097: Hand On the Torch, by Us3

Us3 (United Kingdom)
Hand On the Torch (1993)
15 tracks, 55 minutes
Spotify • iTunes

Jazz hip-hop wasn’t exactly new by the time Us3 released their debut, Hand On the Torch. A Tribe Called Quest and a few others had already brought in jazz samples into their work as grist to their mill, but this was the first time the mix of jazz and hip-hop was brought to the fore as the raison d’être of the piece.

All of the samples used on Hand On the Torch are from legendary Blue Note recordings, from Thelonious Monk and Art Blakey to Donald Byrd and Horace Silver. It wasn’t too hard for producers Geoff Wilkinson and Mel Simpson to get the rights to those recordings either: this was the first hip-hop record to be released on Blue Note itself.

The album as a whole is of mixed success. It’s not bad by any stretch, and the use of samples is great (helped by the fact that the samples are great), but for me, the rapping by Rahsaan Kelly and Kobie Powell aren’t too adventurous in terms of lyrics or rhythms. As an album, it’s not stood the test of time as well as others of the period such as Quest’s Midnight Marauders or Brand Nubian’s One For All. But it does have one enduring classic.

‘Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)’ stands up where the rest of the album doesn’t quite, and it sticks in the head for much longer. Based around Herbie Hancock’s first recording of ‘Cantaloupe Island’, it’s basically a manifesto of jazz hip-hop. The sample is, again, brilliant, and fits in so well with the beats, and the rap is one of the best on the album. What I really like about this track, though, is the way the rap and the long trumpet solo by Gerard Presencer work together; the placing of the solo invites us to consider the rap verses in the same way. It’s not hip-hop wearing the vestments of jazz, this is hip-hop as jazz, and I reckon that’s what makes this track stand out in particular.

For all its boundary pushing elements through the ages, the world of jazz is littered with conservative voices and sentiments, all the way back to the mouldy figs. Luckily there have always been those willing to experiment and collaborate and fuse in different musical directions, and as one of the first proper collaborative projects between jazz and hip-hop (in terms of both musicians and industry), Us3 have been proven on the right side of history. Contemporary jazz owes so much to hip-hop that it’s almost impossible to imagine today’s styles divorced from those influences, especially the ever-present shadows of J Dilla. Us3 may not have been the earliest or the best examples of jazz in hip-hop, but they definitely have an important place in the history of hip-hop in jazz.