Hamilton and Hip Hop -- is it the right musical style for a show about the founder of the Treasury? (Hamilton 11 of 12, episode 48)

Topic number one, what is hip hop? Now here I'm going to rely on two sources primarily.

One is John Blanco.

That's an audio engineer who wrote a pretty useful, concise summary that had footnotes.

So you know that there was more to it than just a guy who's really good at audio talking about what might have been true of hip hop.

And also Derek Aldridge and James Stewart, who are from the University of Georgia and Penn State, respectively.

They were writing in the Journal of African-American History.

And then my third source is just for the broad strokes.

I took a look at Wikipedia just to make sure I had things in order.

Wikipedia, of course, I think I've mentioned before.

I was revolted when it came out.

How dare the Internet? But all these unqualified sources out there.

But as time has gone on, it's proved to be a pretty reliable source of information and at least better than most of the partisan news sources.

So anyway, those are the three places that I went to track down this history of hip hop.

Now going way back.

Blues is, of course, emerging in the late 1800s to the early 1900s, right as we're starting to be able to record music.

That then gives way to rock music by the 1960s.

And Fullerton's own Leo Fender made a significant contribution to rock and roll.

And he started manufacturing electric guitars.

Your Fender guitars are from right here in Fullerton, California, the home of this very podcast and the location of Cal State Fullerton, where I currently teach anyway.

Blues becomes rock and roll by the 1960s and 1970s.

In the mid to late 1970s, rock turns into disco.

And of course, there's kind of some hairband going on.

But that's kind of the music scene in the 1970s.

The dance portion of it is mostly disco.

And then in the 1970s, In the Bronx, there had been white flight so that the north part of the Bronx and in Manhattan is starting to gentrify.

Topic number one, what is hip hop? Now here I'm going to rely on two sources primarily.

One is John Blanco.

That's an audio engineer who wrote a pretty useful, concise summary that had footnotes.

So you know that there was more to it than just a guy who's really good at audio talking about what might have been true of hip hop.

And also Derek Aldridge and James Stewart, who are from the University of Georgia and Penn State, respectively.

They were writing in the Journal of African-American History.

And then my third source is just for the broad strokes.

I took a look at Wikipedia just to make sure I had things in order.

Wikipedia, of course, I think I've mentioned before.

I was revolted when it came out.

How dare the Internet? But all these unqualified sources out there.

But as time has gone on, it's proved to be a pretty reliable source of information and at least better than most of the partisan news sources.

So anyway, those are the three places that I went to track down this history of hip hop.

Now going way back.

Blues is, of course, emerging in the late 1800s to the early 1900s, right as we're starting to be able to record music.

That then gives way to rock music by the 1960s.

And Fullerton's own Leo Fender made a significant contribution to rock and roll.

And he started manufacturing electric guitars.

Your Fender guitars are from right here in Fullerton, California, the home of this very podcast and the location of Cal State Fullerton, where I currently teach anyway.

Blues becomes rock and roll by the 1960s and 1970s.

In the mid to late 1970s, rock turns into disco.

And of course, there's kind of some hairband going on.

But that's kind of the music scene in the 1970s.

The dance portion of it is mostly disco.

And then in the 1970s, In the Bronx, there had been white flight so that the north part of the Bronx and in Manhattan is starting to gentrify.