A Brief History of Rhyme and Bass: Growing up with Hip-Hop

By Shawn Livernoche

During the late seventies a generation of black rockers laid the foundation for what would become a multi-billion dollar Industry: Hip-Hop music. A Brief History Of Rhyme And Bass fills us in on the origin of rap music and how it evolved from music with a message into a cesspool of sex, drugs, death and crime in less than two decades. Lov explores the role of the white rapper in Hip-Hop and relays his story of how Hip-Hop has taken him on a trip to a dark, sex and drug infested Hell and back, alive to tell the tale!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 12, 2001
• ISBN: 9781469123073

Shawn Livernoche

Shawn Lov has recorded over 300 Hip-Hop songs that date back to 1986 and five LP’s since 1998 that have won him national television appearances and status as an underground icon in Hip-Hop. “Never Never Land,” Shawn’s most recent album has become a cult favorite on the East Coast hip-hop scene. Co-author of the Epic novel “Shades of April” and star of the music video “The Lov Doctor,” Shawn attends school at TCNJ in New Jersey, the state of his birth. Today, at 24 Shawn is still pursuing a major record deal.

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Copyright © 2001 by Shawn Livernoche.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or

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CONTENTS

FORWARD

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1:

CHAPTER 2:

CHAPTER 3:

CHAPTER 4:

CHAPTER 5:

CHAPTER 6:

CHAPTER 7:

CHAPTER 8:

CHAPTER 9:

CHAPTER 10:

CHAPTER 11:

CHAPTER 12:

CONCLUSIONS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book is dedicated to the memory of my Poppy, Abe; I wish

he were alive to see me finally make some better choices in life.

Also to my father, Ed, who has been an inexhaustible source of

love and support my entire life including now.

FORWARD

By Daniel D Corvino

If there is one thing that everyone who picks up this book has in common, it is a general interest in hip-hop music or the need for a good story. This book encompasses both-it shows you the growth of hip-hop and of Shawn Lov as a person and an artist. This book highlights the relation between the music and the man in a way that many of its readers can relate to their own lives, situations that will make you laugh with familiarity or cringe with uneasiness as you follow the ups and the downs. It shows the evolution of the music and the motivation behind it. Every one of us who call ourselves fans should do something to keep hip-hop alive. So many of us growing up in America have taken from hip-hop and we just have to make sure that we are giving something back.

The relationship between Shawn and I is much like that of two brothers. He is one of the most insightful, intelligent and under appreciated people I have ever known and also an amazingly talented emcee that has yet to be noticed by most of the world. I have known Shawn for most of the period that this book covers, which is probably why he asked me to write this forward. I have gone from being a fan to a friend and eventually to his current day manager and peer. I thank Shawn for this opportunity. Peace D

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this book is not to relay for the reader a description of the last twenty-five years in hip-hop with pinpoint accuracy. This is not a log of names, places, recordings, and events that have made hip-hop music what it is today. This work represents what hip-hop has meant to me and how it along with many other things has shaped my life and the way I view the world. The purpose of this book is to tell the story of my life and how it has been affected by hip-hop. Along the way, I will describe to you my view of what hip-hop has embodied with regards to it’s artists, it’s changing message and it’s industry in a fashion that is as linear as possible.

The intended audience for this work is not the hip-hop cats who laid the blueprints for this art form in the early seventies or those second generation heads that have been grooving with me to this music and culture since the earlier 80’s. I consider you all age mates; pioneers who have worked your asses off to carve out a path for the millionaires today that have no walls to tear down and fewer obstacles to overcome musically. This book is for those of you who were born after 1980. This is an attempt to fill in some of the blanks that obviously exist with the recent generations of hip-hoppers. Currently, we (hip-hoppers) are involved in a culture that has forgotten its purpose. The mighty rappers of our past that have allowed us to enjoy a music and culture we can call our own are being paid no mind. Artists that once held the very building blocks of our world and remain capable of building are being overshadowed by children that know very little of the history and soul of the lifestyle and music that has been so lucrative for them to represent.

In many cases, a child is left with the responsibility of becoming a man on his own because his father has abandoned him at an early age. This is not the case with hip-hop. The father is alive, well and willing to point the children of this culture in the right direction. The problem with the direction of hip-hop is not the unwillingness of the older gods to teach, it is the unwillingness to learn on the part of the newbie’s. At 25 years old, I am considered young and approaching my prime by the rest of the world. In the world of hip-hop I am a relic; a shadow. If there is an entire generation of young men and women like myself that watched PE bring the noise, rocked to RUN-DMC, illed with the Beastie Boy’s and chilled with EPMD they must be dissatisfied with the pile of commercial, cash and jewelry-obsessed jargon hip-hop is becoming. If you, my brothers and sisters, are out there I can’t hear you. Either you aren’t screaming loud enough, or the infernal noise of bling-bling is just too god damned distracting for me to hear you. Well my voice is loud as fuck and I am going to scream for all of us. I hope they listen.

Before we begin, I am going to familiarize you with my work, and myself. My name is Shawn Livernoche and I have been recording for fifteen years as an unsigned artist, and under the name Shawn Lov since 1998. To date, I have recorded five full-length LP’s that have circulated on the East Coast underground rap-scene since the late nineties. The God(1998), Wired(1999), Wack Emcees Get Murdered Day(2000) Never Never Land(2000) and The Opium Den Volume 1(2001). In addition to these albums, I have been recording demos and projects that were left unfinished due to lack of financial support since the mid-eighties. In total, I have recorded more than 300 songs dating back to 1986. Although the last several years have afforded my music more exposure thanks to better management and the medium of MP3’s on the internet, my career, which has produced as much music as any MC with a career spanning over ten years has gone virtually unnoticed.

