Old-school hip-hop

[2] The image, styles and sounds of old-school hip hop were exemplified by figures like Disco King Mario, DJ Hollywood, Grandmaster Flowers, Grand Wizzard Theodore, Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa, DJ Kool Herc, Treacherous Three, Funky Four Plus One, Kurtis Blow, The Sugarhill Gang, Melle Mel, Super-Wolf,[3] West Street Mob,[4] Spoonie Gee, Kool Moe Dee,[5] Busy Bee Starski, Lovebug Starski, The Cold Crush Brothers, Warp 9, T-Ski Valley, Grandmaster Caz, Doug E. Fresh, The Sequence, Jazzy Jay, Crash Crew, Rock Steady Crew, and Fab Five Freddy,[6] Run-DMC.

[6] The lyrics were usually not a very important part of old-school rap songs, but always included shoutouts to the artist's native New York City borough.

[13] A famous old-school hip-hop battle occurred in December 1981, when Kool Moe Dee challenged Busy Bee Starski.

[14] Busy Bee Starski's defeat by the more complex raps of Kool Moe Dee meant that "no longer was an MC just a crowd-pleasing comedian with a slick tongue; he was a commentator and a storyteller".

"[17] "Light Years Away", by Warp 9 (1983), produced and written by Lotti Golden and Richard Scher, explored social commentary from a sci-fi perspective.

[18] A "cornerstone of early 80's beatbox afrofuturism", "Light Years Away" is characterized as "a brilliantly spare and sparse piece of electro hip-hop traversing inner and outer space.

Recorded hip hop (such as Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight") would use a live band to do covers of the famous breaks from the 1970s block parties.

However, after "Planet Rock", electro-funk (the electronic Roland TR-808 drum machine recreation of the original 1970s breakbeat sound from the now infamous block parties) became the staple production technique between 1982 and 1986 (the invention of the sampler later in the 80s and Eric B.