I’m going to do my best to take you on a chronological aural tour of KC hip-hop. It is incomplete (as completion is impossible) and draws heavily from excellent pieces by KCUR and The Pitch, linked below, as well as my upcoming discussion with Reach on Dat Fury Radio. What I’m hoping to add is the chronological aspect, and to embed the music being discussed to the extent that it’s currently available.
KCUR – 50 Years Of Kansas City Hip-Hop, From The Golden Age To Modern Masters
The Pitch KC – 50 Years Of Hip-Hop In KC – No Coast Rap Culture Runs Deep
I will focus on recordings, which are my main interest, with examples every year or two; radio, promoters, breakdancers, graffiti artists, and others are certainly important to the larger story of hip-hop in our area, but are not the focus here.
The earliest mention of KC hip-hop that I have found comes from 1978. Vonzell Bryant, “Captain Vonzell,” was already a DJ and businessman, but according to The Pitch:
Bryant’s entire approach to spinning music at parties changed after a trip to New York City in 1978. While in the Big Apple, he was introduced to the culture of rapping, beatboxing, DJing, breakdancing, and graffiti. He witnessed what is called the five elements of hip-hop and brought back what he heard and saw—an importer of the sights and sounds of Blackness future. Like all things new, early adopters experienced a few… hiccups. “I started scratching and mixing records at my parties,” says Bryant. “But the people wasn’t with all that. They would yell at me, ‘Hey, quit fucking up the music.’ It eventually caught on, but it took a while.”
Gary Edwin, the legendary “DJ Fresh,” was creating pause tapes by the following year. Throughout 1980, Captain Vonzell along with DJs including Arthur Davis and Marcyl Goode (AKA DJ Kut-Fast) were bringing hip-hop music and DJ performance to parties in the metro.
The Pitch describes the scene around 1980:
Arthur Davis, a former session drummer for Stax Records, worked as a substitute teacher for the Kansas City Missouri School District starting in 1980 … Davis organized and performed from behind a latex Richard Nixon mask. “Mr. President” knew how to throw a party, and these evenings served as the launching pad for a burgeoning music scene.
Affectionately called “The Castle on the Hill,” Lincoln High School was the epicenter for early hip-hop culture in Kansas City—long before it became a pinnacle of academic success … Davis himself was not a DJ. He hired a crew of turntablists (Vincent D. Irving, aka DjV, and Delano “Silky Smooth” Walker) who played the music. Soon these parties spread to other high schools, and DJ crews like Robert Harris and the Knights of the Sound Tables, Sergeant Oooh-Wee, Shawn Copeland, The Inner City Player Macks, and D. Mustafah began promoting parties at Paseo High School, Southeast High School, and Southwest High School.
As far as I’ve been able to tell, the first Kansas City hip-hop recording is 1981’s “Laugh and Dance” by Omer Coleman II, AKA “Starship Commander Wooooo Wooooo.”
The Pitch found another track from the following year:
Another example from the dawn of the scene can be found in Bloodstone’s 1982 song “Funkin’ Around,” which features a rap interlude. The doo-wop crew from Kansas City was primarily known for silky smooth ballads but leaned into something harder on this recording.
Those bass lines! Bloodstone had some national success, charting thirteen songs across their career. Both of these songs show the deep connection from hip-hop back to funk and disco that Reach highlighted in our conversation.
YouTube channel imbeatbeatbeat covers ’85 and ’86 with the opening tracks of their 1985-1994 mix, Ray Heard’s “Street Serenade” and J. Allen & 3 PM’s “Money Is King.”
This channel seems to be doing great work building mixes of ’80s and early ’90s music from cities across the midwest.
Remember DJ Fresh’s pause tapes from ’79? Back to The Pitch:
Producing mixtapes on cassettes eventually evolved to rocking house parties and becoming Kansas City’s most prolific turntablist. A skilled technician on the turntables, Edwin also established himself as the go-to party DJ. But it’s Edwin’s entrepreneurial ambition that set him apart. DJing is the only job Fresh has ever had, capitalizing on his skill and popularity but also producing hundreds of mix tapes made him a legend and household name in Black Kansas City.
