Winley Records
Encyclopedia
Paul Winley Records Inc. (more commonly credited as Winley Records) was a doo-wop
record label
founded in 1956 that in 1979 became one of the earliest hip hop
labels. It was situated on 125th Street
, Harlem
, New York City. Winley released doo-wop by The Paragons and The Jesters
, and hip hop records by Paul Winley's daughters, Tanya and Paulette, produced by Winley's wife, Ann. The label can lay claim to a number of firsts: one of the earliest rock and roll compilations, one of the earliest breaks
compilations, an early solo female rap artist and an early instance of social commentary in rap. Winley was also the first label to record one of hip hop's most important figures, Afrika Bambaataa
.
. Through them, he met Ahmet Ertegün
, who—unusually for a label mogul—himself wrote for The Clovers subsequent to signing them. (Toop: 97) (Warner: 120) Winley moved to New York City to work with Ertegün's Atlantic Records
, where he wrote for Ruth Brown
and Big Joe Turner
. He then became one of the songwriters working in and around the Brill Building in the 1950s, along with figures he met and knew there such as Otis Blackwell
and Jesse Stone
. Winley formed a songwriting partnership with Davey Clowney, better known as Dave "Baby" Cortez, and the two began recording doo-wop groups for the newly-founded Winley Records. (Toop: 96–98)
, students at Cooper Junior High School in Harlem who graduated from singing under an elevated train station near 120th Street to the amateur night contest at the Apollo, where Paul Winley discovered them. The Jesters' b-sides often rivaled the lead cut. Their first three singles were all arranged by Clowney, and all three—"So Strange"/"Love No One But You", "Please Let Me Love You"/"I'm Falling in Love" (both 1957) and "The Plea"/"Oh Baby" (1958)—made the outer reaches of the national Pop chart
, and generated considerable New York interest. Under a different line-up, The Jesters reached #110 on the Billboard chart in 1960 with a version of The Diablos' "The Wind" backed with "Sally Green". Two lesser singles followed: "That's How It Goes"/"Tutti Frutti" (1960) and "Uncle Henry's Basement"/"Come Let Me Show You How" (1961). (Warner: 230–231)
A brother group to The Jesters, and "equally fine" (Warner: 269) were The Paragons—"real hoodlums, real zip-gun, street-warring hoodlums", Paul Winley recalled to David Toop in 1984, "but at the time I was young and crazy myself, so it didn't make any difference". (Toop: 98) For Winley, they recorded "Florence" backed with "Hey Little Schoolgirl" (1957), "Lets Start All Over Again" with "Stick With Me Baby" (1957), the ballad "Two Hearts Are Better than One" with "Give Me Love" (1957), "Twilight" plus "The Vows of Love" (1958), and "So You Will Know"/"Don't Cry Baby" (1958). Then came their backing of Tommy Collins on "Doll Baby"/"Darling I Love You" (1959), as The Paragons alone on the re-cap "So You Will Know"/"Doll Baby" (1960) and recording under the name Mack Starr and the Paragons for their last Winley release, "Just A Memory"/"Kneel and Pray" (1961). Of these, the records "Florence" and "Let's Start All Over Again" are doo-wop classics, and "Twilight" a "New York mini-classic". (Warner, 270) Jay Warner is of the opinion that the obscure "So You Will Know" is a finer record even than these. (Warner: 270)
The Paragons Meet The Jesters (1959), with its street gang cover and vocal duels inspired by doo-wop's street corner singing battles and live show group competitions, was "one of the first rock and roll compilation LPs" (Warner: 231) and the most commercially successful doo wop compilation ever released. (Warner: 270) Hal Winley reformed The Clovers for Winley in 1961 and in that year recorded "Wrapped Up in A Dream"/"Let Me Hold You", "Be My Baby"/"They're Rockin' Down The Street" and "I Need You Now"/"Gotta Quit You" on the label. (Warner, 122–123) Other releases of this period include those of Charley White (of The Clovers), "Nobody's Fault But Mine" (1958), and Ann Fleming (Ann Winley), "Jive Time Baby" (1960). (Warner: 231) Relic Records have collected Winley doo-wop on The Best of Winley Records (RELIC 5019) with liner notes by Donn Fileti detailing their lo-fidelity, almost ad hoc independent approach creating a valuable and unique New York sound. Quoting Fileti, David Toop makes the point that these are comments that can equally apply to Winley's hip hop output. (Toop: 99)
