No Sleep Till Shaolin:
New York Hip Hop Comparison
Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and Staten / From the Battery to the top of Manhattan / Asian, Middle-Eastern and Latin / Black, White, New York you make it happen
(Beastie Boys, AZ Lyrics).
(Beastie Boys, AZ Lyrics).
Hip Hop has become a very popular genre of music over the past 20 years. There are artists from all over the country and even the world making hip hop music. One of the most iconic hip hop cities is New York. Artists such as Jay Z, Biggie, Nas, The Beastie Boys, and of course, the Wu Tang Clan are all from New York. Hip Hop originated in the South Bronx in the early 70s and during this time, it was also known as Mcing. By the 80’s, Hip hop was getting popular and by the 90s, it was the new hot music genre. The Beastie Boys and the Wu Tang Clan were both New York rap groups. Although they originated in the same state and around the same time, they were very very different in style, attitude, and background. My research project question is, “How did the Wu Tang Clan and Beastie Boys’ neighborhoods and backgrounds affect their lyrics and style?”
The Wu Tang Clan was a rap group from Staten Island. The Clan consisted of ten members and was led by The RZA. “RZA famously created the group with his family and friends from Staten Island and built a mythos around Wu-Tang steeped in kung fu
iconography” (Huffington Post). The members grew up in poverty stricken neighborhoods called “The Projects” or “Killah Hills.” “The Park Hill Apartments were a privately-owned but federally-subsidized low-income housing complex in the Clifton neighborhood of Staten Island. Beginning in the ’60s, this neighborhood became overrun with crime and drug abuse, earning the nickname of ‘Crack Hill’ by the end of the 1980s” (Moore). When the RZA was young, he and his friends would skip school on Friday to go to Manhattan where they would watch Kung Fu films. From a very young age the RZA was influenced by Chinese culture and Kung Fu. His dream job was to be a Kung Fu filmmaker. His love for Chinese culture was later applied into The Wu Tang Clan’s lyrics. In 1993, the Wu Tang Clan dropped their first album, “Enter the Wu Tang.” This album told the story of Shaolin, the Wu Tang Clan’s imaginary vision of Staten Island. They referred to Staten Island as Shaolin. After they released the first album, they rose to fame pretty quickly. They were known for being the first rap group to be culturally diverse and accepting, and that is one of the reasons they are so important today.
The Beastie Boys were also a very important rap group from New York. “The members of the group were teenagers, all from wealthy Manhattan families, playing in various hardcore punk bands when they came together in the early Eighties as “Beastie Boys” (Kemp). Unlike the Wu Tang Clan, the Beastie Boys grew up wealthy and didn’t have the hardships that the Wu Tang had. The group consisted of three members, Mike D, Adrock, and MCA. They started out as a punk band in high school and played local shows. Eventually, in the mid 80s they decided to do hip hop. They dropped their first album in the late 80’s. They gained a lot criticism for being “cultural pirates” (Billboard). This is probably because they were the first white boys to make music of a mostly African American genre and style. “But the Beasties weren't pirating -- instead, they treated rap as part of a post-punk musical underground, where the D.I.Y. aesthetics of hip-hop and punk weren't that far apart” (Billboard). It wasn’t until their second album that they started to gain fame. Even though this was at the same time that the Wu Tang Clan was releasing music, the Beastie Boys were in a completely different realm. Because of their different backgrounds, the Wu Tang Clan’s lyrics were more about their hard pasts.
The Wu Tang Clan had a unique style of music. Unlike most hip hop, they were very open about their hardships and were also very culturally accepting and diverse. “Despite surrounding themselves with violent themes, such as calling affiliated projects the Wu-Tang Killa Bees, the group believed that if they came together, they could achieve triumph through artistic means” (Huffington Post). They thought they could make it to the top if they came together to tell their story. They were very lyrical and had a really unique rhyming style, as well. Unlike the Beastie Boys who had fast paced beats, most of the Wu Tang Clan's songs had slow, hard, hip hop beats. Growing up in a poor, drug and gang inhabited neighborhood, the Wu Tang Clan members faced many challenges. They talked about them in their music. In their song “C.R.E.A.M”, by Clan members Raekwon and Inspectah Deck, the first line in the song, sang by Raekwon the Chef, gives an example of this. “I grew up on the crime side, the New York Times side Staying alive was no jive” (AZLyrics). This line explains how he grew up in a part of New York where there was a lot of crime and how it wasn’t so easy to stay alive. That whole song is actually about how hard it was for them growing up and it explains many of the difficulties that they faced.
