Bleep

Unearthed hip-hop classic, or bizarre one-off exercise? The mystery of Rammellzee and K-Rob’s 10-minute b-boy odyssey ‘Beat Bop’ runs deep. Ideas flow so thick and fast across wacky bars that it’s difficult to tell exactly what’s being said — and is that a Jean-Michel Basquiat sleeve we see before us? One thing’s for sure, this 1983 track can’t help but seem wildly prophetic of most hip-hop that would follow it, with its funky beat, shades of social-consciousness and raucous party rap cadence.