Harlem World: How Hip Hop's Super Showdown Changed Music Forever

by Jonathan Mael

Overview

A thrilling narrative history of how one rap battle in New York transformed American culture forever.

July 3, 1981, was a pivotal night for the future of America's newest art form: hip hop. In New York's Harlem World Club, the Fantastic Romantic Five and the Cold Crush Brothers competed, with an unprecedented $1,000—and their reputations—on the line in a highly anticipated rap battle. The show drew hundreds of fans to settle a question that still dominates hip hop circles: Who's the best?

In Harlem World, journalist Jonathan Mael chronicles this fateful night of hip hop rivalry and shares a new look at how Harlem helped ignite a musical revolution. Since hip hop first emerged in New York in the early 1970s, artists like Theodore Livingston (DJ Grand Wizzard Theodore) and Curtis Brown (Grandmaster Caz) sought to elevate this uniquely American musical genre by pushing the limits of record-playing techniques and lyricism. The two crews they assembled put on the best shows in a world where hip hop was still a strictly live art form. Even as acts like the Sugarhill Gang and Kurtis Blow became commercially successful, New York's top two crews strove to claim the ultimate spot atop the city's hip hop scene.

The battle blew the roof off Harlem World that night, and bootlegged cassette tapes of the match-up sent aftershocks around the city as more fans listened to the legendary performances. Set in the New York of the 1970s and '80s, this book shares dozens of new, exclusive interviews and a treasure trove of previously unpublished archival material to tell the story of Cold Crush and Fantastic's rivalry, documenting one of the most important stories in hip hop history. This is the first book of its kind to focus on 1979–1983 and the legendary battles at Harlem World while connecting the genre's formative years to its massive role in American society today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781421446882
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	09/12/2023
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Jonathan Mael is a high school teacher and reporter. He has written for such publications as The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, and ESPN.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Crispy Crust Pizzeria
1. The Sound Room
2. Routines
3. New York, New York
4. Hip Hop's Great Poet
5. Harlem World
6. Collision Course
7. Tough-Ass Four Emcees
8. Somebody, and Anybody, and Everybody Scream
9. Traveling Tapes
10. Wild Style
Epilogue: "The Message"

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

In an engaging and conversational style, Mael and the artists featured in this book provide valuable insights into why hip hop began, how it spread, and why it remains so important to American culture. Hip hop afficionados and general readers would love to have this book on their shelves.
—Kenneth Lee Johnson II, College of Charleston

Harlem World is a timely and powerful record of mixtape history. Mael masterfully weaves soulful stories into a cinematic narrative, delivering a remarkable collection of mixtape memories. Arriving on hip hop's golden anniversary, this classic is a love letter to the genre, our hip hop heroes, community collections and archives, Harlem, and the cassette.
—Regan Sommer McCoy, The Mixtape Museum

Editorial Reviews

06/05/2023

Journalist Mael chronicles hip-hop’s emergence in late 1970s and ’80s New York City in his rollicking debut. Focusing on a pivotal rap battle between the Cold Crush Brothers and the Fantastic Romantic Five on July 3, 1981, at the Harlem World club, Mael unpacks how lyrical flair, and such new techniques as record-scratching, elevated hip hop from the city’s streets to airwaves across the world. Groups like the two that faced off at Harlem World “weren’t mass-marketed and packaged by record companies to look a certain way or deliver a certain message. They were the message,” says Mael, and though the Fantastic Romantic Five took home the grand prize of $1,000 that night, the true “winners... were hip hop fans in general,” who witnessed the beginnings of what “remains a massive cultural force.” Based on interviews with some of hip-hop’s early players, who offer behind-the-scenes insight into the infamous battle, and contextualized by incisive discussions of demographic shifts in Harlem and the Bronx and other historical details, this gives welcome due to the underground culture and cast of characters that gave hip-hop its wild style. Readers curious about the genre’s roots will want to take it for a spin. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"Journalist Mael chronicles hip-hop's emergence in late 1970s and '80s New York City in his rollicking debut. . . . Readers curious about the genre's roots will want to take it for a spin."
—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

09/01/2023

Journalist Mael's debut book uses personal and archived interviews and articles to chronicle the event on July 3, 1981, when two of the era's most respected acts in hip-hop competed at the Harlem World Cultural and Entertainment Complex in New York for $1,000 and bragging rights. The Cold Crush Brothers, a four-man rap group, came in with beats and bravado. Their opponents, the Fantastic Romantic Five, had a bit more name recognition and were popular with women. Although the rap battle was for one night, it would live on with the advent of cassette tapes and listeners debating the end result. Mael tells the story like a sports play-by-play, allowing readers to get a glimpse of events that led up to that night and through the battle's conclusion. Unfortunately, the performances take a backseat to a plethora of information, some helpful—mini-biographies of both groups—and some unnecessary, such as a chapter on the 1983 movie Wild Style. More details about the evolution of hip-hop would have been appreciated. VERDICT Readers looking for perspectives on the July 1981 rap battle might enjoy this. Readers looking for more information on hip-hop's history and development will find it in Jonathan Abrams's The Come Up.—Anjelica Rufus-Barnes

Library Journal

2023-05-27
An attempt to capture the heady early days of hip-hop.

The subject matter is unquestionably compelling. However, like an up-and-coming rapper battling too hard too soon, Mael, a reporter and high school teacher, bites off more than he can chew. It’s clear from the subtitle that the author had grand ambitions. The showdown refers to the rap battle between the Cold Crush Brothers and the Fantastic Romantic Five at Harlem World nightclub on July 3, 1981. Mael offers plenty of fascinating details about the night, both groups, and how the beef, which pales in comparison to contemporary battles, developed between them. The Cold Crush Brothers—which included Grandmaster Caz, whose pioneering rhymes were used by another rapper on the first hip-hop hit, Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight”—were known to be “tough, thoughtful, uncompromising, and slick all at the same time.” The Fantastic Romantic Five, which included standout DJ Grand Wizzard Theodore, were more about improvisation and pleasing the crowd. “For Fantastic, the party was key to a successful routine,” Mael writes. “They knew who was judging that night and understood that the trick to winning the battle would be getting them to dance and scream and make out and have a good time.” That reporting and those insights into one of hip-hop’s legendary evenings are important for what they add to the history of the genre. However, it takes more than half the book to reach that night, as Mael takes readers through lengthy tangents into the history of Malcolm X, the formation of the Sugarhill Gang, and how looting during a 1977 blackout in the Bronx helped supply a lot of new DJs with equipment. The interesting detours don’t quite explain how music was irrevocably changed, however; it’s a little too much hype to be believed.

Mael promises a weighty concept album of insight into a legendary concert, but he manages only an uneven mixtape.

Kirkus Reviews