Inspectah Deck explains how he was incarcerated at the age of only 15 and they both realized that they took the wrong path. “A man with a dream with plans to make C.R.E.A.M. Which failed; I went to jail at the age of 15. A young buck sellin drugs and such who never had much. Trying to get a clutch at what I could not touch” (AZLyrics). One thing that made the Wu Tang Clan unique is that they didn’t explain what the lyrics meant in their songs. They left it up to the listener to understand their lingo and slang. They use a lot of metaphors and figurative language. In their song “Fatal Sting,” there is a very good example of that. “In the battle fields mics collide like sword fights. Get stabbed up by the swift technique of a Black Knight” (AZLyrics). Some people might not be able to tell what he means by that, unless they grew up on streets in Staten Island during that time. I think he’s talking about a rap battle, and that his technique is swift and that it will beat yours. There are many more examples of this throughout their music where you have to make inferences and be able to understand the local slang, but even if you aren’t from there you can still hear that their life wasn’t easy. Lyrics were one of the main differences between the two groups.
The Beastie boys are also a very notable rap group from New York. Unlike The Wu Tang Clan, the Beastie Boys were rich, white, Manhattan kids. Instead of rapping about their hardships, they rapped about how good and cool they were. “On location touring around the nation. Beastie Boys always on vacation. Itchy trigger finger but a stable turntable. I do what I do best because I'm illing and able. Ain't no faking your money I'm taking. Going coast to coast watching all the girlies shaking. While you're at the job working nine to five. The Beastie Boys at the Garden cold kickin' it live” (AZLyrics). This shows how braggadocious they were. This was only their first album and they weren’t famous when it dropped, so there’s no way anything they said was actually true. They weren’t touring or going coast-to-coast, so they were basically lying to seem cool. The Beastie Boys were known for being arrogant when they first started. They received a lot of hate for this. Their second album was a little bit less arrogant, and also got more fame and more people liked it. Unlike the Wu Tang's slow meaningful style, the Beastie Boys had a fast paced, loud, braggadocios style. This gained hate, but also gained them a lot of notoriety and it became their image that many people respected. They had a lot of songs that were funny, too. Their song “Eggman” is about egging people. “Saw the convertible driving by. Loaded up the slingshot and let one fly. He went for his to find he didn't have one. Put him in check correct with my egg gun” (AZLyrics) . They acted as if they did the music for fun and as if they weren’t even trying. The three members of the Beastie boys, MCA, Mike D, and Ad Rock all had very unique voices. MCA had a very deep raspy voice. Mike D had a high screechy voice. AD rock had the most unique one. His voice was extremely high a nasally and it is probably the most notable voice from the Beastie Boys. The Beastie Boys are most known for their songs, “No Sleep till Brooklyn,” “Brass Monkey,” and “Fight For Your Right.”
The Beastie Boys and The Wu Tang Clan are both very famous NY music groups, and although they are from the same area, their music is very different because they grew up in very different environments. The Wu Tang Clan grew up in very rough, poor conditions. They saw the streets and had to deal with many hard things. They rapped about their hardships and their run-ins with gangs and tough times. The Beastie Boys rapped about being the best, being rich, being cool and getting girls. These examples show how poverty or wealth can really affect one's attitude and personality. The Beastie Boys didn’t have to go through all that the Wu Tang Clan did growing up, so they didn’t have those experiences to write about. In New York, there are so many different worlds. It is one of the most expensive places to live in the US, so there is a lot of upper class people. This being said, there are also a lot of poor people. This shows that someone's childhood really affects their attitude and feelings. Childhood is what makes the two group’s music so different. Even though the Wu Tang's childhood was rough on Staten Island, they still love Staten Island. They’re proud to represent Staten Island. The Beastie Boys are the opposite. They never talk about their love or even talk about Manhattan at all. I believe that this is possibly because they don’t want people to think they’re just soft, rich kids. They want to seem cool, so they don’t really open up about their early life. In the end, you can see how one’s upbringing is largely dependent on their neighborhood and can really affect their lives and attitudes, and how different someone’s music can be as a result of this.
