HIP-HOP-HISTORY
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| GRANDMASTER FLASH |
Hip hop as music and culture formed during the 1970(s) when block parties became increasingly popular in New York City, particularly among African American youth residing in the Bronx. Block parties incorporated DJs who played popular genres of music, especially funk and soul music. Due to the positive reception, DJs began isolating the percussive breaks of popular songs.
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| DJ KOOL HERC |
This technique was then common in Jamaican dub music, and was largely introduced into New York by immigrants from Jamaica and elsewhere in the Caribbean, including DJ Kool Herc, who is generally considered the father of hip hop. Because the percussive breaks in funk, soul and disco records were generally short, Herc and other DJs began using two turntables to extend the breaks. Turntablist techniques such as scratching (attributed to Grand Wizzard Theodore), beat mixing and/or matching, and beat juggling eventually developed along with the breaks, creating a base that could be rapped over, in a manner similar to signifying, as well as the art of toasting, another influence found in Jamaican dub music. Hip hop music in its infancy has been described as an outlet and a “voice” for the disenfranchised youth of low-economic areas, as the culture reflected the social, economic and political realities of their lives. Creation of the term hip hop is often credited to Keith
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| COWBOY |
Cowboy, rapper with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. However, Lovebug Starski, Keith Cowboy, and DJ Hollywood used the term when the music was still known as disco rap. It is believed that Cowboy created the term while teasing a friend who had just joined the U.S. Army, by scat singing the words “hip/hop/hip/hop” in a way that mimicked the rhythmic cadence of marching soldiers. Cowboy later worked the “hip hop” cadence into a part of his stage performance, which was quickly used by other artists such as The Sugarhill Gang in “Rapper’s Delight”. Universal Zulu Nation founder Afrika Bambaataa is credited with first using the term to describe the subculture in which the music belonged; although it is also suggested that it was a derogatory term to describe the type of music. The first use of the term in print was in The Village Voice, by Steven Hager, later author of a 1984 history of hip hop.
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| Steven Hager |
