When you think about early hip-hop, a lot of stuff probably comes to mind but there’s a good chance renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson isn’t the first. Yet, here we are. Turns out the famous science enthusiast has a pretty strong connection to the subject.
Tyson appeared on the YouTube interview show Vlad TV and shared how nascent hip-hop music would drive people nuts. Tyson revealed he was raised in the Bronx, where his dad worked for New York City mayor John Lindsay during the Civil Rights era of the 1960s.
His parents, he said, were Black and Puerto Rican, giving him a unique insight into race relations in New York at the time, especially since his parents were highly educated. His mother would even try to hide her heritage because it would “limit access to opportunity” around them.
His earliest memories are in the Castle Hill projects in the East Bronx, which he said he was forced to move out of once his father started making too much money. DJ Vlad then asked him about being in the Bronx during the birth of hip-hop music.
“You were 15 when hip-hop was born in the Bronx,” he asked. “Do you remember hip-hop being a thing in the ’70s at all?”
“Not when it was born. That was kind of a culture rising,” he said. “My exposure to it was probably simultaneous with everyone else’s: when it hit the charts. You know, Kurtis Blow and the Sugarhill Gang. So by then I’m in college and just sort of weaning myself off disco and we lost our minds hearing that music. Oh my gosh, we couldn’t get enough.”
Tyson said he would go to parties and they would play early hip-hop songs “multiple times,” which is something you don’t “generally” do at a party because there’s “enough portfolio to fill the multiple hours.” By the way, only a scientist would call a music collection a “portfolio.”
“We would go back and we’d memorize all the lyrics. I can still recite it to this day and it brings me back to the memory of the funk and the smell of the dance rooms of college.” He then does a Kurtis Blow impression: “I’m Kurtis Blow and I want you to know that these are the breaks.”
He pulled out a little Sugarhill Gang “Rapper’s Delight” as well. You can see Tyson just travel back in time to those memories in the clip. Maybe one day he’ll figure out time travel and actually go back to those days. One can only hope.
