Fred Brathwaite (born August 31, 1959), more popularly known as Fab 5 Freddy, is an American visual artist, filmmaker, and hip hop pioneer. He is considered one of the architects of the street art movement. Freddy emerged in New York's downtown underground creative scene in the late 1970s as a graffiti artist. He was the bridge between the burgeoning uptown rap scene and the downtown No Wave art scene. He was immortalized in 1981 when Debbie Harry rapped on the Blondie song "Rapture" that "Fab 5 Freddy told me everybody's fly." In the late 1980s, Freddy became the first host of the groundbreaking hip-hop music video show Yo! MTV Raps.[2][3]

Career

In the late 1970s, Freddy became a member of the Brooklyn-based graffiti group the Fabulous 5, known for painting the entire side of New York City Subway cars. Along with other Fabulous 5 member Lee Quiñones, under his direction they began to shift from street graffiti to transition into the art world and in 1979 they both exhibited in a prestigious gallery in Rome, Italy, Galleria LaMedusa. In 1980, he painted a subway train with cartoon style depictions of giant Campbell's Soup cans,[4] after Andy Warhol.

Freddy became a regular guest on Glenn O'Brien's public access cable show TV Party. As a frequent attendant at the Mudd Club and a participant in seminal The Times Square Show,[5][6] Freddy was a bridge between the New York uptown graffiti and early rap scene and the downtown No Wave art scene. "I was bringing the whole music, hip-hop, art, break dancing, and urban cultural thing to the downtown table", he said.[7]

In late 1980, Glenn O'Brien cast Freddy, along with fellow Lower East Side graffiti writer Quiñones, in the film New York Beat (later released as Downtown 81). The film showcased artist Jean-Michel Basquiat in his Lower Manhattan environment and the culture that surrounded it. Blondie lead singer Debbie Harry also appeared in the film and in early 1981, Freddy made a cameo in the Blondie music video for "Rapture." As recounted in the 1999 TV documentary The Hip Hop Years, the "Rapture" video featured Freddy in a cameo role painting graffiti art in the background. (Grandmaster Flash, who was also name-checked in the song, did not show up on the day of the shoot, so Basquiat took his place behind the turntables). "Rapture" was the first hip hop video to be shown on MTV.

Freddy connected with New York underground filmmaker Charlie Ahearn, who he had met at The Times Square Show, and they began production on the film Wild Style (1983) in 1981, which showcased artist Quiñones in the Uptown, Manhattan, environment of the Bronx and the burgeoning hip-hop culture.[8] The movie Wild Style, the first film to illustrate hip hop culture, grew from an idea Freddy had to refute the negative depiction of New York City's urban youth and to link for the first time break dancing, rapping, DJing and graffiti under one umbrella or branches from the same tree. Freddy created the film's original music, co-produced and ended up in one of the leading roles as the charismatic Bronx hip hop club promoter and former graffiti artist, Phade.

In April 1981, Freddy co-curated with Futura 2000 the graffiti-related art show Beyond Words, at the Mudd Club which contained their own work along with Basquiat, Rammellzee, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf and others. This was the first time the many members of the Bronx hip hop scene had appeared in the downtown New York City art world. On his relationship with art dealers, Freddy said,

They didn't know me, but they had heard of graffiti. But they didn't understand the importance and the significance of what happened because, see, really what this comes down to is that my background basically is that of a vandal. I vandalize public property ... . In the real world, in New York, what made graffiti what it is, was the marriage which was the placing of the individual's mark on that blank surface. But that blank surface that the individual graffiti person tags on, belongs to someone.[9]

In May 1981, Freddy was booked on Henry Chalfant's "Graffiti Rock" performance with Rock Steady Crew at Common Ground gallery in SoHo (not to be confused with Holman's Graffiti Rock TV show pilot). The show was cancelled due to violence, but was rescheduled in October at another venue called The Kitchen.

