Thursday 17 January 2008

Lost In Translation


In the mid-80's around the same time I was still sweating my folks for the C-3PO Collector's Case, my brother brought home a time-coded VHS copy of Ahearn's masterpiece. I remember him explaining to me that this is how shit went down in the South Bronx and that everything else was rubbish compared to Hip-Hop. It made sense.

A few years prior to this event, the ICA had hosted the premiere of Wild Style in the UK. A well-funded stomping ground for art-house cravet'n'beret wearing wino suffering media hoars and so-called intellectuals alike, the place occasionally does hip-hop if you don't mind to mingle. Their poster says it all. It always looked liked the drippy kids picture entry for the local school disco to me i.e. f*ckin sh*t.

Anyway, thanks to my brother for bringing me home the poster way back when. Here's a little snippet of the Wild Style Tour in Tokyo from 1983 that I dubbed from his tape collection. Fab 5 Freddy on the mic and the Son of Bambataa cuttin' em up. That part when Islam is backing-up the sax solo after Freddy says "Buck 4 With The Backspin" always gets me. Whilst the poster's art direction didn't quite get the picture, the Tokyo crowd sound like they had a pretty good idea what was going down.



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