, tied into a tradition of black oratory and to be sampled
a decade later by Public Enemy and others. The label also recorded Harlem Underground Band (featuring a young George Benson
), whose "Smokin' Cheeba Cheeba" (1976) would furnish a break for hip hop's burgeoning breakbeat culture. A "break" was a short percussive passage in a record which hip hop DJs would loop (using two copies, one for each turntable) in order for it to be rapped over and/or danced to. By the late 1970s, "b-boy" sections were appearing in some small New York record stores, catering to "b-boys", followers of this yet-to-be-named new subculture, who would buy 45s, 12"s or complete albums, old or new, of funk, rock or indeed any genre, as long as they were satisfied that each contained at least a few seconds worthy of being looped. (Toop: ix–x) Paul Winley's daughter Tanya was such a follower, a "rap fanatic" (Toop: 100); Paul began collecting songs containing popular breaks and compiling them on a series of records called Super Disco Brake's, beginning in 1979 and eventually running to six volumes. The first of these therefore was one of the earliest records released with hip hop culture in mind, and probably the first breakbeat record in history. (Shapiro: 384–385)
Harlem Underground Band, augmented with the organ of the seemingly ever-present "Baby" Cortez, would function as the house band backing Winley's hip hop releases, hence having the same function, if not influence, as "Jiggs" Chase's band at Sugar Hill Records
, or those of Pumpkin
at Enjoy Records
and elsewhere, i.e. solving the problem of how to translate the backing to raps heretofore provided live by DJs. In the case of the first of these Winley releases, "Rockin' and Rhymin'" by Tanya and Paulette Winley (1979), the backing was "straightforward r&b, without the percussive explosions that were hip-hop's raison d'etre" while the rapping was somewhat tentative. (Shapiro: 384) Tanya "Sweet Tee" Winley's "Vicious Rap" (1980) was a leap forward, with Tanya in confident flow and the band even replicating a break at points. Tanya Winley raps in the party spirit characteristic of early hip hop, but the lyrics nonetheless detail a case of false arrest, and prophecy that she will "scream and shout ... and tell the government what it's all about". Along with Kurtis Blow
's punning "The Breaks
" (Columbia, 1980) and the much more radical "How We Gonna Make The Black Nation Rise" by Brother D. (Clappers, 1980), "Vicious Rap" was among the first commercially recorded hip hop songs to feature social commentary rather than party rhymes. Such records would remain a rarity until the success of "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five on Sugar Hill two years later. (Chang: 179) The label's erstwhile claim that "Vicious Rap" was recorded in 1978, making it the first hip hop to make it to the recording studio, is sometimes repeated, but the apparent improvement in technique from 1979's "Rockin' and Rhymin'" makes this likely a piece of historical revisionism. A last single from the Winley daughters followed in 1982: "I Believe in the Wheel of Fortune". (Shapiro: 384)
Afrika Bambaataa
was, with Grandmaster Flash
and DJ Kool Herc
(originator of hip hop's breakbeat DJing style), one of the prime movers in the emergence of hip hop in the 1970s. By 1980, Flash was recording for Enjoy Records with his MC team, the Furious Five, while Herc's star had faded—he was working in a record shop in South Bronx
. Bambaataa recorded "Zulu Nation Throwdown" (1980) for Winley with his MC crew named The Cosmic Force. He arranged and directed the percussion and rapping, but further live band accompaniment was added before release without his knowledge. (Hager, Village Voice, September 21 1982) According to Peter Shapiro, though the record is now "ancient-sounding" in hip hop terms, Winley's group here had moved to keep pace with Pumpkin at Enjoy and the Sugarhill band, with Lisa Lee of the Cosmic Force "absolutely destroying all the male MCs". (Shapiro: 384) Bambaataa was initially displeased with the record, but it found favor with the new wave