After the Rock Steady Crew and Afrika Bambaataa were booked as the opening act for Bow Wow Wow at The Ritz nightclub in September 1981, Ruza Blue decided to book them at Negril and begin a night called "Wheels of Steel". That became so popular that it was closed down by the fire department for over-capacity, and Freddy helped Blue (whom he dubbed "Kool Lady Blue") find another home for the party. Together they chose The Roxy roller rink in NYC, which gained national fame once used in the film Beat Street (1984).[citation needed]

The A-side of the 1982 single "Change the Beat" featured Freddy rapping the song in both English and French, while the B-side was a shorter version of the same song, this time performed entirely in French by female rapper Beside, who was credited on the initial pressings of the record as Fab 5 Betty. Freddy utilized a vocoder with a white noise carrier during the chorus and at the end of the B-side track. When the beat stops in Beside's version of the song, Freddy says "Ahhhhh, this stuff is really fresh", a line which is quite possibly the most scratched sample in the history of hip-hop music. It was first utilized as a scratch sample on the 1983 Herbie Hancock single "Rockit", featuring scratching by legendary DJ and turntablist Grand Mixer DXT, and has been used in over 750 hip-hop tracks since.[10]

Freddy's "Change the Beat" for Celluloid Records would also lead to four other records, including a song about graffiti painting by Futura 2000 with music performed by The Clash, and all were released together first in France and was soon followed by the first hip hop tour in Europe billed as "New York City Rap", in 1982.[citation needed] The tour consisted of DJ Afrika Bambaataa, Grand Mixer D.ST and the Infinity rappers, The Rock Steady Crew, Futura 2000, Dondi, Phase Two, Fab 5 Freddy, Rammellzee and the McDonald's double Dutch jump rope champs. They played 10 cities in France and did two shows in London. Although at that time no other American hip hop music had been released in France, that now legendary tour sparked the hip hop movement there and France still is the 2nd biggest market for hip hop music outside of America.[citation needed]

In 1983, Freddy produced a hip-hop version of "Eisgekühlter Bommerlunder" called "Hip Hop Bommi Bop" together with German punk rock band Die Toten Hosen which is said to be the very first co-production of Punk and Hip Hop.[citation needed]

In 1988, Freddy became the first hip hop VJ by hosting the MTV music video show entitled Yo! MTV Raps. He later went on to be an associate producer on the 1991 film New Jack City in which he also made an appearance.[11] That year he was the subject of an extensive profile by Susan Orlean in The New Yorker which began with the sentence "The coolest person in New York at the moment is a man named Fred Brathwaite."[12] In 1994, he directed the music video "One Love" by rapper Nas.[13] In 2007, he played a murdered rap artist named Terrence 'Fulla T' Smith on the TV series "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" in the episode "Flipped". The same year, he made a small cameo in the film American Gangster directed by Ridley Scott. In 2008, he appears as a special wedding guest in the film Rachel Getting Married, along with other notable musicians, as conceived by producer Jonathan Demme to enhance the expansive and varied soundtrack and wedding members, in contrast with the normal duality of a traditional wedding.[14] In 2016, he played the role of Atticus Howard in "Mob Rules" the fourth episode of the seventh season of the CBS police procedural drama Blue Bloods.[15]

On August 11, 2017, an animated version of Freddy appeared in a Google Doodle as a narrator, which observed the 44th anniversary of DJ Kool Herc's pioneering use of the hip-hop break.[16]

In 2019, coinciding with the release of his Netflix film Grass Is Greener,[17] Freddy served as creative director for the full-size hip hop photography and culture exhibit entitled, Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop,[18] based on the 2018 book of the same name created and written by Vikki Tobak (published by Clarkson Potter). The exhibit was hosted by The Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles. In the months before and during the exhibition Fab 5 Freddy served on several group discussion and lecture panels regarding the show.[19][20][21]

