It’s Monday, P.O.U. Family and lurkers. This week’s open thread will focus on the origins of old school hip hop. With the recent passing away of Heavy D, I decided to listen to some old school rap and just fell in love with it all over again.
B-Boy Boogie- DJ Kool Herc
https://www.youtube.com/v/2_2CHTE975Q?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0
Hip hop music is an element within Hip hop culture, which includes MCing, DJing, graffiti and b-boying. Hip hop music originated within early-1970s block parties in New York City, specifically African American and Hispanic sections of The Bronx, as an alternative to ethnic gangs that proliferated during that era. These large, often outdoor parties were thrown by owners of loud and sometimes expensive stereo equipment, which they would use for community functions, or to compete among themselves in a manner similar to Jamaican sound systems.
Rap music emerged from block parties after DJs isolated and looped percussion breaks favored among dancers. Later, MCs began speaking over the beats in a manner similar to Jamaican toasting. Lil Rodney Cee, of Funky Four Plus One More and Double Trouble, cites Cowboy, of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, as, “the first MC that I know of…He was the first MC to talk about the DJ.”
On August 11, 1973, Jamaican-born DJ Kool Herc was a DJ and Emcee at a party in the recreation room of 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx, adjacent to the Cross-Bronx Expressway. This location is ofen referred to as the “Birthplace of Hip Hop,”
Clive Campbell (born April 16, 1955), also known as Kool Herc, DJ Kool Herc and Kool DJ Herc, is a Jamaican-born DJ who is credited with originating hip hop music, in The Bronx, New York City. His playing of hard funk records of the sort typified by James Brown was an alternative both to the violent gang culture of the Bronx and to the nascent popularity of disco in the 1970s. In response to the reactions of his dancers, Campbell began to isolate the instrumental portion of the record which emphasized the drum beat—the “break”—and switch from one break to another to yet another.
Using the same two turntable set-up of disco DJs, Campbell’s style led to the use of two copies of the same record to elongate the break. This breakbeat DJing, using hard funk, rock, and records with Latin percussion, formed the basis of hip hop music. Campbell’s announcements and exhortations to dancers helped lead to the syncopated, rhymed spoken accompaniment now known as rapping. He called his dancers “break-boys” and “break-girls”, or simply b-boys and b-girls. Campbell’s DJ style was quickly taken up by figures such asAfrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash. Unlike them, he never made the move into commercially recorded hip hop in its earliest years.
The Message
https://www.youtube.com/v/O4o8TeqKhgY?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five was an influential American hip-hop group formed in the South Bronx of New York City in 1978. Composed of one DJ (Grandmaster Flash) and five rappers (Melle Mel, Kidd Creole, Cowboy, Mr. Ness/Scorpio, and Rahiem), the group’s use of turntablism, break-beat deejaying, was a significant force in the early development of hip-hop music.
The group rose to fame in the early 1980s with their first successful single “Freedom” and later on with their magnum opus “The Message”, which is often cited as among the most influential hip hop songs. However, in 1983, relations between Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel began straining and the group disbanded. A reunion was organized in 1987, and they released a new album, which received lukewarm reviews. Afterward, the sextet disbanded permanently.
Overall, the group was active for five years and released two studio albums. In 2007, they became the first rap group ever to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
***Information Courtesy of Wikipedia.org***
