Hip Hop Studies

Early Years

Clive Campbell, known as Deejay Kool Herc, the father of hip hop, and his sister Cindy, the mother of hip hop, organized a back-to-school party in 1972 at which Kool Herc played recordings of [Page 325]soul, funk, and rhythm and blues music on two turntables with amplified speakers by blending the recording playing on one turntable into that of another on the second turntable. Having seen this technique at the dance halls in Jamaica, Herc brought it with him to New York when his family migrated in 1967.

At the same back-to-school party, Coke La Rock, known as the emcee, recited short rhymes and gave shout outs to people present by calling out their names over the music. Posters that advertised the dance organized by Herc and C. Campbell were designed by taggers and writers who are graffiti artists. Because of the success of the first back-to-school party, for Herc's subsequent dances, he added performers such as the twins, Kevin and Keith, to his crew. These break boys or dancers had specific routines with power moves that they performed as specific recordings were played.

Many youth in attendance at Herc's parties studied him and his crew, becoming his participant–observer students and eventually masters of these elements of hip hop. One such person in attendance was Deejay Grandmaster Flash. Recognized as one of the pioneers of hip hop, Grandmaster Flash also studied electronics at Samuel Gompers Vocational High School in the Bronx and is most noted for advancing the use of technology in hip hop culture and for having a crew of emcees, Melle Mel and the Furious Five, who were the first to pronounce each word syllable of a given message over music in time to the musical beat or a portion of each beat, which distinguishes hip hop rhymin,' rappin,' flowin,' and spittin' from other styles of communicating spoken messages over music.

Another pioneer of hip hop attending Herc's parties was Deejay Afrika Bambaataa, who was so interested in hip hop that when Herc announced to gang members that they could not rumble at his parties, Bambaataa, who was the leader of the notorious Black Spades, along with leaders of the other gangs in the South Bronx, called a truce, which is still in effect more than 35 years later. Bambaataa organized the Universal Zulu Nation, currently an international organization of social activism, which organizes community programs that now fight social injustice globally and that preserves the positive principles upon which hip hop culture was initially organized.

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