crowds who were being presented with hip hop music, dance and graffiti at shows by Bambaataa and others in downtown New York at this time. Bambaataa returned to Winley for "Zulu Nation Throwdown 2" (1980) with Soul Sonic Force, but thoroughly dissatisfied with the label, he left for Tommy Boy Records
, where he would record a single with a huge impact, "Planet Rock
" (1982). (Hager, Village Voice, September 21 1982) Unruffled, Winley released Death Mix (1983) to cash in on the success of Planet Rock. Death Mix was a vinyl pressing of a third- or fourth- hand cassette tape copy of a bootleg recording of a Bambaataa Zulu Nation
night at James Monroe High School in the Bronx in 1980. Death Mix features Bambaataa and Jazzy Jay
using an eclectic mix of records—including "Computer Games" by Yellow Magic Orchestra
, showing the sensibilities that would lead to the electro of "Planet Rock"—, cutting up breaks for Zulu Nation MCs, and demonstrating early scratching
techniques. (Lewis: 101) (Shapiro: 4) (Toop: 99) Despite its extremely poor sound quality, it is "the best commercially-available snapshot of hip-hop's earliest days". (Shapiro: 385)
A new generation of acts appeared in the early to mid 1980s on labels like Def Jam, Profile
and Cold Chillin'
, with a tougher image, musical style and lyrical delivery than their predecessors (see New school hip hop
). This—what Shapiro calls "the Run-D.M.C.
revolution"—signaled the end for labels like Enjoy, Sugar Hill and Winley. After releasing "Street Rock" by Rap Dynasty in 1984, the label folded, though two discs appeared in 2007 bearing the imprint's name and purporting to contain Bambaataa material from the 1970s. (Shapiro: 385) (Hsu, New York Times, September 15 2007) A collection of Winley hip hop, Death Mix: The Best of Paul Winley Records, was released on Landspeed Records in 2001.
Doo-wop
The name Doo-wop is given to a style of vocal-based rhythm and blues music that developed in African American communities in the 1940s and achieved mainstream popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s. It emerged from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and...
record label
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
founded in 1956 that in 1979 became one of the earliest hip hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
labels. It was situated on 125th Street
125th Street (Manhattan)
125th Street is a two-way street that runs east-west in the New York City borough of Manhattan, considered the "Main Street" of Harlem; It is also called Martin Luther King, Jr...
, Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
, New York City. Winley released doo-wop by The Paragons and The Jesters
The Jesters
The Jesters were a doo-wop group based in New York City who achieved success in the late 1950s. They were students at Cooper Junior High School in Harlem who graduated from singing under an elevated train station near 120th Street to the amateur night contest at the Apollo Theater, where Paul...
, and hip hop records by Paul Winley's daughters, Tanya and Paulette, produced by Winley's wife, Ann. The label can lay claim to a number of firsts: one of the earliest rock and roll compilations, one of the earliest breaks
Breakbeat
In 1992, a new style called "jungalistic hardcore" emerged, and for many ravers it was too funky to dance to. Josh Lawford of Ravescene prophesied that the breakbeat was "the death-knell of rave" because the ever changing drumbeat patterns of breakbeat music didn't allow for the same zoned out,...
compilations, an early solo female rap artist and an early instance of social commentary in rap. Winley was also the first label to record one of hip hop's most important figures, Afrika Bambaataa
Afrika Bambaataa
Afrika Bambaataa is an American DJ from the South Bronx, New York who was instrumental in the early development of hip hop throughout the 1980s. Afrika Bambaataa is one of the three originators of break-beat deejaying, and is respectfully known as the "Grandfather" and the Amen Ra of Universal...
.
Paul Winley
Paul Winley entered the music business through writing songs for his brother's Washington D.C. doo-wop group, The CloversThe Clovers
-History:The group formed in 1946 at Armstrong High School in Washington, D.C., with members Harold Lucas, Billy Shelton, and Thomas Woods. John "Buddy" Bailey was added soon after, and they began calling themselves the "Four Clovers", with Bailey on lead...
