LIFE SOUNDTRACK: Man Parrish - Hip Hop Be Bop (Don't Stop)

This song was on a mixtape (a real one on cassette), which had an enormous influence on my relationship with music (it also included Run-D.M.C’s It’s like that). I didn’t own or copied it, but somebody played it on a school summer camp and that is still a defining moment of summer bliss for me: hanging out in the sun with cool people, including a girl I had a crush on and listening to weird, new music.

Hip Hop Be Bop (Don’t Stop) is an iconic Electro track, a sub-genre of early hip hop, which used drum machines, like the 808, and synthesizers to produce mostly instrumental tracks. I loved Hip Hop’s thundering drums and constantly changing beats, which was pretty unheard of in the early 80s.

Hip Hop was the first track by the New York producer Man Parrish and it was a challenge to find it in my hometown until his first album Boogie Down came out. I bought it immediately, but none of its other tracks had similar allure to me.