ABSTRACT
With the aesthetic demise of black popular music, the soul of the people as it was expressed in the music went underground. The underground music of the eighties was generated by a new youth movement of deejays and emcees from every urban uptown, high-tech synthesizer wizards from around the world, and crafty old-school musicians all interpreting the impulse of The Funk. Eighties funk was a noisy, rugged, and tense interpretation of an African music and value system, fueled in part by the desperation of the inner cities. The monstrous, apocalyptic Hip Hop tracks of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five featuring Melle Mel, the bone-crushing bass drum throbs and hysterical yelps of Run-D.M.C., and the relentlessly thick, funk grind of Trouble Funk’s live performances all reflected the intensity of eighties music-a music too desperate, too articulate, and too meaningful for so-called black radio.
