Hip Hop.....Born August 11, 1973
- DJ MIX
- Aug 11, 2016
- 4 min read
Hip Hop's First Flyer
HAPPY BIRTHDAY HIP HOP!!
Yes 43 years ago hip hop was born ironically at a birthday party in the recreation room of an apartment building in the west Bronx, New York City. The location of that birthplace was 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, and the man who presided over that historic party was the birthday girl’s brother, Clive Campbell—better known to history as DJ Kool Herc, founding father of hip hop.
DJ Kool Herc’s signature innovation came from observing how the crowds would react to different parts of whatever record he happened to be playing: “I was noticing people used to wait for particular parts of the record to dance, maybe [to] do their specialty move.”
Those moments tended to occur at the drum breaks—the moments in a record when the vocals and other instruments would drop out completely for a measure or two of pure rhythm. What Kool Herc decided to do was to use the two turntables in a typical DJ setup not as a way to make a smooth transition between two records, but as a way to switch back and forth repeatedly between two copies of the same record, extending the short drum break that the crowd most wanted to hear. He called his trick the Merry Go-Round. Today, it is known as the “break beat.”
The Father Of Hip Hop DJ Kool Herc
By the summer of 1973, DJ Kool Herc had been using and refining his break-beat style for the better part of a year. His sister’s party on August 11, however, put him before his biggest crowd ever and with the most powerful sound system he’d ever worked. It was the success of that party that would begin a grassroots musical revolution, fully six years before the term “hip hop” even entered the popular vocabulary.
The Name Hip Hop
Keith "Cowboy" Wiggins, a member of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, has been credited with coining the term in 1978 while teasing a friend who had just joined the US Army by scat singing the words "hip/hop/hip/hop" in a way that mimicked the rhythmic cadence of marching soldiers. Cowboy later worked the "hip hop" cadence into his stage performance. The group frequently performed with disco artists who would refer to this new type of music by calling them "hip hoppers". The name was originally meant as a sign of disrespect, but soon came to identify this new music and culture.
Grand Master Flash & The Furious Five
Hip hop pioneer and South Bronx community leader Afrika Bambaataa of the hip hop collective Zulu Nation outlined the pillars of hip hop culture, to which he coined the terms: MCing or "Emceein", DJing or "Deejayin", B-boying and graffiti writing or "Aerosol Writin."
The song "Rapper's Delight", by The Sugarhill Gang, released in 1979, begins with the phrase "I said a hip, hop the hippie the hippie to the hip hip hop, a you don't stop".Lovebug Starski, a Bronx DJ who put out a single called "The Positive Life" in 1981, and DJ Hollywood then began using the term when referring to this new disco rap music. Bill Alder, an independent consultant, once said, "There was hardly ever a moment when rap music was underground, one of the very first so-called rap records, was a monster hit ("Rapper's Delight" by the Sugar Hill Gang on Sugarhill Records).
The Sugar Hill Gang
Afrika Bambaataa also credits Lovebug Starski as the first to use the term "hip hop", as it relates to the culture. Bambaataa, former leader of the Black Spades gang, also did much to further popularize the term. The words "hip hop" first appeared in print on September 21, 1981, in The Village Voice in a profile of Bambaataa written by Steven Hager, who also published the first comprehensive history of the culture with St. Martins' Press.
Afrika Bambaataa & The Soul Sonic Force
Hip Hop Worldwide
DJ Kool Herc's house parties gained popularity and later moved to outdoor venues in order to accommodate more people. Hosted in parks, these outdoor parties became a means of expression and an outlet for teenagers, where "instead of getting into trouble on the streets, teens now had a place to expend their pent-up energy."
According to the U.S. Department of State, hip hop is "now the center of a mega music and fashion industry around the world" that crosses social barriers and cuts across racial lines. National Geographic recognizes hip hop as "the world's favorite youth culture" in which "just about every country on the planet seems to have developed its own local rap scene." Through its international travels, hip hop is now considered a "global musical epidemic". According to The Village Voice, hip hop is "custom-made to combat the anomie that preys on adolescents wherever nobody knows their name. So Happy Birthday Hip Hop.
You saved my life, gave me a purpose and you did the same
for so many others.
HIP HOP HOORAY!!! HIP HOP DON'T STOP!!
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