The Big Payback Summary

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In the first two chapters or “albums” of Dan Charnas’s book, The Big Payback, he goes through the chronological history of the hip-hop industry, from 1968 to 1984. In Album One, Charnas describes the business and lifestyle of black music leading up to the hip-hop music and culture. He explains this history via the lives of black artists and entrepreneurs of Harlem, “Black America’s capital” such as rappers DJ Hollywood and Grandmaster Flash, the air personality and program director of WBLS (“Black Liberation Station”) Frankie Crocker, record producer Paul Winley who was the first to take notice of the DJ-and-MC culture, and the owners of Sugar Hill Records Joe and Sylvia Robinson.
The most intriguing characters in the album are Joe and Sylvia Robinson who prior to starting the record label Sugar Hill Records had another record label called All Platinum Records. Joe Robinson was a number runner who many people thought was a gangster, and his
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Cory Robbins and Steve Plotnicki founded Profile Records in 1981 and their first successful record was “Genius Rap” by Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde. One of the biggest music groups of Profile Records were Run-D.M.C. whose debut studio album became the first successful hip-hop album.
One of the reasons why this book is significant is it shows the complication of turning hip-hop music (a black music genre) into an acceptable commodity. Charnas writes how many music entrepreneurs had their hip-hop and rap records turned down from being on radio stations because the radio hosts did not like rap music and believed their audiences would not like it either, particularly the white audiences. Despite these setbacks, hip-hop entrepreneurs found ways to sell their