LED ZEPPELIN’s JIMMY PAGE: “Hip-Hop Fascinated Me”
Nowadays, when Travis Scott performed with Marilyn Manson and Ozzy Osbourne released a song with Post Malone, Led Zeppelin founder and guitarist Jimmy Page shared his honest opinion on hip-hop and discussed how the genre affected him at the time.
Back in the ’80s, Led Zeppelin legend John Bonham’s drum performance became one of the popular foundational sounds in the hip-hop community. Later, Jimmy Page decided to make a featuring with Puff Daddy on a song titled ‘Come With Me.’
Recently, during an interview with Rolling Stone, the talented musician was asked about those days. When the interviewer mentioned his collaboration with Puff Daddy and asked what he thinks on hip-hop, Jimmy Page said:
“You’re a product of your musical environment. I’m someone who learned the acoustic guitar and a few campfire or skiffle songs, and then bit by bit learned how to play the electric guitar and developed my own style.
“I wanted to investigate, like Sir Richard Burton, trying to find the source of the Nile. So it’s your environment.
“Without talking about the samples of our music, you could tell with hip-hop that they were sort of educated in so many areas, the stuff that they listened to, and they knew how to combine it and make it into another art form.
“Well, that’s great. Because I mean, that’s basically what happens with Led Zeppelin.”
Jimmy Page continued and said hip-hop fascinated him at the time. He also recalled his performance with Puff Daddy and stated that it was phenomenal.
“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.
“And I tell you, when Puff Daddy, as he was at the time, got in contact and said that he wanted to do this thing, I thought, ‘Wow. Yeah, yeah. We’ve been sampled enough. Why not do it for real?’
“So I thought it was great. And it was an epic thing that he did. He put two orchestras on it, for heaven’s sake. [Laughs]
“We never had that sort of luxury. And when I did Saturday Night Live with him, it was phenomenal. He did a couple of run-throughs and then the take, and he was different on each one. He was somebody who was improvising, and I admired his work.”
