10 tracks that prove hip house didn’t die in 1988

Plus Helen Ganya, Special Request, Ale Hop & Titi Bakorta

Flowers proving that nature is beautiful

Hip house is the musical genre that dares not say its name, a flash-in-the-pan sensation at the end of the 1980s, when hip hop and house were briefly getting along famously, that seemed to disappear sharply as the 90s loomed into view and rappers went radically off house.

Whatever those rappers might say, though, the fact is that house and hip hop are made from many of the same ingredients, namely disco, funk and jazz. And while the 90s and 2000s were a barren time for hip house, after the glory years of Turn Up the Bass, I’ll House You etcetera, the genre never quite disappeared. A raft of New York house producers, in particular, were big hip hop heads and the genre also poked its head to the surface in some pretty unexpected places before the hip hop world decided, some time around the late 2000s, that it did like dance music after all, especially if it could help it to make a bit of money. What ensued then wasn’t exactly hip house, to my mind, more EDM hop. But at least the connection was there.

What I present to you today, though, is neither classic 80s hip house, nor the late 2000s EDM crossovers. Instead, I want to go back to the dark days of the 90s and early 2000s when hip house was a dirty word, to dig up some unlikely, under-appreciated gems that - as a big fan of both hip hop and house, at the time - I loved to their very core.

Fire Island Featuring Ricardo Da Force - Fire Island (1992)

Released in 1992, Fire Island, a collaboration between Terry Farley, Pete Heller and English rapper Ricardo Da Force, almost hit the first wave of hip house tracks. And it reminds me a lot of The KLF’s classic hip house-adjacent singles 3.am Eternal and What Time Is Love, which were then still pretty fresh in the memory.

In fact, it sounds like it is this classic hip house effect that Fire Island are going for on this track. Da Force’s rap is very 1980s in its charmingly party-starting way, while the production has the slight naivety of early house. Had the song been released two years previously it might have been a big chart hit - and, indeed, it was a big favourite in the clubs - but it wasn’t, which takes nothing away from the fact this is a classic of vocal-led house: catchy, deep, soulful and tough when it needs to be, a robotic casing around a beating heart.

Stetsasonic - Talkin' All That Jazz (Dim's Respect For The Old School) (1998)

If you ever want concrete proof that hip hop and house are born from the same egg, just listen to Dimitri From Paris’s mighty Respect For The Old School mix of Stetsasonic’s 1998 rap classic Talkin’ All that Jazz, which - cleverly and yet inevitably - bases its game around the same Lonnie Liston Smith bass sample (from the 1975 jazz funk classic Expansions) that features prominently on the original song. The result is a remix that subtly updates the Stetsasonic track to make it feel 100% at home in house music, nudging up the tempo and applying a little more disco.

Armand Van Helden - Full Moon (featuring Common) (2000)

Armand Van Helden was one of the New York producers (well, Boston via New York in his case) that did so much to keep up the hip hop and house link. In Van Helden’s case, this involved making a lot of actual hip hop (see, particularly, his 1997 album Sampleslaya “Enter The Meatmarket”) and recording house music that sounded influenced by the tough bounce of hip hop, rather than what we might commonly call hip house itself.

In terms of classic hip house, Van Helden’s best contribution to the genre is probably Full Moon, a potent disco house groove from his 2000 album Killing Puritans, featuring Chicago hip hop legend Common, that makes you wonder why both men don’t do more of this kind of thing. Basically, if you put on Full Moon and your party remains unmoved then it’s time to move house.

Missy Elliott - 4 My People (2001)

It’s hard to remember how utterly bizarre it was to hear Missy Elliot’s hip house number 4 My People when it was released in 2001 on her third studio album Miss E... So Addictive. “I think this album is my best album,” Elliott said at the time. “This album, right here, is retro meets techno meets futuristic. It’s not just a hip-hop album. People are not really gonna know what to categorise this album.”

Techno? An album title that suggested a feeble pun on ecstasy? These were not things that hugely successful R&B stars did back in 2001. (And, to be fair, Elliott said that her music is “a substitute for a drug” when asked about the album title rather than a ringing endorsement for E.)

Missy and her producer Timbaland were always more open to European sounds than other hip hop artists. Some people swear that Timbaland’s drums were influenced by 2-Step (based, as far as I can tell, on no real evidence beyond the way they sound) and Get Ur Freak On, also from Miss E... So Addictive, sounded like a drum & bass record.

All the same 4 My People was pretty unlikely, combining a minimal house beat with the kind of dramatic synth stabs that Timbaland was renowned for (although Timbaland is only credited as additional producer on the record) and lyrics about X, ecstasy and licking people’s faces. And, damn it, it works! The Basement Jaxx remix got more play at the time, at least in Europe, transforming the song into a club hit. But it sounds a bit overly fussy and I prefer the minimal, impactful original.

