![]() ![]() With the couple working as Bust It’s promo team, Feel My Power sold an impressive 60,000 copies, and Capitol Records took notice.Ĭapitol was eager to break into the hip-hop market and, in Hammer, they saw an explosive showman who already had a built-in business model. The rapper and his wife Stephanie pushed the album to local DJs relentlessly. In August of 1986, Bust It released MC Hammer’s debut LP Feel My Power. Hammer partnered with Felton Pilate, frontman, instrumentalist, and producer of the recently disbanded Con Funk Shun, and recorded his first full-length album – and the first in a long collaborative relationship – in Pilate’s basement studio. For so many legendary Black performers of that era, excellence was a prerequisite.Īrmed with a $20,000 loan from Oakland A’s outfielders Dwayne Murphy and Mike Davis, Hammer founded Bust It and, in 1986, recorded his first official single, “Ring ‘Em.” By the follow-up single, “Let’s Get It Started,” he began to get local mix-show spins. “And in order to achieve those goals we must be disciplined.” Hammer’s approach echoed his idol James Brown, who was famously demanding of his band and backing vocalists. ”We try to keep our organization disciplined because we have goals,” he told Rolling Stone. Hammer was demanding and focused, leading marathon rehearsal sessions to push his act to a higher place. Kent Wilson (Lone Mixer) and Kevin Wilson (2 Bigg MC) became his DJ and hypeman, respectively Hammer tapped Suhayla Sabir, Tabatha Zee King-Brooks, and Phyllis Charles to be his background dancers (dubbed Oaktown’s 357) and set about pushing himself and his affiliates to greater, wider success. He went to the streets and began recruiting rappers, DJs, and dancers. Christianity became a major influence in Hammer’s life, and he formed a gospel rap group called the Holy Ghost Boys that went nowhere, despite some interest from labels.ĭetermined to take his destiny into his own hands after Holy Ghost Boys broke up, Hammer set about launching his own company, Bust It. He pondered turning to drug dealing, but ultimately decided on a stint in the Navy, and turned his attention towards his faith. So was his time studying for a communications degree. He tried out for the San Francisco Giants after high school, but his bid for Major Leagues was unsuccessful. Hammer’s initial dream, in part due to his A’s lineage, was a pro baseball career. Young Burrell’s stint as the A’s batboy would prove fortuitous in many ways: he famously got his nickname “The Hammer” from baseball great Reggie Jackson who thought he looked like “Hammerin’” Hank Aaron, and years, later, the A’s would play a major role in helping Hammer to get his burgeoning music career off the ground. When Oakland A’s owner Charlie Finley saw the 11-year-old Stanley dancing, he offered the kid a job. He wrote commercial jingles for McDonalds and Coca-Cola as a hobby, and performed for fans in the Oakland Coliseum parking lot. “I did the whole routine of ‘Please, Please, Please,’ falling to the ground and crawling while my brother took a sheet and put it over my back as a cape.”īurrell’s talents were immediately evident. “I saw James Brown’s appearance at the Apollo on TV when I was three or four years old and sort of emulated it,” Hammer told Rolling Stone in 1990. Growing up in a small apartment in Oakland, California, Stanley Burrell loved James Brown. ![]() ![]() Listen to MC Hammer on Apple Music and Spotify. ![]() His popularity in the aftermath of that album’s success has been well-documented, but Hammer’s legacy didn’t begin with Please Hammer… and the ubiquitous “U Can’t Touch This.” And it doesn’t end there, either. Hammer’s blockbuster 1990 album Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em made him one of the biggest stars in the world. The Bay Area legend’s meteoric rise in the late 1980s was the crescendo of hip-hop’s first push into the pop culture mainstream – a trend that had been growing in earnest since Run-D.M.C.’s debut in the mid-’80s, continued through the success of Def Jam artists like LL Cool J and Beastie Boys, and was galvanized by the debut of popular rap video shows like Yo! MTV Raps and BET’s Rap City. MC Hammer’s career arc is one of extremes. ![]()
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