“An entire generation of people in Kansas City grew up listening to Fresh’s mixtapes,” says [Marcyl] Goode. “It was the main way people heard hip-hop in the city for a long time.”
Lucky for us, Mixcloud user AX439 has uploaded a few a Fresh’s tapes. Below is 1987’s “Bust the Beat,” and 1988’s “East Side Mix” and “Fast Productions #7” are available as well. These are really fun listens, even today!
The local hit of 1989 seems unquestionably to be DJ Kut-Fast’s “Butt Of The Kut.” Before we get to it, The Pitch talked with Kut-Fast (Marcyl Goode) about coming up in the scene:
As a young child, Goode hung out at a convenience store owned by Captain Vonzell on 35th and Prospect. There was an arcade in the back where kids gathered to play Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and Centipede. The real attraction was that it was a ‘safe haven’ where kids went to socialize, dance, and listen to the rap music that Vonzell played. Under the tutelage of Vonzell, who functioned as a father figure, Goode became somewhat of a DJ prodigy at age 10. He soon joined Vonzell’s P-Funk All-Star crew under the name “The Young Marcyl Goode” and began DJing at school social events and parties. “It was something I just did for fun,” says Goode. “I was just the kid with the big boom box hanging by the big fountain at the Country Club Plaza playing rap music.” Goode lifted his stage name, Kut-Fast, from a lyric off of a Mantronix song called “Fresh is the Word.”
This track is sometimes referred to as KC’s first rap song, or the first rap song professionally produced in the city. I suppose that might technically be true as far as the actual recording location goes, though I’d be surprised about that. As we’ve seen, the local hip-hop scene had been going for a decade at this point! Still, this track is a milestone, and maybe in retrospect kind of marks the culmination of the initial wave in the city and the start of the scene diversifying and expanding alongside the development of hip-hop nationally.
(I’m bookmarking this recent livestream with Kut-Fast to watch later! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMNxXHQqU1U)
Of course the nineties brought increasing commercialization and broader success to hip-hop. The Pitch tells the story of dance crew The Imperial Preps’ intersection with MC Hammer.
In the fall of 1990 MC Hammer’s tour came to town. During the show at Kemper Arena several members of the Imperial Preps dance crew got called on stage during intermission. These former members of the Marching Cobras drill team pounced on the opportunity. An impromptu dance battle between The Imperial Preps and Hammer’s current roster of dancers broke out.
The Imperial Preps, who had home court advantage and better dance moves, blew the crowd and Hammer’s dancers away. Hammer missed the entire battle probably because he was backstage changing clothes.
The next day a meeting was set-up for the members of the Imperial Preps who formally auditioned for Hammer.
In the Spring of 1991 they began touring with Hammer right as his stage show became even more elaborate. According to Tech, he purposely chose to stay behind to focus on writing music and rapping. For other members of the Imperial Preps—Nezester “No Bones” Ponder, Richard “Swoop” Whitebear and Russell “Goofy” Wright—they left and jumped on the Hammer train for the ride of their lives.
The group was tremendously instrumental in helping Hammer craft an uber energetic stage show that would help the rapper ascend to international stardom. It was an elaborate almost circus-like presentation with dance as the centerpiece. The MC Hammer tour at the time was the largest most successful rap tour in the history of the culture.
You can watch the Preps dancing at The Landing mall at this post (please click through, it’s amazing!) – https://www.facebook.com/groups/KCWYA/posts/4036208499940267/ – and with Hammer, below.
Members of the crew went on to have successful and influential careers at the highest levels of the music industry.
DJ Icy Roc’s productions start to appear in 1991. Icy Roc went on to work with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Here’s Innovative Black Funk’s “Brother With A Trigger” and Lo-Key?’s “Attention: The Shawanda Story” to show off his range as a producer even at this early stage.
