D. C. Man Claims To Be First White Male East Coast Rapper

            It’s entirely possible and in fact probable that you’ve never heard of Craig Rosen and the Static Disruptors, and that would be a crime because you most definitely should have.  The little known D.C. Go-Go Funk outfit released what arguably could be called the first East Coast white boy rap song, D.C. Groove, in 1982.  While hardcore contemporaries like Minor Threat and Bad Brains set the tone, dominating the D.C. scene with hardcore punk, Rosen took his crew in an entirely different direction, favoring the wild sounds of outlandish black outfits like Trouble Funk and Chuck E Brown. 

As far as D.C. Groove is concerned, Rosen may be a little quirky on the mic, and his lyrics a little bit corny, nevertheless vocally he perpetrates a quick, flowing, rhyming style a full year before the Beastie Boys released Cooky Puss, a song that often receives credit for being the first NYC white boy sort of rap song set to a certain beat.  If you want to claim Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues or Aerosmith’s Walk This Way as the first white rap song, that’s a tough point to argue that we’ll save for another day.  The only earlier use of hip hop style elements used by an East Coast white person in a recorded song were by a woman, Blondie, in her song Rapture, where she references rap icon Fab Five Freddy.  Working his vocal skills as early as 1981, West Coast DJ Flash seems to be the only other previous legit white male MC at the time.

            Album cover art often starts the story of the music long before any needle hits vinyl and it seems the cover of D.C. Groove bears out this frequent trend.  Rosen is pictured holding an old school ghetto blaster standing in front of a Blowfly / Rudy Ray Moore poster.  It doesn’t get much more nasty than that.

           

Chaoscott

As for the song itself, D.C. Groove opens with a drum roll followed by undeniably deep power chords that resonate perfectly for this racially integrated band.  All the while it sounds like there’s a party going on in the background, well attended by D.C.’s African American population.  They had a full horn section including sax, trumpet, and trombone, and at times reminded me of a B-grade Fishbone.  It’s great when they launch into the celebratory refrain, “It’s the D.C. Groove!”

            Make no mistake, for all his beginner flaws, MC Rosen let it flow sure and mighty for someone breaking a new genre and when he asks, “Who’s the baddest?” it’s no surprise the rest of the eight person band yells back, “STATIC Ds!”  After the standard punchy mid-song horn breakdown, Rosen asks, “Is the DC Groove here to stay?”  I think history clearly answered that one for us.

As for the B-Side Feed The Fire, a sly, funky synth intro leads into what might be mistaken for a Talking Heads cover with Rosen doing his best David Byrne impersonation.  Also, there’s a line where he utters, “Can’t touch your fire…” possibly even reminiscent of The Doors.  At moments a sparse, spacey arrangement gives way to light yet precise guitar slices, Overall, I didn’t find anything here “burnin’ down my house,” so to speak.  However a chorus of “burn the cage” seems to permeate the song on a hypnotic level throughout.

Summarily, if you happen (possibly by sheer luck or chance) to possess the Static Disruptors’ D.C. Groove 7” count yourself lucky.  Recorded in Room 10 at B.I.D. Studio, produced by Rosen, engineered by Tom McCarthy, and released by WASP Record & Tape Xchange, it’s a lil’ piece of important cultural and musical history, gone tragically unnoticed for the most part.  It’s too bad the Static Disruptors never got their act together enough to put out a full length.  In that case, history may have looked back on Rosen’s crew as more than just a footnote in the annals of D.C.’s Go-Go Funk past.