Clyde Stubblefield, Bill “Fatback” Curtis or John “Jabo” Starks, with their notable rhythmic patterns, served as the musical attire for block parties during Hip-Hop’s early days. These famous parties were thrown in the South Bronx at abandoned apartment blocks or in parks.

It was then that DJ Kool Herc, also known as the father of Hip-Hop in the USA, dialed up what people vibrated to the most in parties: “the break”, when the beat was at its purest form. Herc’s unprecedented practice of extending “the break” using two identical records gave rise to Break-Beat, the musical foundation of B-Boys and B-Girls. During the 1980s, the technique was eventually redesigned by the sampler. With the popularization of the 808 electronic drum machine, Hip-Hop found a new way to carry on its DIY premise which, as we know, was also the guiding force behind the Punk movement in previous years.

The standard Electro drum pattern became a reiteration of the breakbeat, but with one difference: Electro is mechanical, while breaks repeat drum patterns played by humans. The Roland electronic drum machine, together with other digital electronic drum machines like the Linn Drum and the Oberheim DMX, became the ideal option for youth trying to make beats without going through years of formal music education. The ease in which rhythmic patterns could be created and the countless possible tones it offered stimulated the youth’s imagination.

Although the Roland TR-808 drum machine has close ties to Electro’s history, the Oberheim DMX was also used in some of the style’s most notable tracks. For example, the multi-disciplinary artist Fab Five Freddy used it for the classic “Change The Beat” in 1982. And it was in this track that the Electro vocoder was immortalized, inspiring thousands of future samples to emulate the phrase “Ahhhh, this stuff is really fresh”, an eventual staple of scratch technique. But the Oberheim DMX made an even greater impact on the New York scene, notably on the hit “Sucker MCs", by Run DMC.

*“To date, the TR-808 has the distinction of being on the most hit records in history, making it the most popular drum machine ever.” (Scratch.com)*

The Rite of Passage from Old School Rap to Electro Rap

From the moment Hip-Hop turned its focus to Krafwerk, in around 1982, its sound shifted from Disco Rap played by live bands to Electro Rap. Curiously, this Old School Rap’s aesthetic was also built through the advent of loops that primarily emulated the productions of the duo known as P&P, or Peter Brown & Patrick Adams. But different production methods gave the new style something unique: instead of studio bands reinterpreting popular Disco and Funk grooves, Electro Rap relied on electronic production. Essentially, Electro Rap style it’s characterized by fast, uptempo beats programmed on electronic drum machines like Roland TR 808, Oberheim DMX, or in some cases, by the Linn Drum.

Adding Rap to the equation, with its expressive force, breathed fresh air into the production standards that had been set in the 1980s by pioneer Mc’s like Grandmaster Caz (Cold Crush Brothers) and Kool Moe Dee (Treacherous Three). Last but not least, they added vocoders (robotic vocals), which gave rhymes a new taste during Hip-Hop’s pre-sample phase when melodies were structured by analogue and digital synthesizers like the Yamaha DX7, Roland Juno/Jupiter, Prophet-5, Oberheim or Matrix. And just like that, a musical DNA was created.

“The Yamaha DX7 became popular as soon as it was launched. It contains fantastical tones, of which the majority can only be achieved, with weight and precision, through FM synthesis. This enables brand new harmonics and consequently, new tones; and the more modulators are used, the more complex the sound becomes. As a result, the tones generated by this synthesis sound more “electronic”. It’s easy to tell when someone plays an electric piano on a DX7 because it has a characteristic tone.”

(Sintetizadores à Brasileira – Francisco Edson de Souza Pereira - 2003)

Electro Rap

Emerging with the recording industry, Electro Rap is the result of a period when Hip-Hop was an anonymous, underground phenomena. And it’s under this circumstance, one devoid of resources and overflowing with creativity, that groups began recording records, many times independently.

