Born in Kingston, Jamaica, not very far from Bob Marley’s neighborhood of origin, Herc moved with his family to the West Bronx in the late 1960s.
To begin with, the consensus founder of hip-hop culture is known as DJ Kool Herc (Clive Campbell). One generation’s rampant vandalism is indeed another generation’s revolutionary movement.Īt the risk of promoting racial essentialism in hip-hop culture, the following is a brief outline of several of the seminal figures in the origins, development, and growth of hip-hop underscores the postmodern quality of the racial dynamics within the culture. Many scholars have referred to hip-hop’s graffiti art as one of the most potent signals of young people’s reclamation of public spaces, which have been utterly privatized in this postmodern era. In addition, in the 1970s there was a drastic reduction of musical and arts programs in public schools, and of funds that supported recreational centers and other public platforms for creative production. Graffiti provided a viable artistic platform for poverty-stricken inner city youth, whose artistic outlets were diminished in most public institutions. However, its development in conjunction with the other foundational elements of hip-hop is striking. Indeed, graffiti can be traced back to ancient times. Graffiti art is the element of the culture that most clearly and singularly predates the genesis of hip-hop. The poets, MCs, and rappers of hip-hop have become the main purveyor of rap music’s dominance on the pop culture landscape. Originally cast as a tangential hype-man for the earliest well-known DJs in hip-hop, the MC has now graduated to the foreground of the culture. The MC is the verbal arbiter of hip-hop culture. Hip-hop music captures and reflects the power of the drum in its dance and music.
The connection between the highly percussive or beat-oriented segments in hiphop music and the power of the drum in African and African-American cultures should not be overlooked or underestimated. The break is that part of a song where the track is stripped down to its most fundamentally percussive elements. B-boys would break during the isolation and looping of break beats at the original hip-hop jams (parties). B-Boying refers to the kinesthetic or body responses to the DJ’s isolation of “break” beats on vinyl records. A brief explanation of these elements underscores their original emergence and sets the stage for the corresponding racial categorizations.ĭJ-ing is the deliberate and technical manipulation of the turntable, ultimately transforming it from a simple musical platform into a full-blown musical instrument with its own arsenal of sounds, such as scratches, temporally manipulated tones, sonic cuts, and samples (short bits of other people’s music). Although rap music and hip hop are often used interchangeably, rap is only one of (at least) four elements of hip hop. The intersection of these components in the West and South Bronx generated the cultural revolution of hip-hop. Each component stands on its own, however, with its own artisans, audiences, and commercial products. These components are DJ-ing/turntablism, B-boying/breaking, MC-ing/rapping, and visual/graffiti art. Most observers identify four foundational elements of hip-hop culture. Hip-hop itself would not exist in its current style without the various and diverse contributions of pioneers and artists from the Caribbean and Latin America, as well as their African American neighbors and counterparts in the Bronx. From hip-hop’s inception, the youth involved in its genesis were from a diverse array of African, Latino, and European origins. Inner-city communities were devastated by the emergent service economy and the shift from domestic manufacturing to overseas outsourcing.Īt the same time, the social and racial environments in which hip-hop developed were multifaceted and have yet to be systematically studied. The economic environment that catalyzed its development reflected the negative effects of a postindustrial society and a rapidly changing economy. Hip-hop emerged in the Bronx, New York, in the early 1970s. From its inception, the relationship between hip-hop and race has been fragmented, decentralized, and, in many ways, fluid. Hip-hop culture has always had a complex relationship with race.
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