De La Soul - All Good? (MJ Cole Vocal Mix) (2001)

Is this cheating, bringing UK Garage into the mix? Perhaps. But if All Good? works for the none-more-house-master Derrick Carter, who used to play it regularly, then it works for me.

Besides, De La Soul deserve to be in here, being part of the Native Tongues collective alongside Jungle Brothers and Queen Latifah, both of whom made celebrated hip house records. De La Soul even made their own hip house record in 1991, although Kicked Out The House wasn’t exactly a celebration of the genre, proclaiming “In no way are we trying to disrespect any sort of house or club music, but we're just glad that we're not doing it” over a beat that sounds suspiciously like Mr. Fingers. (Look, it was on an album called De La Soul is Dead, so they probably weren’t in the best frame of mind around then.)

And just listen to MJ Cole’s remix of All Good? UK Garage borrowed quite a lot from hip hop, from its MC chatter (admittedly more in the dancehall tradition but all the same) to its sampling of the genre. And Cole’s remix is an irresistible example of the kind of UK / US cross pollination that once gave us The Beatles, his beat driving Chaka Khan’s initially languid vocal and De La’s raps into 2-step heaven.

The Streets - Weak Become Heroes (Ashley Beedle's Love Bug Vocal) 2002

Is the Streets a hip hop project? Kind of. And the original Weak Become Heroes, an ode to the joys of a big night out, is kind of hip house, albeit filtered through Mike Skinner’s slightly obtuse musical imagination and rather basic production.

Leave it to UK house hero Ashley Beedle, then, to spruce up the song’s production, turning it into a piano house roller that you can imagine actually getting played at the kind of clubs that Skinner is talking about on the song. The result is a total joy, the nagging doubts of Skinner’s original ironed out into a glorious hip house anthem.

(And, yes, I am calling this as hip house, as opposed to talking house of the kind that Galcher Lustwerk et al indulge in. I’m not sure where the line lies between the two and it is probably a very thin one. But it’s there.)

PS Ashley Beedle is currently extremely unwell. Donate some money to him here.

Clyde Featuring Capitol A – Serve It Up! (Brooks HipHouse Mix) (2003)

2003 was the very low point for hip house, a declaration I am basing on little more than my utter surprise at seeing the name of this remix when I picked it up on Disco Pogo For Punks In Pumps Vol. 8, a free CD from Jockey Slut magazine.

If memory serves it was this song, which pairs Derby deep house producers Clyde and Brooks with US (I think) vocalist Capitol A, that served to re-ignite my interest in hip house, the track gliding along in a very elegant, spacey kind of way, as Capitol A’s vocals nonchalantly steer the music forward, a lot like Channel Tres would do years later. Serve It Up! is hip deep house, then, and we should definitely resurrect it.

Ghostface Killah - Charlie Brown (Remix) (2008)

Ghostface Killah - the only Wu-Tang member ever to chat up a friend of mine while I was waiting to take her to the bus stop - has history with dance music, recording Thrilla with Cassius in 2003. (It was even remixed by both The Streets and Blake Baxter, which I had totally forgotten about until today).

Even so, this 2008 (?) remix of his classic Charlie Brown, taken from an unofficial compilation of remixes and B sides called The Wallabee Champ, is something of a mystery. Four dance remixes of Charlie Brown were released in 2008, as part of the Scion A/V Remix Project, but this doesn’t appear to be one of them. (I have only managed to track down two of those remixes online and it certainly isn’t them.)

So exactly who had the bright idea of putting Ghostface’s acapella over the proto jazz house classic Soho’s Hot Music may go unrecorded by history. But whoever it was, their work was quite frankly inspired. It’s a genius combination where the vocal fits so snugly it feels unbelievable that Ghostface may never have even heard Hot Music, let alone rapped along to it.

Hot Music, incidentally, has proved a popular tune among the hip hop community, being sampled by everyone from Missy Elliott to Busta Rhymes.

The Count & Sinden - Beeper (featuring Kid Sister) (2008)

I know of a least one prominent music journalist whose hatred of this song is so extreme that he threatened to kill me if I ever mentioned it again. Well tough because Beeper - by the none-more-fidget house duo of The Count and Sinden and Chicago rapper Kid Sister, who I now read has something to do with mysterious UK soul collective Sault and who I once saw perform to eight people at Glastonbury - is a banger.

I’ve written before about how the short-lived genre of fidget house pulled me back into dance music in the late 2000s by the cunning strategy of being fun, colourful and occasionally silly, right when minimal was at its dullest. Well Beeper is a great example of fidget’s throw-everything-in-the-mix-and-pray approach, combining playful bass wub, garage-y beat, bag-loads of beeper-trill and a vocal from Kid Sister that is pure party juice.

Azealia Banks feat. Lazy Jay - 212 (2011)

If people keep on forgiving Azealia Banks for doing terrible things, it is largely because of 212, her unstoppable debut single with Lazy Jay, aka Belgian DJ and producer Basto.