While notorious labels like Sugar Hill Records and Enjoy gained visibility during the phase known as Old School Rap (also known as Disco Rap), labels like Tommy Boy, CCL/Cutting Records, Streetwise, Profile e Emergency played a essential role in making the production process more viable from 1982 to 1986, in New York. At the same time, notorious labels such as Macola Records and Music Specialists, along with more obscure ones such as Saturn Records, Rappers Rap Records, 4-Sight Records and Konduko /Tashamba, were important for the consolidation of Electro aesthetics in Los Angeles and Miami. There are names like Captain Rock, Newcleus, Fantasy Three, Mantronix, Whodini, Arabian Prince, World Class Wreckin’ Cru or Double Duce, which may appear as obscure names on Rap shelves in your local record store. Ultimately, these records are fundamental to understanding how Hip-Hop was made in this electronic phase.

*Mighty Rock (Double Duce’s MC) at The Beat Club, Miami (1985)*

Thanks to successes by Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic Force (like “Planet Rock” in 1982) and Newcleus (“Jam on It” in 1983); US-American ghettos became the natural habitat for a generation of artists that permeated the undergrounds and were, essentially, moved by a common interest: the dream of making a record with the perfect beat. A notable amount of artists were only able to record singles, synthesizing their musical path. It’s worth remembering that artists who gained visibility within Gangsta Rap such as Doctor Dre, Ice-T and Kid Frost began their path in Hip-Hop with Electro singles.

Doctor Dre is a figure who needs no introduction. The man responsible for the rise of famous rappers of the caliber of Snoop Dogg, Eminem and 50 Cent, for example, will be forever remembered as one of the members of the legendary Gangsta Rap group, N.W.A. However, few remember that he contributed to the development of Electro on the West Coast with his former group, World Class Wreckin 'Cru. And, finally, few realize that, although Dr.Dre helped to shape the Gangsta's aesthetic, his name appears in the production of some obscure records that took shape in the early years of Electro; the record “Young Girls”, by an obscure group called T.K.O., is one of them.

Ice-T began his journey in Hip-Hop with an Electro Rap single, “The Coldest Rap”. Between 1983 and 1985, he participated in movies and documentaries that spread West Coast Hip-Hop to the public, among them Breakin n’ Enterin’ (1983), Breakin’ (1984) and Breakin’ 2 – Electric Boogaloo (1985). Together with Beat Street - and other less popular titles like Delivery Boys (1984), Electro Rock (1985) and Knights Of The City (1986) - these videos spread Hip-Hop throughout the world, so did the Electro tracks that soundtracked them. The version of “Reckless”, sung by Ice-T in the film Breakin’, is without a doubt a key factor in Electro and Hip-Hop’s big break in media at the time, followed by videos like “Buffalo Gals”, by Malcom Mclaren.

Many countries were introduced to the style because of these videos, ushering an era of “Breakdance” and fashionable B-Boys/B-Girls clad in sportswear from brands like Adidas, Puma, Nike, Sergio Tacchini, Ellesse, Fila and Kappa. All of this, in short, proves that Electro and its many facets were interconnected, since the 1980s, by “urban dances” like B-Boying and Popping & Locking, ultimately simplified by the media and mass communication channels as “Breakdance”.

*A scene from Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo (1985)*

Thanks to the technological advances in Dance Music production at the time, producers and audio engineers adventured more in the studio, exploring the variety of sounds generated by their new toys: electronic drum machines and synthesizers. Electro is therefore a product of Black Music’s turn towards Dance Music in the early 1980s, expressing the dialogue between the Rap being made in the fringes of New York City and the Electronic Music that was taking shape at the time. The authenticity of Electro came not from a single source, but from the mixture of Rap with Electro.

Fantasy Three: Larry D, Charlie Rock and Mc Silver Fox - NYC (1984) Photo courtesy of the artist. — Fantasy Three: Larry D, Charlie Rock and Mc Silver Fox - NYC (1984)
Photo courtesy of the artist.