. Through them, he met Ahmet Ertegün
Ahmet Ertegun
Ahmet Ertegün was a Turkish American musician and businessman, best known as the founder and president of Atlantic Records. He also wrote classic blues and pop songs and served as Chairman of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and museum...
, who—unusually for a label mogul—himself wrote for The Clovers subsequent to signing them. (Toop: 97) (Warner: 120) Winley moved to New York City to work with Ertegün's Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz...
, where he wrote for Ruth Brown
Ruth Brown
Ruth Brown was an American pop and R&B singer-songwriter, record producer, composer and actress, noted for bringing a pop music style to R&B music in a series of hit songs for Atlantic Records in the 1950s, such as "So Long", "Teardrops from My Eyes" and " He Treats Your Daughter Mean".For these...
and Big Joe Turner
Big Joe Turner
Big Joe Turner was an American blues shouter from Kansas City, Missouri. According to the songwriter Doc Pomus, "Rock and roll would have never happened without him." Although he came to his greatest fame in the 1950s with his pioneering rock and roll recordings, particularly "Shake, Rattle and...
. He then became one of the songwriters working in and around the Brill Building in the 1950s, along with figures he met and knew there such as Otis Blackwell
Otis Blackwell
Otis Blackwell was an American songwriter, singer, and pianist, whose work significantly influenced rock 'n' roll...
and Jesse Stone
Jesse Stone
Jesse Stone was an American rhythm and blues musician and songwriter whose influence spanned a wide range of genres...
. Winley formed a songwriting partnership with Davey Clowney, better known as Dave "Baby" Cortez, and the two began recording doo-wop groups for the newly-founded Winley Records. (Toop: 96–98)
Doo-wop
Winley Records first recorded "Baby" Cortez, and then Little Anthony as part of The Duponts: "You"/"Must Be Falling in Love" (1955, technically predating the record company itself). (Toop: 98) (Warner: 239) Then came The JestersThe Jesters
The Jesters were a doo-wop group based in New York City who achieved success in the late 1950s. They were students at Cooper Junior High School in Harlem who graduated from singing under an elevated train station near 120th Street to the amateur night contest at the Apollo Theater, where Paul...
, students at Cooper Junior High School in Harlem who graduated from singing under an elevated train station near 120th Street to the amateur night contest at the Apollo, where Paul Winley discovered them. The Jesters' b-sides often rivaled the lead cut. Their first three singles were all arranged by Clowney, and all three—"So Strange"/"Love No One But You", "Please Let Me Love You"/"I'm Falling in Love" (both 1957) and "The Plea"/"Oh Baby" (1958)—made the outer reaches of the national Pop chart
Billboard charts
The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine...
, and generated considerable New York interest. Under a different line-up, The Jesters reached #110 on the Billboard chart in 1960 with a version of The Diablos' "The Wind" backed with "Sally Green". Two lesser singles followed: "That's How It Goes"/"Tutti Frutti" (1960) and "Uncle Henry's Basement"/"Come Let Me Show You How" (1961). (Warner: 230–231)
A brother group to The Jesters, and "equally fine" (Warner: 269) were The Paragons—"real hoodlums, real zip-gun, street-warring hoodlums", Paul Winley recalled to David Toop in 1984, "but at the time I was young and crazy myself, so it didn't make any difference". (Toop: 98) For Winley, they recorded "Florence" backed with "Hey Little Schoolgirl" (1957), "Lets Start All Over Again" with "Stick With Me Baby" (1957), the ballad "Two Hearts Are Better than One" with "Give Me Love" (1957), "Twilight" plus "The Vows of Love" (1958), and "So You Will Know"/"Don't Cry Baby" (1958). Then came their backing of Tommy Collins on "Doll Baby"/"Darling I Love You" (1959), as The Paragons alone on the re-cap "So You Will Know"/"Doll Baby" (1960) and recording under the name Mack Starr and the Paragons for their last Winley release, "Just A Memory"/"Kneel and Pray" (1961). Of these, the records "Florence" and "Let's Start All Over Again" are doo-wop classics, and "Twilight" a "New York mini-classic". (Warner, 270) Jay Warner is of the opinion that the obscure "So You Will Know" is a finer record even than these. (Warner: 270)
