The music which we discover during our teenage years often forms our further musical taste. Although I listened to all kinds of music that changed considerably when I got my first job working at a supermarket. Although I was listening to some top 40 rap songs (like Fight for Your Right by the Beastie Boys or I Need Love from LL Cool J), it was a colleague the same age as me who gave me names of artists I’ve never heard of, such as Cypress Hill and Das Efx. In my hometown of Rotterdam we had a place called the Central Discotheque, where you could rent CDs for a few guilders for week and I could find these artists. It was a place where you would be able to find me a few times a week to find the latest releases and to hire older CDs if I found an artists I liked. Once I got home, I copied all the CDs onto cassettes, so it didn´t take long before I had a nice collection of music and it was me who was giving others tips about which artists they should check out. This was all in the early nineties, the golden age of hip hop.
It was a time when artists like House of Pain, Busta Rhymes, Nas, Jay-Z and Notorious BIG had their breakthrough and I could not wait to discover other comparable artist. Although I had not heard of Stretch and Bobbito at the time, this was the period when they made their name as a radio duo. Stretch Armstrong was the DJ and Bobbito hosted. Their show, in which they played hip-hop, was, as the title of this documentary suggests, influential. The list of famous artists they had in their studio before they became well-known is simply breathtaking. In this film they tell how they started their show, what they experienced and they also talk to artists who made it thanks to the show and were offered record deals.
If you grew up in this period (like me), it will be a joy to watch. The film has a lot of archive material (both video and audio) from various MC’s doing a freestyle and as the occasional moments that are exciting to see, with the high point being a freestyle by Biggie which I had never heard before. It is a joy to hear these two men talk about hip hop history, they were pioneers in a music genre which I still love.
You can can rent or buy this documentary through Vimeo.
