It is no secret that arguably Hip-Hop is one of America’s greatest exports. Born out of the block parties in the Bronx. Hip-Hop was born out of other genres as most are, but we may be able to pinpoint the exact date the brave, often uncompromising genre first blasted through speakers and into our hearts.
It’s August 11th, 1973. There’s a birthday party in a recreation room in the West Bronx. 1520 Sedgewick Avenue. The deck commander in question was Clive Campbell, known as the legend and founding father of hip-hop, DJ Kool Herc.
“I was noticing people used to wait for particular parts of the record to dance, maybe do their specialty move.”
DJ Kool Herc
His speciality was inspired by Jamaican selectors or DJs. He would “toast” (talk) over records. He was in tune with an audience like no other and noticed that people would wait for particular sections of a tune to make a move, often occurring at the drum breaks. These were the moments in a record when everything else would drop out, leaving the pulsating beat to have a moment to shine. Kool Herc had a revelation. He decided to use the conventional two turntables in a typical DJ set-up to subvert the transitional stage. Instead of using them to seamlessly switch from song to song, he would switch back and forth, between the same record, creating an extended drum break. He gave the crowd what they
wanted, and he gave it to them in spades.
Known as the breakbeat today, Kool Herc called it the “Merry Go Round”.
By that very summer, before his sister’s birthday, he had been using and refining his craft and was in front of the largest crowd he had been in front of up to date. With the most powerful sound he’d ever worked with, he blasted into history. Six years before the term “hip-hop” had been coined, Kool Herc had started what would be one of the greatest grassroots music revolutions in modern history.
Born out of the pain, hustle and roar of the streets, before mobile phones and social media, Hip-Hop was smashing a flag into the concrete, commenting on life through poverty, police brutality, survival instinct, mental health and the struggle between two existences. To stay in the hood and potentially die, or to get your money up and spread messages to children that started where you did. Rappers were stuck between crafting their music, making better lives for their families and fighting against police brutality, the ramifications of gentrification and social engineering and the very reality that they could die young.
They were tired of being at war with the state, so they picked up the mic and made sure everyone listened. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s 1982 song “The Message,” was one of the first songs that provided social commentary on the reality of the African-American experience. The moment the rhymes started, poverty, injustice and political inequality boomed across the beat. In a short time, Hip-Hop had risen to smash the American dream and exceptionalism.
With the boom in the 80s & 90s, Hip-Hop’s influence was solidified. NWA were arrested at their own concert for performing their legendary single “Fuck da Police”, Snoop Dogg was charged with murder and later acquitted, Tupac was leading a revolution, Biggie Smalls was telling the stories of his young adulthood. Big L was dealing with the Devil. The ladies were reppin’ too. Foxy Brown, Lil’ Kim, Mc Lyte, Queen Latifah and so many other women were empowering and encouraging women to make their own way, whilst staying true to the reality of the African-American experience.
“I could tell that my raps interested people and that made me interested in myself.”
Snoop Dogg
With the war on drugs, and police brutality a constant and alleged government conspiracy, Hip-Hop was a reflection of its present, but also a reflection of its past. Within a decade, the state had assassinated Malcolm X, Dr Martin Luther King JR and Fred Hampton. None of them reached 40. Murders within Hip-Hop came swiftly. Tupac, the Notorious B.I.G, Eazy E and Big L never made it past 30. Rumours of conspiracy surrounded many deaths of the architects of Hip-Hop, a response to the collective mourning of prominent figures that had beaten everything against the odds to give us music that put a knife to the neck of the state.
That was the magic of Hip-Hop up to the 90s. It stared the state in the face, gritted its teeth and put a mirror up to it. There is a deep intelligence to Hip-Hop. A knowing and unflinching focus on the world as it is, the effects of government surveillance and violence and the real reflection of a life in poverty. The pulse of Hip-Hop is still beating in the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Westside Boogie and Mos Def, filling us with their thought-provoking and raw lyrics that tackle the most complex issues of our time.
As with anything though, the industrialisation of Hip-Hop came quickly and inevitably. As record labels saw its potential after snubbing it for so long, exploitative contracts and expectations of flashes of wealth subdued a once bonfire that was lighting fires under the seats of every politician in America. The system within which Hip-Hop operates today is an entirely different mechanism, with labels opting often for lyrics focused on wealth and the ability and want to show off.
It doesn’t erase the impact and origins of Hip-Hop, but it absolutely has changed the presentation. Young rappers from lives of poverty are given very little support and are thrust into the limelight, sometimes controlled, to tow a line that has been brewing ever since Hip-Hop was born and roared. Still though, somewhere, at a block party or in a bedroom filled with Tupac, MF Doom and KSI posters, there’s a young, revolutionary mind that is about to pick up the mic. At any point. Any time, any day.
