Hip-Hop

Hip-Hop's Early Moments

Whether it was breakdancing, graffiti, rapping, or deejaying, hip-hop culture emerged from years of inner-city violence, unemployment, police brutality, and draconian depictions of inner-city residents. In sum, hip-hop culture was the result of a general state of benign neglect.

The individual typically credited with initiating what later became known as hip-hop culture, is Clive Campbell, better known as DJ Kool Herc. He created a new sound, influenced profoundly by Jamaican sound systems and dub music that overwhelmed listeners in New York City parks, recreational centers, and clubs. Using two turntables, he created extended versions of instrumental recordings, and isolated various instrumental portions of popular songs, what he later called the “breaks.” Further, Herc popularized “scratching,” a sound created by running the record needle across a particular groove at varying speeds. As deejaying became more popular, with the technical advances of Kool Herc and others, MCs, currently known as rappers, became fixtures at hip-hop events. Of all the elements, rap music is presently the form to have had consistent and large-scale commercial success. In addition, breakdancing developed simultaneously with deejaying, while graffiti, the first of the four elements to have developed, consists of an elaborate artistic style using spray paint to eventually cover private and public space with names (i.e., tags) and complex murals (i.e., pieces). Trains, subway cars, and overpasses have been especially popular canvases for graffiti writers because of their exposure to the viewing public. Although these four elements represent the foundation of hip-hop culture worldwide, new forms integral to contemporary forms of hip-hop have developed. These include spoken-word poetry, literature, cinema, language, fashion, business, and knowledge.

As hip-hop culture grew, it was still limited to mostly inner-city neighborhoods and was largely void of any form of politics, with the exception of the Universal Zulu Nation. In 1973, Afrika Bambaataa established in the South Bronx the Zulu Nation, a collective of hip-hop deejays, rappers, breakdancers, and graffiti writers. The Zulu Nation, which stands for knowledge, wisdom, understanding, freedom, justice, peace, unity, love, work, and fun, created an alternative to gang life and violence. In other words, Bambaataa and others sought to steer estranged youth away from nihilistic practices by cultivating and celebrating the four elements of hip-hop culture. To this end, hip-hop became a powerful tool for individual consciousness raising and collective self-determination. In his hit song “Planet Rock,” Bambaataa envisioned a world that transcended racial, ethnic, economic, gender, and political problems. “Planet Rock” was a call for global peace, cosmopolitanism, and conviviality. For Bambaataa, hip-hop was an awareness movement.

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