By Chris Holland Special to The Star

What grabs you first is the beat. It’s unflinchingly tough. You feel it hug your insides. “Hey girls, hey boys. Everybody say H00000!” Then bass. Yard long low-end frequencies bump against the eardrums. Sombre muscles are provoked to move. You are willed some elemental force to shake apart. The wheels of steel begin to spin to life. “Vvyriipa! Viiipa! Are You Ready, Vvvriip, To Rock The House? Vwam! Vwam!

Funk. Scratch. Rap. Call it what you want. This music positively thunders with the capricious energy of the street. Funky poets beget charmed rhymes and rhythm soaked with urban wisdom.

“Common talk deserves a walk/ The situation’s changed/ Everything said from now on/ Has to be rearranged/ Def-In-Ate-Ly/ You will agree/ Just let your mind be free.” -Jazzy Jay & TLA Rock

Toronto cradles what has become one of the healthiest insurgent rap markets on the continent. The top New York-based crews have been visiting our city with regularity and the bountiful local talent can be sampled at the frequent jams (dances) that dot the weekend suburban landscape.

Rap music, that bold lone survivor of the hip-hop days, is hot. Downtown in the busy StarSounds record emporium, store manager Reid Greiner points to racks chock-full of rap products and shrugs contentedly.

“I don’t understand it. I’ll move 500 or 600 copies of a particular rap record, just out of this store alone.”

Rap’s appeal is broad-based, ranging from diehard punksters who dig the music’s honest grit to the inmates of white dance barns who just enjoy a steady beat to which they can move their feet. Long standing acceptance though has been concentrated among the resolute legions of funk fans. They have witnessed a musical form evolve markedly via a meandering series of explosive “mini-epochs,” all connected somehow by the indelible primordial beat.

The electric ’60s soul of James Brown and Motown inspired the birth of the recent hip-hop/breakdancing craze which has nurtured the current rap/scratch boom; a scene that is undoubtedly better organized, managed and showbiz tough. These new participants are looking for big-time success.

Rap is striking gold consistently these days, assuredly aided by television exposure. The inherent visual hi-jinks associated with the top groups have transferred well to the tube and all are receiving regular play on MuchMusic and beyond. With the rotund rappers chowing down with more gusto than was heretofore thought possible, The Fat Boys first clip sets a new standard for video gluttony, not to mention bringing instant fame. Run-DMC’s “King Of Rock” features brisk pacing and David Letterman’s resident weirdo Larry “Bud” Melman in a truly inscrutable performance (as a butler, I think).

Hot new crew U.T.F.O. (the UnTouchable Force) are also taking advantage of the new found discovery of rap. Equally adept at dancing as well as vocalizing, U.T.F.O. have found themselves the proud owners of a phenomenal hit with “Roxanne, Roxanne,” the tale of a severely unrewarding love interest. The catchy drum line (supposedly lifted from the first few seconds of Billy Squire’s “The Big Beat”) and comic truth of the tune have unexpectedly pinched a fanatical nerve, spawning the release of an endless parade of ‘answer records’ with names like “Roxanne’s Revenge” and “Roxanne’s Doctor.” 

Fortunately, the perfect beat is forever being reinvented, as anyone who listens to CKLN’s (88.1 FM) Fantastic Voyage Program will tell you. With an armload of records and 50 mighty watts atop the old CBC transmitting tower on Jarvis St., host Ron Nelson has almost single-handedly introduced the rap/funk format to the Toronto airwaves. The popular weekly radio show is in its third year’.

“There’s been a definite progression towards today’s style and mostly in fits and starts,” intones the amiable dee-jay. “Breakdancing is all but dead now but it opened doors for a lot of people, especially the rappers.”

When I ask him for a possible reason, he smiles and answers, “Rap is reality, man. It’s about life and it’s got the big beat. I’ve seen it get better and bigger.”

The Battle Of The Rappers (with U.T.F.O.) is onstage at Fresh Sunday (see Concert listing, page E13). And for a crash course in rap basics, see the guide at right.