Gather 'round children, it's time for
a fantastic history lesson...
Before it became the unofficial music, language, dance and fashion from the streets, Hip-Hop arose as a way to keep New York City kids off the streets amidst growing gang violence in the 1970s.
Teens with mobile sound systems, turntables and good tastes in Funk and Soul records (singles by Parliament, Incredible Bongo Band and The J.B.’s were always hits) hosted neighborhood parties at parks, rec centers and basements for those too young to get into New York City's alcohol and cocaine-fueled Disco nightclubs. These [normally] peaceful gatherings co-mingled wide varieties of Black and Hispanic youth across the Bronx, Harlem, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.
As the magnitude of the movement grew, the earliest stars - the deejays - expanded their operations to include dance crews with matching outfits and flashy routines. These dancers would collectively be known as B-Boys, or Break Boys, since they tore up the floor while the deejay looped a song’s instrumental drum ‘break’ beat.
Before it became the unofficial music, language, dance and fashion from the streets, Hip-Hop arose as a way to keep New York City kids off the streets amidst growing gang violence in the 1970s.
Teens with mobile sound systems, turntables and good tastes in Funk and Soul records (singles by Parliament, Incredible Bongo Band and The J.B.’s were always hits) hosted neighborhood parties at parks, rec centers and basements for those too young to get into New York City's alcohol and cocaine-fueled Disco nightclubs. These [normally] peaceful gatherings co-mingled wide varieties of Black and Hispanic youth across the Bronx, Harlem, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.
As the magnitude of the movement grew, the earliest stars - the deejays - expanded their operations to include dance crews with matching outfits and flashy routines. These dancers would collectively be known as B-Boys, or Break Boys, since they tore up the floor while the deejay looped a song’s instrumental drum ‘break’ beat.
Turntable technicians also added tricks to their repertoires to keep the music moving non-stop: they matched the beats of different tracks for seamless blends, juggled the same record on two tables to extend break loops and swiftly moved a hand across a spinning album to create various scratch noises (a skill allegedly discovered by accident).
But it was another member of a deejay’s entourage who eventually stole the show: the emcee. Originally side hypemen to draw attention to their deejays, these ‘toasters’ would recite short rhymed verses over percussion to encourage crowd participation. But inevitably some of the more charismatic emcees developed into frontmen themselves, performing whole songs and/or routines – usually pre-written but sometimes as impromptu ‘freestyles’.
This changed the mood forever. Eventhough the vibe was about the party and the dancing, some fans wanted to take the atmosphere home with them. Entrepreneurial deejays recorded and sold live mixtapes, but more became infatuated with the vocal ‘rapping’ from emcees. And the race was on to produce the first Rap record.
Debuting in September 1979, “Rapper’s Delight” was a 15-minute jam about good times, fly girls and awkward situations from the Sugarhill Gang. Eventhough the trio was manufactured just to record the novel single, it took off and warranted many more songs as the calendar flipped to the 1980s.
As these songs gained traction on college radio and in mom-n-pop record shops, clamoring cities from coast to coast (plus nations like France, Denmark and Great Britain) now had access to this phenomenon and started producing their own, local version of Hip-Hop music and dance.
But like Jazz, Rock ‘n Roll and many pure arts before it, Hip-Hop had the capacity to be monetized. Once the conveyor belt began rolling out Rap tunes, there was no stopping the machine.
Then with the dawn of the 1990s, pop culture as a whole shifted with Hip-Hop and ballooned to a multi-billion dollar industry, morphing unimaginably along the way thanks to Adidas endorsements, Sprite commercials, movie soundtracks and early adopter/appreciation crossover collaborations.
Hip-Hop is now three full generations deep; yes, your grandfather may remember Kurtis Blow or DJ Mr. Magic!
Eventhough the vision pioneers DJ Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash and Fab 5 Freddy crafted may barely resemble today’s landscape, the organic elements of Hip-Hop still live on in the message and motion.