Electro Funk

Electro Funk can also be seen as a style that fuses elements from two universes, or a cross between Funk and Electro. Musically, it’s recognized by its synthetic bassline sequences and synthesizer effects, painting futurism and sci-fi through its unusual sounds. In a general sense, Funk from the 1980s related itself to technological innovations and the “neon decade” but it also brought a new premise: bands no longer had to spend a fortune in studio recordings because they had the help of machines, computers and other electronic apparatuses. This defined the moment in which big bands dissolved and the producer became a one-man-band.

Music was in fact changing. The more organic sounding Afro-American music from the early 1970s was replaced by a more futuristic outfit, one that was electronic and modern. The godfather of Funk, James Brown, was suspicious of the new path Afro-American music was taking - perhaps he was unprepared for a market that used beats per minute as a parameter for record sales. On top of that, he regarded new studio techniques, which allowed tracks to be divided and recorded in layers, as a sidestep. His own Funk, on the other hand, was anchored in the syncopated rhythm of the acoustic drum kit, a predominant bass and a brass rhythm section. But his formula began suffering alterations when, in around 1977, the band Parliament used the Moog synthesizer for the bass-line of “Flash Light”. Later on, as Funk bands got smaller and brass sections were replaced by keyboards, the visionary George Clinton saw his formula, until then stuck to by his clan of artists aka P-Funk (Parliament-Funkadelic, Plainfield Funk or Psychedelic Funk), compressed by machines and synthesizers.

All of a sudden, Electro-Funk was at the vanguard of synthesizer-based music. The sound’s most special parts - the rhythm, the groove - were being perfected. Sound elements from works by great composers like Quincy Jones gained new textures when reinterpreted by keyboards which, in these new tracks, took on parts that would normally be played by flutes. The sound of synthesizers, whose atmospheres take on a protagonist role, are a common characteristic shared by Electro’s many tangents; in fact, the synthesizers used in Electro Funk and Electro Rap are basically the same. But even though artists were using the same tools, their records could sound very different. It all depended on how the drum machines were programmed and, of course, on the synthesizer effects they used.

Technology made room for a new spectrum of sonic possibilities, creating a musical link between European Electronic Music and US-American Black Music. One notable aspect of the Funk excursions made in the 1980s appears in the work of drummers who, at the time, began experimenting with combining sounds from acoustic drums with electronic drum machines. This gave Dance music an exciting new feature, a new stimulant. And even though Funk began its electronic trajectory in the 1970s with aesthetes like George Clinton, the organic sound was still predominant in the era of bell-bottom pants, platform shoes and afro hairstyles. But since change couldn’t happen that soon, the stylistic shift would only regain strength in the 1980s.

The rite of passage that occurred between 1981 and 1982 can be regarded as a separate chapter within the trajectory of Black Music, because from that moment on it began sounding more electronic, in a period in full effervescence of P-Funk and the West Coast Electro Funk scene, in the moment when the music of Rick James, Bar-Kays, One Way, Fatback and Zapp was invading the roller skating rinks, in an atmosphere where technological advances had a strong presence in daily life. In the field of popular music, we have the meeting of two matrixes: one, which reflected from George Clinton’s P-Funk; and another, powered by Zapp’s robotic Funk. The new grooves made during this period indicated, in an innovative musical language, that the dialogue between music and technology would be the fuel for Black Music in the following years. A new musical order - an electronic one - was substituting the old and the expression “Electro Funk” perfectly represented this change.

Electro Funk: Confusing Terminology

This conflated terminology seems to have spread in the 1980s: it’s not uncommon that people confuse Electro Funk and Electro Rap till this day, a basis for many discussions even though the equations seem self-explanatory. But the term “Electro Funk” makes more sense if used to exemplify the type of aesthetics developed by groups like Midnight Star, Reggie Griffin or Radiance, among other artists with similar sound aesthetics, which took shape, especially, between 1982 and 1985. Their releases, despite being hybrids of Funk and Electronic Music, have Funk as their main element.