The Paragons Meet The Jesters (1959), with its street gang cover and vocal duels inspired by doo-wop's street corner singing battles and live show group competitions, was "one of the first rock and roll compilation LPs" (Warner: 231) and the most commercially successful doo wop compilation ever released. (Warner: 270) Hal Winley reformed The Clovers for Winley in 1961 and in that year recorded "Wrapped Up in A Dream"/"Let Me Hold You", "Be My Baby"/"They're Rockin' Down The Street" and "I Need You Now"/"Gotta Quit You" on the label. (Warner, 122–123) Other releases of this period include those of Charley White (of The Clovers), "Nobody's Fault But Mine" (1958), and Ann Fleming (Ann Winley), "Jive Time Baby" (1960). (Warner: 231) Relic Records have collected Winley doo-wop on The Best of Winley Records (RELIC 5019) with liner notes by Donn Fileti detailing their lo-fidelity, almost ad hoc independent approach creating a valuable and unique New York sound. Quoting Fileti, David Toop makes the point that these are comments that can equally apply to Winley's hip hop output. (Toop: 99)
Hip hop
Winley Records resurfaced in the 1970s with a series of releases which—like the street corner practices of doo-wop foreshadowing those of hip hop (see Toop: Ch. 2)—would in their different ways presage the advent of commercially recorded hip hop even as that movement blossomed in the Bronx and spread to the streets of Harlem. Winley released a series of speeches by Malcolm XMalcolm X
Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...
, tied into a tradition of black oratory and to be sampled
Sampler (musical instrument)
A sampler is an electronic musical instrument similar in some respects to a synthesizer but, instead of generating sounds, it uses recordings of sounds that are loaded or recorded into it by the user and then played back by means of a keyboard, sequencer or other triggering device to perform or...
a decade later by Public Enemy and others. The label also recorded Harlem Underground Band (featuring a young George Benson
George Benson
George Benson is a ten Grammy Award winning American musician, whose production career began at the age of twenty-one as a jazz guitarist....
), whose "Smokin' Cheeba Cheeba" (1976) would furnish a break for hip hop's burgeoning breakbeat culture. A "break" was a short percussive passage in a record which hip hop DJs would loop (using two copies, one for each turntable) in order for it to be rapped over and/or danced to. By the late 1970s, "b-boy" sections were appearing in some small New York record stores, catering to "b-boys", followers of this yet-to-be-named new subculture, who would buy 45s, 12"s or complete albums, old or new, of funk, rock or indeed any genre, as long as they were satisfied that each contained at least a few seconds worthy of being looped. (Toop: ix–x) Paul Winley's daughter Tanya was such a follower, a "rap fanatic" (Toop: 100); Paul began collecting songs containing popular breaks and compiling them on a series of records called Super Disco Brake's, beginning in 1979 and eventually running to six volumes. The first of these therefore was one of the earliest records released with hip hop culture in mind, and probably the first breakbeat record in history. (Shapiro: 384–385)
Harlem Underground Band, augmented with the organ of the seemingly ever-present "Baby" Cortez, would function as the house band backing Winley's hip hop releases, hence having the same function, if not influence, as "Jiggs" Chase's band at Sugar Hill Records
Sugar Hill Records (rap)
Sugar Hill Records was the name of a rap music record label that was founded in 1979 by husband and wife Joe and Sylvia Robinson with Milton Malden and financial funding of Morris Levy, the owner of Roulette Records.-History:...
