The hip-hop genre came out of rhythm and blues, funk and soul music. Hip-hop is a type of poetry set to music. And much like Blues, the lyrics are key to the sound.
The story of hip-hop is an amazing example of pure, raw art and creativity. Deprived kids, mainly from the South Bronx in the late 1970s, living on the margin of society, managed to create an art form from limited resources.
An 18 year-old teenage immigrant from Jamaica, Kool Herc, (Clive Campbell), created this sound by experimenting with instrumental breaks of funk, soul, and R&B songs. Herc would buy two copies of the same record, and using two turntables, he’d play them over and over, emphasizing the break section. This technique was known as beats. He is known as the father of Hip Hop, but he is also recognized as the father of modern rap for speaking over records.
Toasting, the Jamaican style of rhythmic speech, was a great influence on him. In Jamaica in the 1960’s they played American rhythm and blues records at blues dances, large dances held in the slums. There they developed Toasting, chanting over a rhythm or beat.
Afrika Bambaataa, was Another great influence on the creation of hip hop. Born Kevin Donovan, he changed his name to Afrika Bambaataa after an ancient Zulu chief. He was a former gang warlord who transformed gangs into crews to battle with words rather than guns.
Another person that was instrumental in the development of hip-hop was Grandmaster Flash. Born, Joseph Saddler, his family migrated from Barbados, and he grew up in the Bronx. As a teenager he studied the styles of Pete Jones, Kool Herc, and Grandmaster Flowers while experimenting with DJ gear in his bedroom. After high school, he became part of the New York DJ scene. He developed three innovative techniques used to this day. With the backspin technique, using several copies of the same record, switching from one turntable to the other, each with the same drum break of the song, he could loop a short drum break on a record indefinitely. With punch phrasing he isolated short pieces of music and then rhythmically punched them over a sustained beat. He also perfected scratching. By using punch phrasing with scratching he was able to create new music instead of just spinning records.
Some of the gangster type negativity associated with hip-hop stems from social issues of prejudice, injustice, and poverty. They are not caused by hip-hop or any type of music. Hip-hop is the art that rose from the negativity. It is the diamond from the dust. The voice of the voiceless. It is art.
In the 1980’s Hip-hop moved into mainstream music in the United states. In the late 1990’s it grew to the best-selling genre of popular music in the United States.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SilverMetronome/
Website: https://silvermetronome.ca/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheZeicko/channels?view_as=public