The Wu Tang Clan was a rap group from Staten Island. The Clan consisted of ten members and was led by The RZA. “RZA famously created the group with his family and friends from Staten Island and built a mythos around Wu-Tang steeped in kung fu
iconography” (Huffington Post). The members grew up in poverty stricken neighborhoods called “The Projects” or “Killah Hills.” “The Park Hill Apartments were a privately-owned but federally-subsidized low-income housing complex in the Clifton neighborhood of Staten Island. Beginning in the ’60s, this neighborhood became overrun with crime and drug abuse, earning the nickname of ‘Crack Hill’ by the end of the 1980s” (Moore). When the RZA was young, he and his friends would skip school on Friday to go to Manhattan where they would watch Kung Fu films. From a very young age the RZA was influenced by Chinese culture and Kung Fu. His dream job was to be a Kung Fu filmmaker. His love for Chinese culture was later applied into The Wu Tang Clan’s lyrics. In 1993, the Wu Tang Clan dropped their first album, “Enter the Wu Tang.” This album told the story of Shaolin, the Wu Tang Clan’s imaginary vision of Staten Island. They referred to Staten Island as Shaolin. After they released the first album, they rose to fame pretty quickly. They were known for being the first rap group to be culturally diverse and accepting, and that is one of the reasons they are so important today.
The Beastie Boys were also a very important rap group from New York. “The members of the group were teenagers, all from wealthy Manhattan families, playing in various hardcore punk bands when they came together in the early Eighties as “Beastie Boys” (Kemp). Unlike the Wu Tang Clan, the Beastie Boys grew up wealthy and didn’t have the hardships that the Wu Tang had. The group consisted of three members, Mike D, Adrock, and MCA. They started out as a punk band in high school and played local shows. Eventually, in the mid 80s they decided to do hip hop. They dropped their first album in the late 80’s. They gained a lot criticism for being “cultural pirates” (Billboard). This is probably because they were the first white boys to make music of a mostly African American genre and style. “But the Beasties weren't pirating -- instead, they treated rap as part of a post-punk musical underground, where the D.I.Y. aesthetics of hip-hop and punk weren't that far apart” (Billboard). It wasn’t until their second album that they started to gain fame. Even though this was at the same time that the Wu Tang Clan was releasing music, the Beastie Boys were in a completely different realm. Because of their different backgrounds, the Wu Tang Clan’s lyrics were more about their hard pasts.
The Wu Tang Clan had a unique style of music. Unlike most hip hop, they were very open about their hardships and were also very culturally accepting and diverse. “Despite surrounding themselves with violent themes, such as calling affiliated projects the Wu-Tang Killa Bees, the group believed that if they came together, they could achieve triumph through artistic means” (Huffington Post). They thought they could make it to the top if they came together to tell their story. They were very lyrical and had a really unique rhyming style, as well. Unlike the Beastie Boys who had fast paced beats, most of the Wu Tang Clan's songs had slow, hard, hip hop beats. Growing up in a poor, drug and gang inhabited neighborhood, the Wu Tang Clan members faced many challenges. They talked about them in their music. In their song “C.R.E.A.M”, by Clan members Raekwon and Inspectah Deck, the first line in the song, sang by Raekwon the Chef, gives an example of this. “I grew up on the crime side, the New York Times side Staying alive was no jive” (AZLyrics). This line explains how he grew up in a part of New York where there was a lot of crime and how it wasn’t so easy to stay alive. That whole song is actually about how hard it was for them growing up and it explains many of the difficulties that they faced.