I’ll also bring you up to date on my personal life, as it is going to comprise more than half of this book. Like I said I’m nearing 25, and I’m close to receiving a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from a respectable state school. I have been barbering to make ends meet and hustling money from the government to pay for my education for the last four years. I devote the rest of my time to hip-hop. At age 21 I became realistic about the fact that this fickle music industry may ignore me for the rest of my life. Because I have a head on my shoulders I decided that I should probably go back to school full-time, which has left me about three years behind my peers and still at home living with my father, his wife and my younger brother Ian. These setbacks are a very small sacrifice in light of what my life has gained through my devotion to making hip-hop music and going along for the ride of my life. Hip-hop and I grew up together. We were born around the same time, and hopefully we will last as long as each other. With this book, it is my intention to give back something to the culture from which I have taken so much. I humbly propose to teach some of the lessons I have learned by growing up with the voices of so many powerful black men and women. It is more than I can bear to watch mainstream America dismiss the culture we have worked so hard to build over the last three decades as dance music. If I can urge one person who has mistaken hip-hop for anything less than an opportunity for unity and a venue for intelligence and creativity than my effort are not futile. Buckle your seatbelts ladies and gentlemen, we’re taking it back to ‘79.

CHAPTER 1:

Kicking It Old School

1977-1983

June 16, 1977, my mother Ricky Livernoche shitted me out, almost a month early. I was 4 lbs, 5 ounces. I was a cute little thing, even the day I was born. My mother always told me this story about how the day I was born my father, (I call him E but his name is F. Edward Livernoche the third) picked me up and said Oh…what a little Caboo of a monkeyface! My father, always a man of profound statements started something that would haunt me for the rest of my life. My freakin’ mother still calls me little Caboo.

My father grew up in Indiana and moved to New Jersey during his teens where he met my mother. At the time he was playing guitar with several bands. My father played a bluesy kind of rock n’ roll that was atypical of the music coming out at the time. I can still remember being about five and finding his eight-track recording of a couple of songs he did with his band. I was so impressed. His marriage to my mother Ricky began about four years before I was born; it didn’t last. They were divorced by the time I was a year old. My mother took an apartment in a low cost housing area of Hightstown, and my father stayed in their Ewing home (right on the outskirts of Trenton N.J.). He retained custody of me on the weekends while I lived with my mother during the week.

Proceeding kindergarten, I would stay at home with my mother during the day while she cut hair in our kitchen to make ends meet. She was a beautiful woman with natural black hair that she often dyed and smooth olive skin. She always had an air about her that made her seem younger than she was. We went to the grocery store and the movies together and sometimes she would read to me or tell me stories. However she was a party girl and often she would bring me with her on dates with men or trips to drop off her friends in the wee hours of the morning. During the week I was a small planet that revolved around my mothers sun, for the sake of the light she provided. Our apartment had two bedrooms and a clean front yard.

I spent many a day with her parents, Kathy and Abe Mendelson. I called them Nanny and Poppy. My Nanny was a smart loving woman who would give me a hug and a kiss but make it known that she wasn’t going to take any shit. She’s the kind of person who you love on your side but would fear if she weren’t. The way she spoke to me led me to have respect for myself; she made it known that she was the adult without disqualifying my needs or my intelligence. Poppy was a big man, with a million stories and an overflow of information about anything you could think of. This guy was a living, breathing, walking, talking fucking Internet. He was well off, and always owned a nice car and a beautiful home. Poppy owned a carpet company during a time and place where owning a small business meant something. The man always made time to show me the world. Day trips to New York to The Museum of Natural History, the theatre, anywhere he could take me that could have sparked my interest at such a young age. He wasted none of my time encouraging me to throw a ball or turn on a television. Poppy introduced me to the world of books and encouraged me to learn and strive for a decent life until he passed at the age of seventy, when I was twenty-two. I love him; he had such a strong influence on me in his life that he still speaks to me after his death.

My father Ed has been my lifeline since the very beginning. The weekends I spent at his home in Ewing as a child would shape the way I viewed the world and ultimately lead me to love for music and ability to dodge the trap of being motivated solely by material gains. At his house I had a small room that was littered with used musical instruments of his that I turned into toys. Upstairs was his home recording studio that was often occupied by him and a myriad of other musicians. The house was always filled with music. If it wasn’t him practicing his guitar in the living room, it was drummers, singers or keyboardists saying hello to me as they crept down the stairs to use the bathroom. I distinctly remember how cool I thought the black guys were. They encompassed everything my little mind thought cool was. These guys came in wearing sunglasses at night carrying a bass guitar, talking hip, smoking Kool’s and drinking six packs of beer. They all called me Little Eddy. It would be almost fifteen years before I was as embraced by cool black guys toting shades.

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Shawn Lov at 5 with his guitar at his dad’s house

While I was acquiring language, shitting my pants and interrupting my father’s studio sessions to say hi to his cool friends, hip-hop was beginning to take form. Admittedly, my first hand experience with hip-hop didn’t begin until years later when I eventually picked