Breath Control: Five Classic Rap Cuts About Breathing
The manipulation or mastery of breath has often played a critical role in hip-hop.
Even without the assistance of a turntable spinning or counter to bang on, rappers can still be provided percussion accompaniment via human beat-box.
One of the more crucial traits for an MC is flow.
When hip-hop expanded beyond its seventies NYC-born five-borough origins, spreading all across the country during the eighties, the way a rapper definied breathing might symbolize surroundings or describe a metaphorical milieu.
Out in L.A., that “8-Ball” made Eazy-E’s breath start stinking.
Up in Seattle, long before becoming MTV’s royal prince of posterior, Sir-Mix-A-Lot revealed himself to be a fan of fat-asses but not necessarily of The Fat Boys by declaring “tricky breathing is out, boom music is in” and ruling with an “Iron (man)” fist.
Way down in Houston, a young “Scarface” of the Geto Boys spun gangsta-rap folklore about putting a gun between his enemy’s eyes, ordering “don’t breathe” before adding “he took a breath, and he knew he’d breathed his last breath”.
A decade later in ATL, at an unprecedented tempo at a blitzkrieg rapid rhyme speed, Andre 3000 of OutKast told y’all “Hello, Ghetto, Let Your Brain Breathe/Believe There’s Always More, Aaaah!” just before a choir sang of “Bombs Over Baghdad”.
So inhale deep, like these songs about breath
We never sleep, ‘cause sleep is the cousin of death
Behold bars of excellence, as breath is defined
Take your time, to check these breathing rhymes
1989
Boogie Down Productions
“Breath Control”
With a young D-Nice on beat-box and Blastmaster KRS-One mastering the ceremonies, it’s hard to get more stripped-down-to-basics rap than this, while still managing to sound dope, thru our present day.
Even seemingly cast-off KRS singing in the beginning before Kris’ first verse (a trademark BDP tactic in their early records) later ended up serving as a hook that the late Bradley Nowell (all the way out in Long Beach playing ska-rock) borrowed for the chorus of an early Sublime song.
While “Breath Control” came early in KRS’ career, it was less than two recording years after the tragic murder of his mentor and later Boogie Down Productions DJ/Producer, Scott LaRock.
So in a sense, this song’s skeletal remains now represent an aural testament to how these two BDP survivors could carry on.
Four years later following BDP’s breakup, on the DJ Premier-produced audio-autobio cut “Outta Here”, KRS-One spoke of facing the prospect of continuing on without LaRock by rapping: “I knew my breath, was one with his breath”.
1998
Black Star (Mos Def & Talib Kweli) featuring Common produced by DJ Hi-Tek
“Respiration”
The air just got a lot heavier.
One of the finest metaphorical odes to the weight of urban existence in existence.
A personal Top 25 rap single of all-time.
Google’s first three icons coming under the silly “conscious rappers” sub-category, sharing mic time during all three of their undisputed rhyme prime.
The Pete Rock-produced “Flying High Remix” version with The Roots’ Black Thought tagging in for Common, while Mos Def adds his croon to the chorus, is also pretty damn brilliant in its own right but the original’s weathered breath remInz traceable in hip-hop’s historical skyline.
1999
Q-Tip
“Breathe and Stop”
From the Sons of the Native Tongues (Mos, Kweli, Comm, Tariq) to one of the original ones, the Legendary Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest.
Yet in a decidedly different context.
Towards the end of 1999 as we all got ready for Y2K’s two-thousand-zero-zero party over oops out of time, The Abstract was ready for a party much like his buddy The Artist.
Tip caught a lot of flack from purists over this second single from his platinum-selling Amplfied, his first solo album following the breakup of Tribe.
For one, it was a kissing cousin, if not a downright knockoff, of the album’s lead single “Vivrant Thing”.
Plus there’s all that jiggling eye candy in the video.
Yet for all the ‘sell-out’ catcalls from some of the “true-school” hip-hop fans during the divisive Backpackers vs. Bad Boy era of the late 90’s, the simplicity of this hook’s mantra sounds like something you might’ve heard rock at a Bronx block party back in rap’s early formative days.
While ironically some of the same folks crying foul about this “jiggy” beat crafted by the late great Hall of Fame hip-hop production wizard James Yancey then known then as Jay Dee, are the same people who would later go on to worship at his alter under his now more used moniker, J Dilla.
So 18 years later, just enjoying watching the girls move around and if you ever see your main dog Kamal, for this joint, give that brother a pound.
2001
Jay-Z
“Breathe Easy (Lyrical Exercise)”
Fall 2001 was a traumatic season in New York City for obvious reasons.
Notable New Yorker and arguably best rapper of all-time Jay-Z, dropped The Blueprint same day the World Trade Center did.
That album’s now-classic-material then provided some small musical refuge for the city to take in, while still choking back dust from the debris at Ground Zero.
The album released on 9/11/01 contained, in retrospect somewhat ominously, thirteen tracks.
Buried beneath the rumble of an unlucky thirteen, thirty seconds after title-track coda “Blueprint (Momma Loves Me)”, returns Hov with an ode to microphone calisthenics, reminding competition it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
2004
Fabolous
“Breathe”
Whooooo!
That’s all you could say the first time you heard this song come on in 2004.
It’s somewhat fitting for this list that this video begins by depicting childbirth.
Fabolous is a descendent of the grand Brooklyn MC lineage that gave us Jay-Z and B.I.G., while those two shook from out of the same tree Big Daddy Kane once set it off.
Meanwhile Jay-Z’s Blueprint had, three years later, birthed two new stars behind the boards: Kanye West and Just Blaze.
This ferocious beat Fab was born to rock over was made by one who would not go on to marry Paris Hilton’s big-booty friend, then dating Brandy’s brother.
Nevertheless, “Breathe” is simply one of the best bangers set to tape so far in this millennium.
It’s a testament to this song’s undeniable power that a banger like this, which would typically be considered a “street single” or an “album cut” candidate, blew the doors off and then continued onto pop radio rotation plus Top 10 Billboard spot.
Who else but us here The Wudder are capable of breaking down a creative process as seemingly simple as breathing?
Just let us know, because if so...
“We'll address the haters and under estimators/then ride up on ‘em like they escalators”