Inspectah Deck explains how he was incarcerated at the age of only 15 and they both realized that they took the wrong path. “A man with a dream with plans to make C.R.E.A.M. Which failed; I went to jail at the age of 15. A young buck sellin drugs and such who never had much. Trying to get a clutch at what I could not touch” (AZLyrics). One thing that made the Wu Tang Clan unique is that they didn’t explain what the lyrics meant in their songs. They left it up to the listener to understand their lingo and slang. They use a lot of metaphors and figurative language. In their song “Fatal Sting,” there is a very good example of that. “In the battle fields mics collide like sword fights. Get stabbed up by the swift technique of a Black Knight” (AZLyrics). Some people might not be able to tell what he means by that, unless they grew up on streets in Staten Island during that time. I think he’s talking about a rap battle, and that his technique is swift and that it will beat yours. There are many more examples of this throughout their music where you have to make inferences and be able to understand the local slang, but even if you aren’t from there you can still hear that their life wasn’t easy. Lyrics were one of the main differences between the two groups.
The Beastie boys are also a very notable rap group from New York. Unlike The Wu Tang Clan, the Beastie Boys were rich, white, Manhattan kids. Instead of rapping about their hardships, they rapped about how good and cool they were. “On location touring around the nation. Beastie Boys always on vacation. Itchy trigger finger but a stable turntable. I do what I do best because I'm illing and able. Ain't no faking your money I'm taking. Going coast to coast watching all the girlies shaking. While you're at the job working nine to five. The Beastie Boys at the Garden cold kickin' it live” (AZLyrics). This shows how braggadocious they were. This was only their first album and they weren’t famous when it dropped, so there’s no way anything they said was actually true. They weren’t touring or going coast-to-coast, so they were basically lying to seem cool. The Beastie Boys were known for being arrogant when they first started. They received a lot of hate for this. Their second album was a little bit less arrogant, and also got more fame and more people liked it. Unlike the Wu Tang's slow meaningful style, the Beastie Boys had a fast paced, loud, braggadocios style. This gained hate, but also gained them a lot of notoriety and it became their image that many people respected. They had a lot of songs that were funny, too. Their song “Eggman” is about egging people. “Saw the convertible driving by. Loaded up the slingshot and let one fly. He went for his to find he didn't have one. Put him in check correct with my egg gun” (AZLyrics) . They acted as if they did the music for fun and as if they weren’t even trying. The three members of the Beastie boys, MCA, Mike D, and Ad Rock all had very unique voices. MCA had a very deep raspy voice. Mike D had a high screechy voice. AD rock had the most unique one. His voice was extremely high a nasally and it is probably the most notable voice from the Beastie Boys. The Beastie Boys are most known for their songs, “No Sleep till Brooklyn,” “Brass Monkey,” and “Fight For Your Right.”
The Beastie Boys and The Wu Tang Clan are both very famous NY music groups, and although they are from the same area, their music is very different because they grew up in very different environments. The Wu Tang Clan grew up in very rough, poor conditions. They saw the streets and had to deal with many hard things. They rapped about their hardships and their run-ins with gangs and tough times. The Beastie Boys rapped about being the best, being rich, being cool and getting girls. These examples show how poverty or wealth can really affect one's attitude and personality. The Beastie Boys didn’t have to go through all that the Wu Tang Clan did growing up, so they didn’t have those experiences to write about. In New York, there are so many different worlds. It is one of the most expensive places to live in the US, so there is a lot of upper class people. This being said, there are also a lot of poor people. This shows that someone's childhood really affects their attitude and feelings. Childhood is what makes the two group’s music so different. Even though the Wu Tang's childhood was rough on Staten Island, they still love Staten Island. They’re proud to represent Staten Island. The Beastie Boys are the opposite. They never talk about their love or even talk about Manhattan at all. I believe that this is possibly because they don’t want people to think they’re just soft, rich kids. They want to seem cool, so they don’t really open up about their early life. In the end, you can see how one’s upbringing is largely dependent on their neighborhood and can really affect their lives and attitudes, and how different someone’s music can be as a result of this.