Editor Amanda Sweeney explores one of the biggest cultural movements in music history and salutes its ancestors.
FOR THE LOVE OF HIP HOP
FEATURE
Editor Amanda Sweeney explores one of the biggest cultural movements in music history and salutes its ancestors.
Hip hop has grown over the years and been claimed by many nations but its roots are well and truly in the South Bronx, NY. In the 1970 ' s hip hop was born on the streets and quickly became the sound of the people. It was more than music, it was art. It grew from block parties, where the Ghetto Brothers would plug amplifiers into the lampposts on 163rd Street and Prospect Avenue, using music to break down racial barriers. DJ ' s would sample tracks from all genres of music creating vibrant mixes. DJ Kool Herc, dubbed the ' father ' of hip hop was one of the first to do this, adding shout outs to the community as he played. Break-dancing, emceeing and graffiti art grew with the movement making these three elements the life lines of hip hop ' s roots.
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five have been credited with coining the term ' hip hop ' after making fun of a friend who had joined the army. They ' d chant ' hip hop hip hop ' to mimic the marching of soldiers. Later this term was used in their stage shows and after they released a number of collaborations with disco artists, the main sound of the time, they became known as ' hip hoppers '. The term was meant as an insult but soon became a title for this fresh new movement.
Hip hop music has always been a powerful medium for protesting the law and many used the art form to express their distrust of the establishment, often calling out police brutality and racism. Street gangs were prevalent in the poverty of the South Bronx. Much of the graffiti, rapping, and b-boying at these block parties were all artistic variations on the competition and one-upmanship of street gangs. Sensing that gang members ' often violent urges could be turned into creative ones, Afrika Bambaataa founded the Zulu Nation, a loose confederation of street-dance crews, graffiti artists and rap musicians. Zulu Nation, now in its 44th year, strongly promote that hip hop was created to provide ' peace, love, unity and having fun ' for those in the ghetto and eventually onward to all those supportive of the culture.
The New York City blackout of 1977 saw widespread looting and arson, with a number of looters stealing DJ equipment from electronics stores. As a result, the hip hop genre, barely known outside of the Bronx at the time, grew at an astounding rate from 1977 onward.
In 1979 The Sugarhill Gang used the term in the opening line
25