References

  1. ^ Kurutz, Steve. "Fab 5 Freddy". Allmusic. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
  2. ^ Orlean, Susan (1991-06-10). "Fab Five Freddy, the Coolest Person in New York". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2019-06-13.
  3. ^ "Fab 5 Freddy and the Rise of Street Art in Fine Art". Birth Of Hip Hop. 29 October 2019.
  4. ^ "Picture of Campbell Soup Cans train with his tag" (JPG). At149st.com. 1980.
  5. ^ Boch, Richard (2017). The Mudd Club. Port Townsend, WA: Feral House. p. 298. ISBN 978-1-62731-051-2. OCLC 972429558.
  6. ^ Boch, Richard (2017). The Mudd Club. Port Townsend, WA: Feral House. p. 332. ISBN 978-1-62731-051-2. OCLC 972429558.
  7. ^ "Rapping with Fab 5 Freddy" [interview] in Deitch, O'Brien and Cortez, Jean-Michel Basquiat 1981. Milan: Charta, 2007, page 119.
  8. ^ Canby, Vincent (March 18, 1983). "'WILD STYLE,' RAPPING AND PAINTING GRAFFITI". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-07-17.
  9. ^ Mosset, Olivier; Brathwaite, Fred. "Clinton Street", Bomb, Fall, 1982. Retrieved on March 6, 2013
  10. ^ "Tracks that Sampled Fab 5 Freddy". Whosampled.com. Retrieved 22 June 2021.
  11. ^ "New Jack City (1991)". IMDb.com.
  12. ^ "Fab Five Freddy, the Coolest Person in New York". The New Yorker. 10 June 1991.
  13. ^ "Fab 5 Freddy". IMDb.
  14. ^ "Rachel Getting Married". Sonyclassics.com. Retrieved 2011-01-29.
  15. ^ "Listings - TheFutonCritic.com - The Web's Best Television Resource". Thefutoncritic.com.
  16. ^ "Hip-hop history: Google creates epic musical Doodle to kick off 44th birthday jam". Washingtonpost.com. 2017-08-11. Retrieved 2017-08-12.
  17. ^ Ramos, Dino-Ray (15 April 2019). "'Grass Is Greener' Trailer: Netflix Docu Is Lit With Facts About America's Relationship With Cannabis". Deadline.com.
  18. ^ Froelich, Paula (4 April 2019). "A stark, new exhibit at the Annenberg take us on a visual historical journey of Hip-Hop". Newsweek.com.
  19. ^ "Contact High: A visual history of hip-hop". UCalendar.usc.edu.
  20. ^ "Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop: Book Talk, Panel Discussion, and Signing featuring Chuck D and special guests - The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts". Kennedy-center.org.
  21. ^ "CONTACT HIGH Summer Film Series at Delicious Pizza Presents". Annenbergphotospace.org.

