Musicfromthecorner.com - History of Hip Hop and Hip Hop Vinyl Records

Hip hop (also spelled hip-hop or hiphop) is both a cultural movement and a genre of music developed in New York City in the 1970s by African Americans. Since first emerging in The Bronx and Harlem, the lifestyle of hip hop culture has today spread around the world.

Hip hop culture includes breakdancing (a street dance style done over funk or hip hop music rhythm breaks), graffiti (also known as 'writing'), rapping, beat-boxing and hip-hop fashion (a style of dress).

When hip hop music developed in the 1970s, it was originally based around DJs who created rhythmic beats by "scratching" with record players, and "rapping" (a rhythmic style of chanting).

In the early 1970s, Clive Campbell, a Jamaican born DJ who went by the name "Kool Herc," arrived in New York City. In Jamaica, Herc was known for his dancehall beats, a key component to the movement of music in NYC and the Bronx. This idea of dancehall had nothing to do with where the music was played, but more of a feeling of getting the people of Kingston, Jamaica to get on their feet and dance. This music, known as reggae, became a staple in the new music made in the Bronx. Herc introduced the Jamaican tradition of toasting, or boasting impromptu poetry and sayings over Reggae, Disco and Funk records, during parties held in parks in the Bronx, New York.

Herc and other DJs would tap into the power lines at public basketball courts to connect their equipment and perform. Their equipment was composed of huge stacks of speakers, turntables, and one or more microphones. Herc was also the developer of break-beat deejaying, where the breaks of funk songs’Äîthe part most suited to dance, often featuring percussion’Äîwere isolated and repeated for the purpose of all-night dance parties.

Later DJs such as Grandmaster Flash refined and developed the use of breakbeats, including cutting. The Bronx building "where hip hop was born" is 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, where Kool Herc started spinning records, and is now eligible to be listed on the national and state register of historic sites. The approach used by Herc was soon widely copied, and by the late 1970s DJs were releasing 12" records where they would rap to the beat. Popular tunes included Kurtis Blow's "The Breaks", and The Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight."

Beginning in the 1970s, DJs such as Kool DJ Herc, Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash created rhythmic sounds and music by touching and moving records on phonograph turntables while using a DJ mixer. Rhythms were also created just by using the human body, using the vocal percussion technique of beatboxing. Early 1980s pioneers such as Doug E. Fresh, Biz Markie, and Buffy from the Fat Boys made beats, rhythm, and musical sounds using their mouth, lips, tongue, voice, and other body parts. As well, they would sing or imitate turntablism scratching or other instrument sounds.

Emceeing is the rhythmic spoken delivery of rhymes and wordplay, delivered over a beat or without accompaniment. Rapping occupies a gray area among speech, prose, poetry, and song. Rap is derived from the griots (folk poets) of West Africa, and Caribbean-style toasting. Rapping developed both inside and outside of hip hop culture, and began with the street parties thrown in the Bronx neighborhood of New York in the 1970s by Kool Herc and others.

In the 1970s, rapping developed, as MCs would talk over the music to promote their DJ, promote other dance parties, or take light-hearted jabs at other lyricists. This soon developed into the rapping that appears on earlier basic hip-hop singles, with MCs talking about problems in their areas and issues facing the community as a whole. Melle Mel, a rapper/lyricist with The Furious Five is often credited with being the first rap lyricist to call himself an "MC".

By the late 1970s, myriad DJs were releasing 12" cuts where MCs would rap to crowd-moving beats. Popular tunes included Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five's "Supperrappin'," Kurtis Blow's "The Breaks," and The Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight". In 1982, Melle Mel and Duke Bootee recorded "The Message" (officially credited to Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five), a song that foreshadowed socially conscious hip hop.

Hip hop as a culture was further defined in 1983, when Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force released a track called "Planet Rock." Instead of simply rapping over disco beats, Bambaataa created an innovative electronic sound, taking advantage of the rapidly improving drum machine and synthesizer technology. The appearance of music videos changed entertainment: they often glorified urban neighborhoods, commonly called ghettos. The music video for Planet Rock showcased the subculture of hip hop musicians, graffiti artists and breakdancers. Many hip hop-related films were released between 1983 and 1985, among them Wild Style, Beat Street, Krush Groove, Breakin, and the documentary Style Wars.

These films expanded the appeal of hip hop beyond the boundaries of New York. By 1985, youth worldwide were laying down scrap linoleum or cardboard, setting down portable "boombox" stereos and spinning on their backs in Adidas tracksuits and sneakers to music by Run DMC, LL Cool J, the Fat Boys, Herbie Hancock, EPMD, Soulsonic Force, Jazzy Jay, Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, and Stetsasonic, just to name a few. The hip hop artwork and "slang" of US urban communities quickly found its way to Europe and Asia, as the culture's global appeal took root.

This musical genre became further popularized when, in the early 1990s, Spanish language and Latin musical styles developed as integral features of hip hop. Although Puerto Ricans had been involved in hip hop culture since its beginnings in the 1970's,the emergence of popular Latin performers such as Kid Frost, Mellow Man Ace, Gerardo, and El General allowed for the international expansion of the music throughout Latin America.

Early hip hop has often been credited with helping to reduce inner-city gang violence by replacing physical violence with hip hop battles of dance and artwork. However, with the emergence of commercial and crime-related rap during the early 1990s, an emphasis on violence was incorporated, with many rappers boasting about drugs, weapons, misogyny, and violence. While hip hop music now appeals to a broader demographic, media critics argue that socially and politically conscious hip hop has long been disregarded by mainstream America in favor of gangsta rap.

Though created in the United States by African Americans and Latinos, hip hop culture and music is now global in scope. Youth culture and opinion is meted out in both Israeli hip hop and Palestinian hip hop, while France, Germany, the U.K., Brazil, Japan, Africa, and the Caribbean have long-established hip hop followings. According to the U.S. Department of State, hip hop is "now the center of a mega music and fashion industry around the world," that crosses social barriers and cuts across racial lines. National Geographic recognizes hip hop as "the world's favorite youth culture" in which "just about every country on the planet seems to have developed its own local rap scene."

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