Sunday morning coming down with Baby Huey

No one artist or song is responsible for creating any one genre of music. For every band credited with creating a genre, there are a dozen bands before them that inspired them to create what they did.

Today, a focus on Baby Huey – an artist that released one EP (and died at 26 years old) who is part of the enormous mosaic of events that led to hip hop.

Baby Huey was part of the late 1960’s psychedelic soul movement that famously included Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Sly & the Family Stone. Baby Huey was the first guy in this scene that used self-referential spoken-word portions in his live show – not necessarily the jump-off point for hip-hop, but perhaps only because he was 10 years too early. Nevertheless – an impact was made.

It wasn’t until the Chicago native’s records started to get sampled by New York & Philadelphia’s hip hop acts in the 1990’s that Baby Huey’s legacy as an inspirational artist in hip hop became to illuminate itself to white Canadian guys like me… but this is manditory listening for any serious hip-hop fan.

Spend your Sunday getting to know Baby Huey.