News Jimmy Page and his love/hate relationship with rap music
Often discussed alongside the greatest guitarists of all time, Jimmy Page certainly has a lot to answer for. As the mastermind behind hard rock legends Led Zeppelin, the Hounslow-born songwriter is nothing short of an icon within the world of rock. Now in his eighth decade, it is potentially unsurprising that the guitar hero has a complicated relationship with the world of rap and hip-hop.
Although often hailed as one of the greatest rock groups of all time, the reality of Led Zeppelin is one of incredible controversy. It stands to reason that if you were to spend most of your life playing to arenas packed full of people cheering for you as though you were a god, your sense of modesty would go out the window. However, the problems with Led Zeppelin run much deeper than a simple case of arrogance. Not only did Page allegedly repeatedly rape a 14-year-old girl during the 1970s, but the band as a whole have often been accused of readily taking part in musical colonialism.
Stealing, borrowing and ripping off tunes from underappreciated Black artists was depressingly commonplace in the 1960s and 1970s, with the likes of The Rolling Stones, Elvis and Led Zeppelin being prominent examples. Often ‘inspired’ by particular riffs and lyrics written by Black musicians, the likes of Led Zeppelin would often pass these off as their own, receiving praise for their apparently infallible songwriting.
Given their apparent disrespect for the work of predominantly Black artists, it is fairly unsurprising that Jimmy Page has been less than flattering about the world of hip-hop. In a gloriously ironic turning of the tables, Page once lamented the work of rappers, saying, “They steal your riffs and then shout at you.”
However, Page’s narrow-minded view on the hip-hop genre was changed after an unlikely collaboration with Puff Daddy. In 1998, the pair worked together on the track ‘Come With Me’, for the soundtrack of a Godzilla film. After this bizarre meeting of minds, Page revealed to The Independent, “It was a real privilege working with [P. Diddy]. He has incredible energy and a great imagination.”
Expanding on his newfound love of the hip-hop genre, Page told Rolling Stone, “Hip-hop fascinated me, the whole culture of what it was and breakdancing and all this whole thing coming from the street. I thought it was great. It was really good and some brave stuff.”
Although this view is directly opposed to his earlier comments, it is likely his view changed following his work with Diddy. “When Puff Daddy, as he was at the time, got in contact and said that he wanted to do this thing,” Page explained, “I thought, ‘Wow. Yeah, yeah. We’ve been sampled enough. Why not do it for real?’”
So, although ‘Come With Me’ is a fairly strange and perhaps best forgotten track, it must be credited with changing the tides of Page’s views on hip-hop and rap music. However, the track also marked Page’s last flirts with the genre, having not collaborated on any more rap songs following the 1999 track…perhaps that’s for the best.