, or those of Pumpkin
Pumpkin (musician)
Errol Eduardo Bedward, better known by his stage name Pumpkin was a musician, percussionist and band leader. He was renowned for being the one behind many old school hip hop tracks for the Profile, Enjoy, and Tuff City record companies....
at Enjoy Records
Enjoy Records
Enjoy Records was a record label owned and operated by Bobby Robinson from 1962 through the mid-1980s, and was run out of his record shop at 125th Street and 8th Ave. in Harlem...
and elsewhere, i.e. solving the problem of how to translate the backing to raps heretofore provided live by DJs. In the case of the first of these Winley releases, "Rockin' and Rhymin'" by Tanya and Paulette Winley (1979), the backing was "straightforward r&b, without the percussive explosions that were hip-hop's raison d'etre" while the rapping was somewhat tentative. (Shapiro: 384) Tanya "Sweet Tee" Winley's "Vicious Rap" (1980) was a leap forward, with Tanya in confident flow and the band even replicating a break at points. Tanya Winley raps in the party spirit characteristic of early hip hop, but the lyrics nonetheless detail a case of false arrest, and prophecy that she will "scream and shout ... and tell the government what it's all about". Along with Kurtis Blow
Kurtis Blow
Kurt Walker , better known by his stage name Kurtis Blow, is an American rapper and record producer. He is one of the first commercially successful rappers and the first to sign with a major record label...
's punning "The Breaks
The Breaks (song)
"The Breaks" is a critically acclaimed 1980 hit single by Kurtis Blow from his self-titled debut album. It was one of the earliest hip-hop hits, peaking at #87 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.-Remakes:...
" (Columbia, 1980) and the much more radical "How We Gonna Make The Black Nation Rise" by Brother D. (Clappers, 1980), "Vicious Rap" was among the first commercially recorded hip hop songs to feature social commentary rather than party rhymes. Such records would remain a rarity until the success of "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five on Sugar Hill two years later. (Chang: 179) The label's erstwhile claim that "Vicious Rap" was recorded in 1978, making it the first hip hop to make it to the recording studio, is sometimes repeated, but the apparent improvement in technique from 1979's "Rockin' and Rhymin'" makes this likely a piece of historical revisionism. A last single from the Winley daughters followed in 1982: "I Believe in the Wheel of Fortune". (Shapiro: 384)
Afrika Bambaataa
Afrika Bambaataa
Afrika Bambaataa is an American DJ from the South Bronx, New York who was instrumental in the early development of hip hop throughout the 1980s. Afrika Bambaataa is one of the three originators of break-beat deejaying, and is respectfully known as the "Grandfather" and the Amen Ra of Universal...
was, with Grandmaster Flash
Grandmaster Flash
Joseph Saddler better known as King Grandmaster Flash, is an American hip hop musician and DJ; one of the pioneers of hip-hop DJing, cutting, and mixing....
and DJ Kool Herc
DJ Kool Herc
Clive Campbell , also known as Kool Herc, DJ Kool Herc and Kool DJ Herc, is a Jamaican-born DJ who is credited with originating hip hop music, in The Bronx, New York City...
(originator of hip hop's breakbeat DJing style), one of the prime movers in the emergence of hip hop in the 1970s. By 1980, Flash was recording for Enjoy Records with his MC team, the Furious Five, while Herc's star had faded—he was working in a record shop in South Bronx
South Bronx
The South Bronx is an area of the New York City borough of The Bronx. The neighborhoods of Tremont, University Heights, Highbridge, Morrisania, Soundview, Hunts Point, and Castle Hill are sometimes considered part of the South Bronx....
. Bambaataa recorded "Zulu Nation Throwdown" (1980) for Winley with his MC crew named The Cosmic Force. He arranged and directed the percussion and rapping, but further live band accompaniment was added before release without his knowledge. (Hager, Village Voice, September 21 1982) According to Peter Shapiro, though the record is now "ancient-sounding" in hip hop terms, Winley's group here had moved to keep pace with Pumpkin at Enjoy and the Sugarhill band, with Lisa Lee of the Cosmic Force "absolutely destroying all the male MCs". (Shapiro: 384) Bambaataa was initially displeased with the record, but it found favor with the new wave
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
crowds who were being presented with hip hop music, dance and graffiti at shows by Bambaataa and others in downtown New York at this time. Bambaataa returned to Winley for "Zulu Nation Throwdown 2" (1980) with Soul Sonic Force, but thoroughly dissatisfied with the label, he left for Tommy Boy Records
Tommy Boy Records
Tommy Boy Entertainment is an independent record label started in 1981 by Tom Silverman.-History:...
