Up jump the boogie to the rebel without a pause.

Everybody from every corner has noted the passing of Isaac Hayes, so I don't have much to add, especially after a post like this. It has been weird first watching the great jazz artists from the '50s and '60s die off, and now seeing so many of the soul greats from the '60s and '70s checking out. Perhaps weird is the wrong word, since they're reaching the age where that happens. Still, I've gone digging through the more obscure corners of their catalogs whenever I run across another obituary, and I'm struck by how original, even revolutionary, some of it had to have sounded at the time, and how different music would sound today without it to build on.

All of which made me realize that in a little over a decade the actuarial tables will start catching up to the early '80s hip-hop legends, who I actually listened to in real time rather than 20 or 30 years after the fact. And while I was thinking about all of that, I chanced across this post and video at whatisthewhat about the most famous freestyle battle, Busy Bee Starski vs. Kool Moe Dee, and how in retrospect it really did signal a sea change in the sound of hip-hop. Here's the .mp3; it's only five and a half minutes long. But you really ought to go watch the video first; it's fascinating.