External links


  1. Live @ Isle Of Wight Festival, UK 15 06 2019 - Fatboy Slim 01:12:50
  2. Live @ S2O Festival, Bangkok, Thailand 13 04 2019 - Fatboy Slim 01:08:38
  3. UK TOUR 2019 - Birmingham, UK [EXTRACTS] 22 02 2019 - Fatboy Slim 42:48
  4. Brighton Rooftop B2B Set 30 11 2018 - Fatboy Eats 01:40:26
  5. Live @ Creamfields 2018, UK 26 08 2018 - Fatboy Slim 31:37
  6. Live @ Tomorrowland, Freedom Stage (Week End 2) , Belgium 28 07 2018 - Fatboy Slim 01:27:45
  7. Live @ British Airways i360, Brighton, UK 30 07 2018 - Fatboy Slim 01:29:55
  8. Live @ Tomorrowland, Belgium 21 07 2018 - Fatboy Slim 01:26:30
  9. Live @ Tuesdays On Mars, Pacha Ibiza, Spain 03 07 2018 - Fatboy Slim 03:04:03
  10. All Night Long - Pacha Ibiza 19 05 2018 - Fatboy Slim 05:16:00
  11. Record Store Day Desert Island Disco Mix, BBC 6 Music, UK 15 04 2016 - Fatboy Slim 28:31
  12. Beat Up The NME 60 Knockout Minutes (1997) Fatboy Slim 01:00:47
  13. Live @ Electric Gardens, Serafino Winery, Adelaide, Australia [EXTRACTS] 26 01 2018 - Fatboy Slim 01:04:05
  14. Live @ Hultsfred, Sweden 14 06 1997 - Fatboy Slim 01:03:14
  15. Live @ Personal Fest '17, Buenos Aires, Argentina 12 11 2017 - Fatboy Slim 01:34:54
  16. Live @ Beats for Love 2017 Festival in Ostrava, Czech Republic 05 07 2017 - Fatboy Slim 01:14:04
  17. Live @ Ultra Music Festival 2012, Miami, USA 24 03 2012 - Fatboy Slim 58:51
  18. Live @ Float Your Boat, Ibiza, Spain 21 09 2017 - Fatboy Slim 01:30:48
  19. Live @ Brixton Academy, London, UK [EXTRACTS] 20 12 2014 - Fatboy Slim 01:00:00
  20. Live @ Creamfields 2017, Liverpool, UK 27 08 2017 - Fatboy Slim 01:31:43
  21. Live @ Café Mambo, Ibiza, Spain 05 08 2017 - Fatboy Slim 38:21
  22. Live @ Tomorrowland Festival 2017,Lost Frequencies & Friends Stage,Belgium 29 07 2017 - Fatboy Slim 01:25:04
  23. Live At National Cardiff 01 01 2000 - Fatboy Slim 01:13:23
  24. Live @ Super Bock Super Rock Festival, Lisbon, Portugal 15 07 2017 - Fatboy Slim 01:30:31
  25. Live @ Kappa Futur Festival, Torino, Italy 08 07 2017 - Fatboy Slim 01:29:26
  26. Live @ Electric Daisy Carnival, Tokyo, Japan 29 04 2017 - Fatboy Slim 30:25
  27. EDC Japan 2017 Mix Fatboy Slim 01:00:00
  28. Live @ Santa Cruz Boat Party, Ibiza, Spain 15 09 2016 - Fatboy Slim 01:40:46
  29. Live @ The O² Arena, London, UK 17 12 2016 - Fatboy Slim 01:28:37
  30. Beats 1 Radio Show #8 16 12 2016 - Fatboy Slim 01:58:20
  31. Beats 1 Radio Show #7 02 12 2016 - Fatboy Slim 01:58:56
  32. Beats 1 Radio Show #6 18 11 2016 - Fatboy Slim 01:58:33
  33. Beats 1 Radio Show #5 04 11 2016 - Fatboy Slim 01:58:25
  34. Beats 1 Radio Show #4 21 10 2016 - Fatboy Slim 01:58:43
  35. Beats 1 Radio Show #3 07 10 2016 - Fatboy Slim 01:51:05
  36. Beats 1 Radio Show #2 23 09 2016 - Fatboy Slim 01:58:05
  37. Beats 1 Radio Show #1 09 09 2016 - Fatboy Slim 01:49:55
  38. DJ SET WMF, Berlin, Germany 29 09 2000 - Fatboy Slim 01:49:50
  39. BACK TO THE ODD SCHOOL feat. FATBOY SLIM's Desert Eagle Disc top ten 27 11 2016 03:00:42
  40. Essential Millennium 1999 (Disc 2) Fatboy Slim 01:16:05
  41. Live @ Boiler Room, Brighton, UK 11 10 2016 - Fatboy Slim 02:55:40
  42. One Mix: Fatboy Slim - Ep27 20 01 2016 - Beats 1 59:55
  43. Live @ Bestival 2016, Essential Mix, BBC Radio 1, UK 17 09 2016 - Fatboy Slim 01:59:48
  44. Celebrating 20 years of Better Living @ The Social, London, UK 13 09 2016 - Fatboy Slim 29:09
  45. Live At Carl Cox: Music Is Revolution, Space, Ibiza, Spain 10 08 2016 - Fatboy Slim 01:57:43
  46. Live On A Night with Annie Nightingale, Maida Vale Studio, BBC Radio 1,UK 09 09 2010 - Fatboy Slim 21:29
  47. Live @ The House Of Blues, New Orleans, USA 25 03 2000 - Fatboy Slim 02:00:03
  48. Live @ Glastonbury 2016, UK 25 06 2016 - Fatboy Slim 01:25:32
  49. From Punk Get Funk, BBC Radio 2, UK 06 06 2016 - Norman Cook 56:20
  50. Live @ The Metro, Chicago, USA 03 03 1998 – Fatboy Slim 02:03:33
  51. Live @ Club Cream 10th Birthday Special, Liverpool, UK 12 10 2002 - Fatboy Slim 41:51
  52. Live @ The Ultimate FSTVL House Party, Brighton, UK 21 04 2016 - Fatboy Slim 01:30:20
  53. Live @ HARD Haunted Mansion, Shrine Expo Hall, Los Angeles, USA 28 10 2011 - Fatboy Slim 01:11:55
  54. We Are 30 Mixed By Fatboy Slim (2013) Mixmag 01:05:29
  55. Fatboy Slim - The Legend Returns (2010) Mixmag 50:59
  56. Live At Newquay Beach, Essential Selection, BBC Radio 1, UK 21 06 2002 - Fatboy Slim & Eric Morillo 01:29:08