, where he would record a single with a huge impact, "Planet Rock
Planet Rock (song)
"Planet Rock" is a 1982 song by Afrika Bambaataa & the Soulsonic Force. In the background and hooks featured Marvella Murray, Yvette Murray, Melissa Johnson and Sandra Wheeler. Although it was only a minor hit in the US, Canada, and UK, it helped change the foundations of hip-hop and dance music...
" (1982). (Hager, Village Voice, September 21 1982) Unruffled, Winley released Death Mix (1983) to cash in on the success of Planet Rock. Death Mix was a vinyl pressing of a third- or fourth- hand cassette tape copy of a bootleg recording of a Bambaataa Zulu Nation
Universal Zulu Nation
|rightThe Universal Zulu Nation is an international hip hop awareness group formed and headed by hip hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa. Originally known simply as the Organization, it arose in the 1970s as reformed New York City gang members began to organize cultural events for youths, combining local...
night at James Monroe High School in the Bronx in 1980. Death Mix features Bambaataa and Jazzy Jay
Jazzy Jay
Jazzy Jay born in Beaufort, South Carolina, United States, November 18, 1961), also known as The Original Jazzy Jay or DJ Jazzy Jay, is a pioneering American hip hop DJ and producer. He has collected roughly 400,000 records.-Background:...
using an eclectic mix of records—including "Computer Games" by Yellow Magic Orchestra
Yellow Magic Orchestra
Sakamoto first worked with Hosono as a member of his live band in 1976, while Takahashi recruited Sakamoto to produce his debut solo recording in 1977 following the split of the Sadistic Mika Band...
, showing the sensibilities that would lead to the electro of "Planet Rock"—, cutting up breaks for Zulu Nation MCs, and demonstrating early scratching
Turntablism
Turntablism is the art of manipulating sounds and creating music using phonograph turntables and a DJ mixer.The word 'turntablist' was coined in 1995 by DJ Babu to describe the difference between a DJ who just plays records, and one who performs by touching and moving the records, stylus and mixer...
techniques. (Lewis: 101) (Shapiro: 4) (Toop: 99) Despite its extremely poor sound quality, it is "the best commercially-available snapshot of hip-hop's earliest days". (Shapiro: 385)
A new generation of acts appeared in the early to mid 1980s on labels like Def Jam, Profile
Profile Records
Profile Records was a record label that specialized in many types of urban-oriented music, such as hip hop, active until 1996..- History :In 1980, at 23 years old, after working briefly for MCA, Cory Robbins was looking to start a record label. He invited his songwriter friend Steve Plotnicki to be...
and Cold Chillin'
Cold Chillin' Records
Cold Chillin' Records was a record label that released some important music in the golden age of hip hop from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. A producer-and-crew label founded by manager Tyrone Williams and run by Len Fichtelberg Cold Chillin' Records was a record label that released some...
, with a tougher image, musical style and lyrical delivery than their predecessors (see New school hip hop
New school hip hop
The new school of hip hop was a movement in hip hop music starting 1983–84 with the early records of Run-D.M.C. and LL Cool J. Like the hip hop preceding it, it came predominately from New York City. The new school was initially characterized in form by drum machine led minimalism, often tinged...
). This—what Shapiro calls "the Run-D.M.C.
Run-D.M.C.
Run–D.M.C. was an American hip hop group from Hollis, in the Queens borough of New York City. Founded by Joseph "Run" Simmons, Darryl "D.M.C." McDaniels, and Jason "Jam-Master Jay" Mizell, the group is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential acts in the history of hip hop culture.Run–D.M.C...
revolution"—signaled the end for labels like Enjoy, Sugar Hill and Winley. After releasing "Street Rock" by Rap Dynasty in 1984, the label folded, though two discs appeared in 2007 bearing the imprint's name and purporting to contain Bambaataa material from the 1970s. (Shapiro: 385) (Hsu, New York Times, September 15 2007) A collection of Winley hip hop, Death Mix: The Best of Paul Winley Records, was released on Landspeed Records in 2001.