Hip Hop is History: 1979–1982
ISSUE #323
Hello from a random Thursday! I missed you all during the break. I’ll be sending out Earwyrms on Thursdays now—as it turns out, moving the newsletter to the worst day of the week (Tuesday is just Monday Pt. II) for a reason as flimsy as “that’s when albums used to come out” was less than ideal. On Monday Pt. II, I’d get home tired, have to rally, and end up going too late into the night—both the work and the health suffered. On Thursdays, I have a quieter house, fewer interruptions, no commute, and nothing but time to listen and think through what I send to you.
So, let’s get back into it. Hello 2026. Please shape up soon.
In this house, we love Questlove. His is one of the greatest working minds in the creation, curation, synthesis, and analysis of music as a cultural force. Over winter break, I read his latest book, Hip Hop is History, and it’s his best work yet. It’s at once a comprehensive history and a personal work of music biography—as both a listener and creator—from a man whose heart is as big as his brain.
Now, Quest is a walking-talking encyclopedia, and the book is somehow both a down-to-earth read and functions as a series of personal blogs that are also full WhoSampled.com summaries. He knows everything that came from everywhere, was able to trace samples far before we all had access to the internet, and seamlessly incorporates his sources into text. He’s also, like any great historian, sensitive to material reality—he tends to credit events as much as people for the rise of the genre: how the music education denied to Black children forced hungry creatives to turn records into instruments; how punk overthrowing disco lead to a genre that could synthesize both; how the New York blackout of July 13, 1977 allowed countless mixers and turntables to be “liberated in the looting that ensued.”
At the back of the book, Quest includes a mix of songs that, I have to say, make up one of the most creative playlists I’ve ever seen. In this Appendix, entitled “Hip Hop Songs I Actually Listen To,” he writes in a manner that could serve as the Wyrms manifesto—he sets out to “make a list of hip-hop songs that avoids the Captain Obvious selections, but that preserves all the joy and energy and hope and humor and intelligence and attitude and flash that the music has generated over its first half century.”
It’s a long list, mapped out chronologically—his theory is that the eras of hip-hop changes happened on the 2s and 7s, year-wise, with the exception of the first batch, which kicks off in 1979 and goes to 1982. I’d like to start revisiting each time period over the course of the year, both for personal exploration and to highlight the subtle art of mix-making that feels very close to the ethos of Earwyrms. The playlists don’t always stay exclusively in that period, as sometimes I’ll be peppering in the sampling citations he includes in the book, but I’ll try to make clear the departures as I go.
Here’s the first batch, at the birth of the genre in the Bronx. As we go, Quest’s influence on Earwyrms should be clear to any close reader. He’s helped me bring my ass back to the page—I hope you enjoy as much as I did.
In this house, we love Questlove. His is one of the greatest working minds in the creation, curation, synthesis, and analysis of music as a cultural force. Over winter break, I read his latest book, Hip Hop is History, and it’s his best work yet. It’s at once a comprehensive history and a personal work of music biography—as both a listener and creator—from a man whose heart is as big as his brain.