59. Radiänce- "This is a Party/The "Micstro" (1980)

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Photos courtesy of Discogs
Released: 1980
Label: Ware Records

Side A
1. This is a Party

Side B
1. The "Micstro" *

*-Questlove: Even though the MC RC La Rock (not to be confused with T LaRock or Scott LaRock) came from Brooklyn, this song is a Philly classic.  In my opinion, it's one of the greatest of the first wave of old school rhymes that came out between 1979 and 1982.  This was before hip-hop songs were treated as pop songs.  At first hip-hop was filled with these long songs, six or seven minutes at least, and as long as fifteen.  There were no breaks.  You had to keep the party going.  Full Force the moved toward the "Hip-Pop" format with the UTFO ("Roxanne, Roxanne," which was also the first time we heard a breakbeat sampled in hip-hop (Billy Squier's "The Big Beat").  Compact, catchy rap songs?  That was unthinkable just a few years earlier.  If you look on the credits of LL Cool J's debut album, Radio, back in 1985, it says that it was "reduced by Rick Rubin."  That's on purpose, not just for his minimalist sound but for the fact he was distilling the tradition of a sprawling endless rhyme into a series of singles.  Before he reduced, there were lots of records like "The Micstro," but few as good."

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