…go ‘round the outside, ‘round the outside, ‘round the outside. … Four buffalo gals go ‘round the outside and do-si-do your partner!
In the wake of his passing, the obituaries rightly focus on Malcolm McLaren’s work with the Sex Pistols. But I remember at my earliest infatuation with Hip-Hop, digging through the bins in a Boston record store (probably Tower or Newbury Records), and picking up Dya Like Scratchin on a whim, just because the jacket “looked” Hip-Hop.
The little mini-album was a trove of early rappin’, cuttin’, and scratchin’. Buffalo Gals is an iconic piece of early Hip-Hop, but I’ll always have a soft spot for World’s Famous (and A Tribe Called Quest’s homage Award Tour). Malcolm McLaren might have been the first white rapper to take the form seriously and actually pull it off.
McLaren wasn’t a giant of Hip-Hop, but his small slice was a seminal contribution. Godspeed kind sir.