In 1982, Afrika Bambaataa baptized its music as “Electro Funk”. Looking almost forty years back, the narrative laid by this godfather of Hip-Hop sounds like an echo of a far away time, but confusing nonetheless. Using the hit “Planet Rock” as an example, it becomes clear that Rap, embodied by the electronic music of Kraftwerk, is the emphasis of the track, while the Funk aspect becomes a secondary element limited to the syncopated programming of the drum machine. Therefore, wouldn’t it be more appropriate to call this song Electro Rap or Electro Hip-Hop, rather than Electro Funk?

On the other hand, the term Electro Funk could apply if we take into account that when Afrika Bambaata created this expression, these artists might have been referring to the context of when Funk (or in this case, Hip-Hop or other styles of Black Music) took on a more electronic sound. Through this lens, Electro Funk becomes an open-ended expression that can take on many meanings-- a thin line divides what the style really is from what the term really means.

*Midnight Star "No Parking On The Dance Floor” (1983)*

Electro in The United Kingdom

Afrika Bambaata used the term “Electro Funk” in 1982 to describe its music and, in the following year, Street Sounds was the first compilation to use the term “Electro” to describe a sub-genre of Hip-Hop. In around 1983, the record label Street Sounds emerged from the need to fill Europe’s Hip-Hop void. Its mission was rooted on providing the public in the UK and consequently, Europe, with what was being made on the streets of the USA. In many ways, this material arrived to the European public packaged as Electro. After all, this was the name chosen for the label’s anthological compilation: Street Sounds Electro.

In 1984, after popular classics were immortalized by the compilation, it was common to hear boomboxes pulsating in the street corners of London, Nottingham or Manchester, playing a track from one of the volumes of the celebrated compilation. In Europe, many got to know Hip-Hop and its elements through music videos like “Buffalo Gals” or via records from the label Street Sounds which, at that point, pushed exclusive US-American singles yet unreleased in the UK.

*Street Sounds Electro - Volume 1 (1983)*

The imported style took root in the sidewalks of England, nudging youth from various ethnic backgrounds to set aside their differences and pay attention to what was happening in the Bronx, on the other side of the Atlantic. Immediately, people began assimilating the idea that Electro was an abbreviation of Electro Funk.

Electro in Brazil

In Brazil, people had their first contact with Hip-Hop culture in the rite of passage from 1983 to 1984, when music videos by Michael Jackson, Malcolm Mclaren, Chic, Gap Band and Lionel Richie were played on public access television and movies like Beat Street and Breakin’ packed the theaters of Ipiranga Avenue, in the heart of the city of Sao Paulo. And because of the arrival of home video, coupled with a growing VHS market in Brazilian territory, these tapes crossed geographical borders and presented aspects of Hip-Hop that, until then, were unknown to most people outside the vicinity of the Bronx. Soon enough, in the culture sections of major Brazilian newspapers in 1984, news of an edgy and elastic new dance gained more and more column space.

Entertainment is a major component of any cultural industry, and with a new demand for entertainment growing in the country, the market was quick to fill the blank slate: the Brazilian recording industry created its own version of the US-American Electro in movie soundtracks, known in Brazil as “Break” (short for “Break Dance”). Break established itself and, with its own new dance, gained followers in major Brazilian cities like Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia, Belo Horizonte, Fortaleza, Recife, Porto Alegre, Curitiba, Belem and Goiania, among others.

Electric Boogies (left to right): Paulo César, Ricardo, Marcelo, Claudinho e Renilson - São Paulo (1984) Photo courtesy of the artist. — Electric Boogies (left to right): Paulo César, Ricardo, Marcelo, Claudinho e Renilson - São Paulo (1984)
Photo courtesy of the artist.

