''Beat Street (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) – Volume 1'' and ''Beat Street (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) – Volume 2'' are soundtrack albums for the 1984 drama film of the same name. It was released in 1984 by

Atlantic Records Atlantic Recording Corporation (simply known as Atlantic Records) is an American record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Over its first 20 years of operation, Atlantic earned a reputation as one of the most i ...

. Both albums were produced by

Harry Belafonte Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927) is an American singer, activist, and actor. As arguably the most successful Jamaican-American pop star, he popularized the Trinbagonian Caribbean musical style with an interna ...

, a calypso artist best known for his 1956 hit "

Day-O (The Banana Boat Song) "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)" is a traditional Jamaican folk song. The song has mento influences, but it is commonly classified as an example of the better known calypso music. It is a call and response work song, from the point of view of ...

", and prolific freestyle

music producer A record producer is a recording project's creative and technical leader, commanding studio time and coaching artists, and in popular genres typically creates the song's very sound and structure.Virgil Moorefield"Introduction" ''The Producer as ...

and remixer Arthur Baker, who collaborated with music artists including

Freeez Freeez were an English electronic music group, initially known as one of the UK's main jazz-funk bands of the early 1980s. Initiated by John Rocca, Freeez consisted of various musicians, originally with Rocca and others such as Andy Stennett ( ...

Afrika Bambaataa Lance Taylor (born on April 17, 1957), also known as Afrika Bambaataa (), is an American DJ, rapper, and producer from the South Bronx, New York. He is notable for releasing a series of genre-defining electro tracks in the 1980s that influenc ...

, and New Order. Both albums even entered the ''Billboard'' 200 and

R&B Albums Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a music chart published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine that ranks R&B and hip hop albums based on sales in the United States and is compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The chart debuted as Hot R&B LPs in the issue dated J ...

charts and stayed there in the same year.Beat Street Volume 2
- Chart positions. Billboard & Allmusic. Retrieved 2011-August-09

Description

The soundtrack contains music mainly from

old-school hip-hop Old-school hip hop (also spelled old skool) is the earliest commercially recorded hip hop music and original style of the genre. It typically refers to the music created around 1979 to 1983, as well as any hip hop that does not adhere to contem ...

artists including

Grandmaster Melle Mel Melvin Glover (born May 15, 1961 in The Bronx), better known by his stage name Grandmaster Melle Mel (or simply Melle Mel) () is an American hip hop recording artist who was the lead vocalist and songwriter of Grandmaster Flash and the Furiou ...

and

the Furious Five Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were an American hip hop group formed in the South Bronx of New York City in 1978. The group's members were Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel, Kidd Creole (not to be confused with Kid Creole), Keef Cowboy, Sc ...

Jazzy Jay John Bayas (born November 18, 1961), also known as The Original Jazzy Jay or DJ Jazzy Jay, is an American hip hop DJ and producer. Background Jazzy Jay was born into a Gullah family in coastal South Carolina. He moved with his family to New Y ...

, Afrika Bambaataa & The Soul Sonic and

Treacherous Three The Treacherous Three was a pioneering American hip hop group that was formed in 1978 and consisted of DJ Easy Lee, Kool Moe Dee, L.A. Sunshine, Special K and Spoonie Gee (who left in the late 1970s), with occasional contributions from DJ Da ...

featuring

beatbox Beatboxing (also beat boxing) is a form of vocal percussion primarily involving the art of mimicking drum machines (typically a TR-808), using one's mouth, lips, tongue, and voice.

pioneer

Doug E. Fresh Doug E. Fresh (born September 17, 1966) is a Barbados-born American rapper, record producer, and beatboxer, also known as the "Human Beat Box". The pioneer of 20th-century American beatboxing, Fresh is able to accurately imitate drum machines an ...

but also various electro/boogie musicians such as

, and the System and Juicy. The album was

certified gold Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video) and by nation or territory (see ...

in the same year. A third volume was planned, but it was never released. The second volume was never released on CD.

Track listing

Volume 1 (80154)

;A-side ;B-side

Volume 2 (80158)

;A-side ;B-side

Credits and personnel

*Sanford Allen –

concertmaster The concertmaster (from the German ''Konzertmeister''), first chair (U.S.) or leader (U.K.) is the principal first violin player in an orchestra (or clarinet in a concert band). After the conductor, the concertmaster is the second-most signifi ...

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

* Arthur Baker – bass,

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

, producer *Tina Baker –

performer The performing arts are The arts, arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which are the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art object ...

