THANK YOU RALPH McDANIELS
The world moves so fast that sometimes we forget to stop and smell the roses whilst we can. We should celebrate people whilst they are alive and not wait till the pass to then witness an online out pouring of praise.
To kick off what will be an ongoing “Thank you series” we wanted to highlight someone who helped change the music industry as a whole but also someone that has played a hugely significant roll in the forming of Hip Hop culture worldwide.
Thank you Ralph McDaniels.
image first appeared in the New York Times in 2012
Ralph was born and raised in NYC , in 1983 when he was already working as a radio engineer he started “Studio 31 Dance Party” that later turned into “Video Music Box”. These were television shows that would focus primarily on music and showing performances, mainly Hip Hop.
Something that was as an art form in its infancy. All of a sudden the culture was given a visual platform. You could see how diverse the scene was, how flamboyant and expressive some people were with the way they dressed, how talented inner city kids were and how new and exciting this artistic wave was.
In theory the show was just a local show as it was shown on Public Access television in New York , however much like how people would pass around mixtapes, people would also pass around VHS recordings of the show making Video Music Box influential through out the whole of the US and beyond.
Hip Hop would simply not be what it is today without people like Ralph giving young artists a platform and a chance to express themselves. A documentary was released inn 2021 by Showtime that does an incredible job showing archival footage and the impact Ralph and his team had.
Every hip hop fan around the world should be grateful for visionary moments like Video Music Box, so this season we made a t-shirt that says it best :
“thank you Ralph McDaniels”
Thank you Uncle Ralph
and the rest is history…
GZA & ODB live in a bathroom …
shop our dedication to Ralph here :