In the land of soccer and Carnaval, labels like RGE and Young deserve a spotlight. The first presented the material from two crews of dancers: Electric Boogies and Black Juniors; while the latter presented notable female artists like Buffalo Girls, an allusion to the “Buffalo Gals", by Malcom Mclaren; as well as a little-known version of the classic “World Famous”, by World Famous Supreme Team, made by a mysterious singer with the artistic pseudonym of Sasha.Other well known artists from the Soul/Funk sphere also stepped in: Tony Bizarro produced the group Villa Box on CBS, while Gerson King Combo brought his Electro-Funk to light with “De Madureira à Central”. There is even room for more obscure works, which have remained anonymous for more than three decades; the record "Robô Dançante", of the Grupo Cogumelo, can be included in this list.

However, in spite of a small recovery of this aesthetic, throughout the 1990s, through representatives of the Rap music scene in Brasilia, such as DJ Raffa, DJ Jamaika, Álibi and Kabala, the few records that were made in Brazil, notably in the middle of the 1980s - with the exception of records like that of Truke and Gerson King Combo, made in Rio de Janeiro in 1984 and 1985 - almost all of them came from Sao Paulo.

Looking back through a historical lens, it’s noticeable that all these records produced in Brazil in the 1980s share a common aesthetic: that of Celluloid Records between 1983 and 1984, in New York. Like Celluloid, those artists favored the same electronic drum machine, the DX-Oberheim, for their beats.

More Nomenclatures For Electro

If Electro Rap is recognized as a fusion of Electronic Music and Hip-Hop, and Electro Funk fuses elements of Funk and Electro, then the term “Pure Electro” represents the style in its purest state, generally found in instrumental tracks or, in some cases, with the presence of vocoders. Tracks like “Al-Naafyish", by Hashim, “Computer Pop", by Maggotron or “122 BPM", by British group Jive Rhythm Trax are some examples of this “Pure Electro” tangent.

*Cutting Records: deejays and remixers (1986)*

On the other hand, Electro Dance, which was initially labeled “Latin Hip-Hop” and later “Freestyle”, emerged in New York in the beginning of the 80’s. It’s easily identifiable by its fusion of R&B and Electro, by it’s synthesized basslines, melodic vocals, syncopated beats similar to that of other Electro tangents and, of course, by it’s famous hand-cut tape edits by latin remixers like Albert Cabrera & Tony Moran (Latin Rascals), Carlos Berrios, Chep Nunez, Omar Santana, and Jellybean, among others.

Dig deeper…

Concreta Sala · This is... Electro! by DJ Brown Breaks

From Confinement to Rebirth

Following the maxim that a musical style is a transitory phenomena that is constantly mutating, this prophecy fulfilled itself when Electro lost its space in 1986-1987, when the US-American Hip-Hop scene was strongly seduced by the Def Jam generation, promoted by groups like Public Enemy and Beastie Boys. Despite this, Electro was pushed even further in California and other US-American states: there are many records dated as late as 1988-1989 from cities like Las Vegas, Oakland, Houston, Detroit and West Palm Beach, among others.

But even though Electro held its place until the late 1980s, it was eventually overshadowed, making way for Gangsta Rap in Los Angeles, Miami Bass in Miami, Boom Bap in New York and Techno in Detroit. And just like that, it was replaced by new scenes that emerged in the cities it once maintained a strong presence. At the gates of the new millennium, and in the years of silence that followed, Electro began to echo other musical tangents.

Electro obviously wasn’t dead; it had just changed its name and address. Everything that leaves will one day return, taking its time so that the significance of its prior innovations can be comprehended with a new perspective. And the style was (in a way) rescued in the mid 1990s: at that time a compilation led by a British DJ, Dave Clarke, brought a package of musical ideas, sensations and textures titled Electro Boogie, a direct reference to the 1980s. In a way, the release was able to keep the flame alive in the midst of the era of baggy-pants, while making space for new artistic nuclei to reveal themselves.