Black Mafia’s “Straight Jackin’” also came out in ’91. You can hear what an evolution-bordering-on-revolution has been happening when you compare it to “Butt Of The Kut” from just a couple years prior!
Romeo Ryonell was incorporating west coast sounds on 1994’s “Set It Off.”
Back to the timeline, it’s 1996, and giant of the scene Rich The Factor drops his debut “Pole Position,” which I’ll embed in full. Give it a listen, it sounds hungry and still pops!
I’m pretty out of my depth here, but it would be weirder not to mention the gangster or street influence evident in multiple threads of KC hip-hop at this point. Rich was getting radio airplay in Oakland and the Bay area, partially through a connection with JT The Bigga Figga, so there’s a musical cross-pollination going on there between KC and the west coast (and we’ve been hearing it prior to this as well). Crack use is rising, and some of the local music reflects that. Kansas City has a long history of organized crime, and during the ’90s The Crips and The Bloods are joining the Italian families as part of that story. To engage with this music at any greater than the thinnest surface level we have to start to understand some of this context, and I want to be real honest that at this point, I mostly know what I don’t know yet; I don’t actually know, you know? I’m aware of the big gaps in my knowledge, and it’s cool to learn pieces and fill some things in.
For ’97 we get to talk about another local legend, The Popper. The Pitch:
The Popper began rapping in his early teens as a member of several local groups. It was the formation of The Veteran Click in 1996 that established The Popper as a credible force on the local hip-hop scene. The group consisted of his brother DJ Fresh, Eric “E-Skool” Calbert, Steven “S,G,” Garcia and his nephew Devon “The Secret Weapon” Edwin.
Here’s “Veteran’s Day” in full.
In 1998 DJ Fresh produced the “50 MC’s” compilation highlighting talent from across the scene.
Over to KCUR on the lack of representation of women in the scene:
For women looking to break through in the ‘90s, success was harder to find. The most prominent female rapper from Kansas City at the time was Solé. She began rapping at age 6, and was originally part of an all-female group called Divine before signing to a major label as a solo artist. But in 1999, she left the industry.
I’m not clear on this, but it seems like either Solé’s Divine was different than the group of the same name behind the song “Lately,” or possibly she was part of that group but left before “Lately.”
Solé scored a major feature in the 1999 JT Money track “Who Dat.”
She also got an album out in ’99; here’s “4, 5, 6.”
Next, of course, is DaJuan “Don Juan” Cason, MidWestSide Records, and the origins of Tech N9ne. From The Pitch:
During Tech N9ne’s brief but impactful tenure at Midwest Side [sic], he released his debut album, “The Calm Before the Storm” in 1999 and the follow-up “The Worst” in 2000. Don Juan produced nearly every track on both albums. For many, these two early releases represent Tech N9ne at his hungriest and best. The single “Planet Rock” [“Planet Rock 2k (Origional Version)” -ed.], one of the first local rap songs to dominate local urban radio, was a byproduct of this mini-dynasty run.
Note both Don Juan’s more modern production, and the very funky old school “Party people…” hook! Roots and branches; that’s the way. Tech N9ne even lived with DJ Icy Roc for a while. From KCUR:
“I got to meet all these early rappers, like Jay Lee and DJ Cut Fast [sic] and Tony Roma and all these people,” said Tech N9ne about his time living with DJ Icy Roc.
In 1999, Tech and Travis O’Guinn founded a new label together, Strange Music, and Tech was on his way to becoming the single biggest name in KC hip-hop. From The Pitch:
The creation of Strange Music was Tech’s salvation. The music label was built from the ground up. It started out as Tech’s mantra, plucked from his time spent listening to The Doors as a youth, to eventually becoming one of the most successful independent labels in the history of the genre. Tech N9ne met Travis O’Guinn in the summer of 1998. O’Guinn, who inherited his family furniture business, Furniture Works, was a teenage millionaire looking to jump into the business of hip-hop. Tech had the mind boggling ideas, work ethic and creative vision and O’Guinn had the money, business savvy and strategic vision.
