Hip hop begins in the Bronx
Two turntables, a break in a record, and a new music
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Hip hop is a culture with four parts: a DJ making the backing, an MC rapping over it, breakdancing and graffiti. The form arose in a borough hollowed out by fires, redlining and motorway construction, and it was made from equipment and records people already had. The Caribbean connection is direct: Herc was from Jamaica and brought the sound system tradition with him. Within thirty years hip hop was the most widely heard popular music in the world, and the sampling it was built on forced a complete rewriting of music copyright.
For children
At a party in the Bronx in 1973, DJ Kool Herc found he could use two copies of the same record to repeat the drum break indefinitely. That gave a bed for people to dance and rap over — and it was the beginning of hip hop.
Sources
- Chang, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation (2005)
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