DJ Hollywood
Anthony Holloway began talking over records at Harlem after-hours clubs in 1971, and by mid-decade his rhythmic, rhyme-laced patter — closer to song than to the flat announcing of earlier DJs — had made him one of the best-paid MCs in New York disco. He rarely went near a recording studio (his one widely released single, "Shock, Shock the House," didn't arrive until 1980, well after his live reputation was already set), which is exactly why his influence traveled by word of mouth and imitation, reaching Kurtis Blow and Lovebug Starski and shaping the crowd-participation core of old-school rap.
Jocko Henderson had been rhyming over records on the radio since the early '50s, and biographer Jonathan Abrams — with DJ Hollywood's own account backing him up — traces Hollywood's rhythmic flow directly back to Jocko's rehearsed radio patter.
listen forJocko's sing-song "I go, you go, everybody goes" cadence on 'Rhythm Talk' is the blueprint for the tight internal rhyme Hollywood brings to 'Shock, Shock the House' — swap Jocko's radio jingle for a disco beat and you're most of the way to an MC record.
Hollywood came up learning from Chitlin' Circuit performers like Pigmeat Markham, whose "Here Comes the Judge" routine set a spoken, rhythmic boast over a funky backing track years before anyone called it rapping.
listen forMarkham's courtroom cadence on 'Here Comes the Judge' — half stand-up routine, half rhythmic chant — is the comedic-showman ancestor of the crowd-teasing patter Hollywood perfected live in Harlem clubs, even though almost none of those sets were ever recorded.
Abrams' account of Hollywood's formative years also lists Gil Scott-Heron as a direct influence — the fusion of politically charged spoken word with a musical pulse that Scott-Heron pioneered gave Hollywood another model for turning talking into a musical event.
listen forScott-Heron's clipped, conversational delivery on 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised' rides its groove the same way Hollywood's own MC voice rides a disco beat — the words scan like verse without ever locking into a sung melody.