Wildstyle Breakbeats

Wildstyle was one of the first Hip Hop movies. It was recorded in 1982 and released in 1983. Style Wars and Breakin and Enterin also came out in 1983 so its anybody's guess which came first.

Anyway, the director of Wildstyle, Charlie Ahearn, wanted to showcase the Hip Hop scene that was going on in The Bronx, which at that point consisted of a DJ mixing records, an MC/Rapping, Graffiti and Breakdancing. But one problem that he foresaw was that if the DJs mixed well known records then it could lead to a lawsuit. So what they decided to do is go to a recording studio and make some beats. Then they pressed 100 copies so the DJs would have some beats they could mix without worrying about getting sued.

Accordingly, Fab 5 Freddy and Chris Stein from Blondie went to a recording studio and they made an albums worth of beats that the DJs and MCs could rock to without worrying about copyright infringement.

The problem was everybody that was in the movie liked the same beat, which was called Down By Law.


Down By Law


Military Break


Gangbusters


Wildstyle Theme


Here's a scene that was left on the cutting room floor.




Anyway, I think its odd that more people didn't do that. I mean pressing 100 copies of a record and then using those records to mix and scratch, rather than sampling somebody else's music and worrying about lawsuits.