Although this revival had the 1990s Detroit scene as its backdrop - with artists like Aux 88, Will Web and labels like Direct Beat - the contemporary Electro narrative would be incomplete without the new-school British and German scenes, the former being pushed by labels like Clear and Evolution, and the latter by M-Pire and Dominance Records.

As the style was rescued in Europe, the epicenter of Electro in the European continent was Germany, the birthplace of Kraftwerk. It is also in Germany that the style was reimagined in the 1990s until the new millennium, bringing to light artists like Knightz Of Bass, Dagobert, Anthony Rother, Funkmaster Ozone and Dynamik Bass System. And after a long hiatus, old-school artists from the USA like Newcleus and Egyptian Lover resurfaced and recorded a notable, uninterrupted sequence of records. To some, rescuing the past is linked to uncertainty about the future and historically music, much like fashion, is a means of connection with other eras. But not all who embark on this journey are overcome with nostalgia: looking into the past isn’t that appealing if the future is desired with even more intensity.

The Importance of Electro

It’s possible to dwell in the Hip-Hop or Electronic Music spheres - by participating in events, spinning at night clubs, attending record fairs, working in the industry or in the editorials of a major newspapers - without ever having heard of Amos Larkins II, DJ Antron, Rich Cason or Man Parrish. After all, this material was kept under the radar for decades inside a deep, layered treasure chest filled with artists that many Hip-Hop critics fail to recognize as authors of an inventive language, perhaps because these artists were from a world outside of what was defined as the “Golden Era”.

DJ Antron during a studio session (1986) Photo courtesy of the artist. — DJ Antron during a studio session (1986)
Photo courtesy of the artist.

It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that, in the musical realms of Hip-Hop and Electronic Music, Electro is one of the most fertile, underestimated scenes we know. Reflecting from the starting point of Hip-Hop’s pre-sample era and the masterpiece it inherited from Kraftwerk is fundamental to understanding the Electro landscape; while trying to see Hip-Hop as a collection of names, moments and sonic possibilities is a permanent exercise in reflection that leads us, in some way, to the depths of each specific music scene.

While a large portion of sub-genres is strongly inspired by Jazz, Soul and Funk from the 1970s, immortalized and duly recycled through the use of the sampler, Electro followed a different path, creating its own singular atmosphere and musical identity. For a long time, the style embodied the spirit of creativity of the streets, crossing borders and uniting people, combining imagination with attitude. Today, (almost) forty years after its birth, Electro’s tones remain fresh and current… maybe even more than ever.

Translated by Mariana Dias - Edited by Priscilla Cavalcante - Illustrations by Matt Gazzola

References

“A Vida de James Brown” Brown, Geoff
“Back In The Days” Shabazz, Jamel
“Born In The Bronx” Kugelberg, Johan
“Electro: The Beat That Won’t Be Beaten” Rambali, Paul
(www.theface.com/archive/electro)
“Electro-Funk – What Did It All Mean” Wilson, Greg
(www.electrofunkroots.co.uk)
“Genre And Hollywood”, Neale, Steave
“Give The Drummer Some: Leslie Ming Of B.T. Express”
(www.redbullmusicacademy.com)
“Hip-Hop Files”, Cooper, Martha
“Le Freak: Autobiografia de Nile Rodgers”
“Quanto Vale o Show?” Botelho, Guilherme - Dissertação de Mestrado – USP
“Rap Attack”, Toop, David
“Rap Records”, Fresh, Freddy
“Sintetizadores à Brasileira”, Pereira, Francisco
“The Record Players: DJ Revolutionaries”, Brewster, Bill; Broughton, Frank
“Ultimate Breaks And Beats: An Oral History”, Covington, Jared
(www.medium.com/cuepoint/ultimate-break-beats-an-oral-history)

What is Electro?