*Katreese Barnes –

*Sharon Green –

*Milton Barnes –

*David Belafonte –

sound effect A sound effect (or audio effect) is an artificially created or enhanced sound, or sound process used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media. Traditi ...

s *Sandra Billingslea – violin *Jay Burnett – guitar *Kennan Keating- wah wah guitar *

Jenny Burton Jenny Burton (born November 18, 1957, New York City, New York) is an American Rhythm and blues, R&B singing, singer who had several hits on the United States, US ''Billboard (magazine), Billboard'' dance Record chart, chart. Career She was lea ...

–

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

*Jack Cavari – guitar * John Clark –

French horn The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most ...

* Deodato – producer *Lewis Eley – violin *

Jon Faddis Jon Faddis (born July 24, 1953) is an American jazz trumpet player, conductor, composer, and educator, renowned for both his playing and for his expertise in the field of music education. Upon his first appearance on the scene, he became known ...

–

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

Eileen Folson Eileen M. Folson (born Eileen M. Garden, 1956 – February 4, 2007) was a Broadway theatre, Broadway composer, professional cellist, and a Grammy nominee. Early life and education Folson was born in 1956 as the fourth of six children. She began pla ...

–

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

*Winterton Garvey – violin *Dwight Hawkes –

backing vocalist A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are us ...

*Lamar Hill – performer *Cecilia Hobbs – violin *Stanley Hunte – violin *Jean Ingraham – violin * Anthony Jackson – bass *

–

drum programming Programming is a form of music production and performance using electronic devices and computer software, such as sequencers and workstations or hardware synthesizers, sampler and sequencers, to generate sounds of musical instruments. These mus ...

scratching Scratching, sometimes referred to as scrubbing, is a DJ and turntablist technique of moving a vinyl record back and forth on a turntable to produce percussive or rhythmic sounds. A crossfader on a DJ mixer may be used to fade between two record ...

*Bashiri Johnson –

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

*Kevin Keaton – performer *Robbie Kilgore – bells *La La – sound effects, backing vocalist *Jesse Levy – cello *

Webster Lewis Webster Samuel Lewis (September 1, 1943 – November 20, 2002) was an American jazz and disco composer, arranger and keyboardist. Career Lewis was born in 1943 in Baltimore, Maryland. At a young age, his family encouraged him to take up music. L ...

DX-7 The Yamaha DX7 is a synthesizer manufactured by the Yamaha Corporation from 1983 to 1989. It was the first successful digital synthesizer and is one of the best-selling synthesizers in history, selling more than 200,000 units. In the early 1980 ...

Fender Rhodes The Rhodes piano (also known as the Fender Rhodes piano) is an electric piano invented by Harold Rhodes, which became popular in the 1970s. Like a conventional piano, the Rhodes generates sound with keys and hammers, but instead of strings, th ...

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

*Peter Link – performer *Chris "Lord-Alge" Simmons – drums *Guy Lumia – violin *John Pintavalle – violin *Sue Pray – viola *Maxine Roach – viola *Ralph Rolle – drum programming, sound effects, vocals *

Alan Rubin Alan Rubin (February 11, 1943 – June 8, 2011), also known as Mr. Fabulous, was an American musician. He played trumpet, flugelhorn, and piccolo trumpet. Early life and education Rubin was born in Brooklyn. He began attending Juilliard S ...

– trumpet *

Lew Soloff Lewis Michael Soloff (February 20, 1944–March 8, 2015) was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and actor. Biography From his birth place of New York City, United States, he studied trumpet at the Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard Sc ...

– trumpet *

David Spinozza David Spinozza is an American guitarist and producer. He worked with former Beatles Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and John Lennon during the 1970s, and had a long collaboration with singer-songwriter James Taylor, producing Taylor's album ''Walking ...

– guitar *Marti Sweet – violin *Tina B. – vocals *Lenny Underwood – bass, drums, keyboards * Buddy Williams – drums *Richard D. Young – violin *

Fred Zarr Frederick I. Zarr (born September 26, 1955) is an American musician, record producer, composer and arranger based in Brooklyn, New York. The CEO of BiZarr Music, Inc., he works alongside numerous artists, singers, songwriters, musicians, & audi ...

– bass, keyboards

Charts

Volume 1

Volume 2

Album certifications

References

{{reflist East Coast hip hop albums Electro albums Boogie albums Drama film soundtracks 1984 soundtrack albums Albums produced by Arthur Baker (musician) Atlantic Records soundtracks