By: Tyrone Armstrong
Mississippi’s Musical Legacy
Mississippi is widely recognized as the “Birthplace of America’s Music,” a state that helped father the blues from deep in the Mississippi Delta. The blues, emerging from the realities of work, worship, and struggle, produced generations of musicians whose sound shaped nearly every major American genre that followed. Many say America’s musical tradition was both born and reshaped through the culture and hardships of Mississippi’s Black communities.
“From the Delta to the Bronx, Mississippi’s sound has always been at the heart of America’s music.”
In the early 1970s, hip-hop began to emerge as an urban, street-level art form in New York City, blending DJ culture, spoken word, and funk-driven rhythms. At nearly the same time, in Jackson, Mississippi, a group of young musicians started a band that would unknowingly travel on a parallel path to this new genre. Their work would link Mississippi’s deep musical legacy to the earliest days of recorded hip-hop.
Along Came Sugar Hill Records
Sugar Hill Records, founded in the mid‑1970s by Joey and Sylvia Robinson, became one of the first labels to release commercial hip-hop records. The label would gain fame for early classics like “Rapper’s Delight” and “The Message,” helping bring a street-born sound into the national spotlight. While Sugar Hill was rising in New York, a funk band in Jackson was building its own sound more than a thousand miles away.
In 1975, eight young musicians from Jackson, Mississippi, formed a band they named Freedom:
• Adolf Adams – vocals, alto sax, guitar
• Robert Black – trumpet
• Ray Smith – bass guitar
• Victor Mason – drums
• David Thigpen – alto and tenor sax
• Tyrone Armstrong – guitar
• Larry Addison – keyboards
• Joe Leslie Short – vocals, percussion
Most of the members were students at Jackson State University when the band began. Freedom quickly became known as a high‑energy funk band, combining strong musicianship with crowd‑pleasing live performances rooted in the mid‑1970s funk tradition.
“Freedom was more than a band name. It was a sound, a feeling, and a movement on stage.”
Malaco Records and “Get Up and Dance”
Freedom focused on original material and performance, crafting their own brand of Southern funk. Through the songwriting of keyboardist Larry Addison, they recorded their first single in the mid‑1970s, earning local attention and airplay that showcased their originality. In 1979, Freedom signed with Malaco Records, a Jackson-based label known for soul, blues, and gospel, and released the album Farther Than Imagination.
The first single, “Dance Sing-Along,” captured their live‑party feel with interactive chants and dance‑ready grooves. After it gained regional traction in the Southeast, Malaco released a second single from the album: “Get Up and Dance,” written by Tyrone Armstrong and Ray Smith. That second single would become the key to Freedom’s place in hip-hop history.
“Get Up and Dance” featured:
• A driving funk drum beat by Victor Mason
• A tight, powerful bass line by Ray Smith
• Funky guitar and keyboard rhythms by Armstrong and Addison
• Strong lead and background vocals by Adolf Adams and Joe Leslie Short
• Distinctive horn lines and a memorable trumpet solo by David Thigpen and Robert Black
• A playful kazoo melody tying the groove together.
The single became an underground favorite on the East Coast, especially among club DJs along the Eastern seaboard.
From Jackson to the Bronx:
“Freedom” as “Get Up and Dance” pulsed through clubs, Sugar Hill Records was gaining national recognition with early rap releases like “Rapper’s Delight.”
At the same time, DJ innovator Grandmaster Flash and his group, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, were building their reputation in New York for cutting, mixing, and performance techniques that would help define early hip-hop.
By 1980, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five had released a single titled “Freedom.” That track was recorded over the instrumental foundation of Freedom’s “Get Up and Dance,” directly connecting a band from Jackson, Mississippi, to one of the earliest and most influential hip-hop records to reach a national audience.
“The groove that moved New York’s hip-hop scene started with a funk band from Jackson, Mississippi.”
“Freedom” became a hit, reaching R&B charts and selling widely, further cementing the Jackson band’s groove into hip-hop’s DNA. For Freedom, it meant that their sound, born in Mississippi funk, was now part of a new cultural movement.
One Groove, Generations of Influence
“Get Up and Dance” is regarded as a classic R&B/funk track that helped fuel early hip-hop and has been sampled and re-used by numerous artists.
The song’s groove has appeared in films such as New Jack City and Above the Rim, including versions recorded by Essence and SWV (“Anything”), and it continues to surface in later hip-hop and R&B projects.
From the cotton fields and juke joints of the Delta to a funk band in Jackson and the birth of rap records in New York, Mississippi’s influence has flowed through blues, R&B, rock, soul, gospel, and hip-hop.
This is Mississippi’s contribution to hip-hop — a reminder that the state which helped give the world the blues also helped lay the groove for a new generation’s voice.