That year Tech held his own alongside RZA, Eminem, Xzibit, Pharoahe Monch, Kool G Rap, Chino XL, and KRS-One on the Sway & King Tech track “The Anthem,” garnering new respect for KC hip-hop on the national stage.
Locally, via The Pitch:
Tech teamed up with his neighborhood brethren the 57th Street Rogue Dog Villains on the 1999 song “Lets Get Fucked Up.” The song still holds the record for being the most requested song on Hot 103 Jamz’s countdown juggernaut show “The Hot 8 at 8” and remains in rotation on most local DJ’s playlist today.
Jumping ahead slightly, here’s “Tormented” from Tech’s 2001 Strange Music debut “Anghellic,” again produced by Don Juan.
There’s not a great place to put this, but it’s another one of those things that’s weird not to mention; the murders of Oakland rapper Andre “Mac Dre” Hicks in Kansas City in 2004, and of KC rappers Anthony “Fat Tone” Watkins and Jermaine “Cowboy” Akins in Las Vegas in 2005. I don’t know anything about this beyond what you can find for yourself in reputable news sources, but it’s a sadly important low point in a relationship between two metros that has a lot of high points.
This is just one interpretation and over-simplification, but two huge milestones that jump out to me are 1) “Butt Of The Kut” bridging the old school with the expansion and evolution of the ’90s, and 2) the founding of Strange Music and release of “Anghellic” marking the last point at which, for now, I think I can tell one over-arching story of Kansas City area hip-hop through recordings.
That story isn’t meant to flatten any of the diversity within the scene. History and culture are fractal, and my attempt at a 30,000-foot view of KC hip-hop is connected to both the global story of hip-hop on the macro side, and to many amazing artists I didn’t call out by name on the micro side. You have to start somewhere, I appreciate others’ attempts to build this kind of connective tissue (particularly Reach’s, KCUR’s, and The Pitch’s), and this is my small contribution to that effort.
You can also just listen to the music, which is incredible. But I think knowing some of the story around it makes it better.
I’ll list some albums, roughly one per year, if you want to keep listening. This is a mix of my favorites and stuff I think was particularly successful or influential. Lawrence artists are included (maybe some day I’ll get to talk with Approach about Lawrence hip-hop before 2000, I’d love to learn more about that). Topeka needs its own history, and from where I’m coming from that conversation would start with Stik Figa and Marty (Ebony Tusks).
2001 – The Popper, “The Turning Point”
2002 – Mac Lethal’s debut, “Men Are from Mars, Pornstars Are from Earth”
2004 – Archetype, “Freehand Formula” – SoundsGood, “SoundsGood” – Approach, “Ultra Proteus” – Reach, “Joys, Disappointments And The In-Between” – Ces Cru, “Capture Enemy Soldiers”
2005 – Deep Thinkers, “Necks Move” – SoundsGood, “Biscuits & Gravy”
2006 – HEET Mob, “They From Where?”
2007 – Mac Lethal, “11:11”
2008 – Kutt Calhoun, “Feature Presentation”
2009 – Steddy P- Style Like Mind
2011 – Tech N9ne, “All 6’s and 7’s” – And a special shout out to The Popper’s “For The Mo”
2012 – Krizz Kaliko, “Kickin’ & Screamin’” – Ces Cru, “13”
2013 – Gee Watts, “Watts Up”
2014 – Gee Watts, “199x”
2016 – Rich the Factor, “Smile”
2017 – Kawehi, “(Not Another Lame) Fight Song”
2018 – Janelle Monae, “Dirty Computer”
2020 – Rich the Factor, “Blaccfish”
2021 – Milkdrop, “Thirty Eight”
2022 – SleazyWorld Go, “Where the Shooters Be” – Dom Chronicles, “Still Learning”
2023 – Ampichino and Rich the Factor, “Midwest Tygoons”
2024 – Blackstarkids, “Saturn Dayz / Heaven on Urf”
For even more music you can check out Shawn Edwards’ Spotify playlist.