They are among the primordial architects of hip-hop -- two men responsible for bringing the cut & paste concept to music everywhere. Double Dee & Steinski helped usher in an entirely new musical age, but chances are you've never even heard of these two.

"Double Dee and who?"

They don't have the charisma of Goldie or the wit of Moby, yet without these old school legends, hip-hop could have remained "a New York thing." It might have been confined to the trend closet that valley girls and the dance craze the lambada are now bumping elbows in. It might even still be ignorantly referred to as "rap music." Without the groundbreaking sonic experimentation of these two, the Mo' Wax, Ninja Tune, and Astralwerks record label catalogs would probably sound very different. Sampling other forms of music, an idea Double Dee & Steinski innovated, is now literally everywhere -- from pop songs to Sprite Commercials.

Douglas DiFranco was a recording engineer in New York while his friend Steve Stein worked in advertising. When hip-hop label Tommy Boy held a remix contest for G.L.O.B.E. and Whiz Kid's "Play That Beat, Mr. DJ" single the two got to work, and their version won. It would eventually change the landscape of urban music. The track ("Lesson One: The Payoff Mix") raced ahead of the original mix in terms of airplay. It then prompted Double Dee & Steinski to put together two more Lessons.

James Brown has long been considered the high priest of hip-hop. The Godfather of Soul held the DNA to the then embryonic style. This was highlighted by "Lesson Two: (The James Brown Mix)," which fused movie dialogue, Bugs Bunny, Clint Eastwood threatening villains, old eighties songs, and an instructional dance album into a continual apex of melody and humor.

"Lesson Three: (History of Hip Hop)" continued this brilliance, and is essential listening. The drum intro to "The Crunge" (by Led Zeppelin) becomes the ember, the spark, as the song piles on sample after carefully woven sample. Unlike some of today's hip-hop songs, you couldn't hear any of the edits, or spaces where one sample met another. That's because DiFranco and Stein painstakingly spliced bits of magnetic tape together, trimming the sections they wanted to use with razor blades.

[Pictured: Steinski]

The three "Lessons" were very briefly issue by Tommy Boy Records, and then yanked violently from stores when the owners of some of "uncleared material" heard it and threatened with lawsuits. DiFranco went back to his regular engineering work, and Stein continued recording as Steinski and Mass Media.

"The Motorcade Sped On" was a poignant homage to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, beginning with radio broadcasts of his ill-fated limousine ride through the streets of Dallas, Texas. Walter Cronkite then contributes a famous quote about Kennedy's demise, his voice audibly strained. When suspected murderer Lee Harvey Oswald is himself shot on live television you can actually hear the man groan. The eerie track contains quotes from JFK throughout. "The world is a very different place now."

Steinski and Mass Media also remixed "Relax" by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, critiqued television on "We'll Be Right Back," and contemplated the Gulf War on "It's Up To You."

These songs are available on various bootlegs, and that's how I came across their music, after spending months searching. "Beg, Borrow & Steal: A Steinski Archive" will eventually get a sanctioned release, and the public can hear where breakbeat culture truly began.

Let's hope it happens soon.

(C) 2002 - Jason Thornberry