i really first got exposed to hip hop in maybe '81 or '82, covering the 'get fresh fest' for the baltimore city paper. i saw that lineup three times here and there, i think: basically grandmaster flash and the furious five, fat boys, the teenage ll cool jay, run dmc. it took me some time to even figure out what was going on and why there was no band on stage. i would say that each time i might have been as impressed with whodini (jalil, ecstasy and grandmaster dee) as any of the acts. really, i think they were as good as run dmc, but have been kind of forgotten. 'five minutes of funk' for example, is a great concept, unfoldding in real time ('two minutes left'). some of the tracks, as on 'funky beat' were pretty excellent, radical productions for the era.