Being released in 2011, 212 doesn’t quite fit into our timeline, as hip hop and electronic music were getting along pretty well at the time. I’d argue, though, that a lot of the music that came out of the hip hop / electronic crossover in the early 200s - think Nicki Minaj’s actually pretty funny Starships or David Guetta’s ghastly output - was far more indebted to sugar-rush EDM than house music.

212, however, is hip house to its core, the rolling tom beat being very New York house, allied to modish electro-ish synth squeaks and a huge breakdown. And Banks, quite frankly, absolutely kills it, a model of utter confidence, swagger and zero-shits-given energy that would raise up pretty much any song here.

Some hip house extras that I love but don’t quite fit in this list:

Kwengface, Joy Orbison and Overmono - Freedom 2

Yaeji - Raingurl

Honey Dijon featuring Cakes Da Killa - Catch The Beat

Beyoncé - THIQUE

Channel Tres - Walked In The Room

Jess & Crabbe - The Big Booya

PS: I made a playlist of the above. For all your hip house (post 88) needs.

Barcelona people: come out tonight

I am chairing a panel tonight (Wednesday December 4) at Apolo in Barcelona, as part of Nitsa’s 30th anniversary celebrations. The panel is looking at the historical role of the club in creating community, alongside Andrew Blackett from fabric, Rachella Groen from Garage Noord and Nitsa’s own Pau Cristòful. It’s at 19h and you can get free tickets from Dice.

Attention! A Daft Punk book event.

Hello again people of Barcelona. What are you doing on January 11 at 1230? I will be presenting my Daft Punk book at el Genio Equivocado and I really hope you can come. Expect epic tales of robots, rock and everything in between. It's free and unless I have really messed up my Catalan, there is also the promise of a free beer. Sign up here: https://entradium.com/events/ben-cardew-ens-presenta-el-llibre-daft-punk-s-discovery-the-future-unfurled

Some listening

Helen Ganya - Chaiyo!

Helen Ganya’s forthcoming album Share Your Care makes an inspiring union of indie rock and Thai music, with the Scottish-Thai artist being inspired to do so after her grandmother died in 2021. It’s one of the most subtly unusual records I have heard in a long while, one that invites you into a comfortably bizarre groove. Chaiyo, the latest single, comes from memories of Ganya watching her granddad enjoying Thai boxing on the TV, and is simultaneously soft and strong, with a beautiful chorus straight out of the 90s indie toy box.

Special Request - Break It Down

Break It Down starts off so wilfully intense, amens crashing like broken planes, bass churning like a vast maritime whirlpool, that you wonder if you are even going to make it to the end of the song. And then, just as you’re losing hope, a beautiful piano line and vocal come in and all is briefly sunshine again, a reminder that jungle borrowed a lot from soul and rare groove. Special Request has been rinsing this song in his DJ sets in 2024 and I can only wonder at the mayhem it must have caused. Oh and Special Request has ALSO released a new album of, as he calls them, “street anthems for the ages, rooted in uk garage but going way beyond.” Does the man never sleep?

Happy Mondays - Loose Fit (Greg Wilson & Ché Wilson Remix)

It seems remarkable that Greg Wilson - a Manchester DJ legend and king of the edit - hasn’t remixed the Happy Mondays before. But far better late than never, especially when the result is this silky remix of Loose Fit, a re-rub that sends the song off into a hypnotic, dubby whirl that you could totally lose yourself in, with Rowetta (a stupidly underrated singer) proudly to the fore.

Ale Hop & Titi Bakorta - Bonne Année

Bonne Année is the work of Peruvian musician Alejandra Cárdenas (aka Ale Hop) and Congolese guitarist Titi Bakorta, a combination that really should have you licking your lips. If I say, however, that both Bonne Année and parent album Mapambazuko are about 250% more extremely, jubilantly odd - and yet strangely inevitable - than this description suggests, with Cárdenas' hallucinogenic and ultra-bright cumbia rhythms running delicate loops around Bakorta joyful soukous guitar lines - then you might get some idea of how irresistible and inspired this musical pairing is. Oh and I am very much in favour of more New Year’s Eve songs. Why should Christmas get all the credit?

Things I’ve done

Line Noise - Fabric special with Cameron Leslie

This week on Line Noise my guest is Cameron Leslie, the co-founder of London’s iconic fabric, a club at which I have spent many a happy night and which is currently celebrating its 25th birthday. We talked about survival, keeping on top of trends, being very London, his favourite Fabric night out and the new photographic artwork based on the club's CD mix series.

The playlists

In under a month it will be the end of the year, which means you had better get your best albums and songs lists in order. Should you want a helping hand, I have my Spotify list of the best music of 2024 - which I guess turns into a pumpkin on December 31 - and that old faithful playlist of the best new music of the last four or so years. Follow them, who not?