The Beginnings of Hip Hop Music
Hip hop music emerged in the scene as the younger generations during the 1980’s were looking for a style to replace rockers or rock stars, which they generally perceived as an archaic symbol of music, since rock and roll had already been around for virtually three decades.
A Jamaican Ancestry
Hip hop music, believe it or not, doesn’t have completely American beginnings. Even more surprising for many, the first DJs in the United States aren’t American as well but Jamaican. Many of the first generation of DJs had also been the first rappers of the country as well. They were mostly American and practiced toasting, which is a reggae art form that used instrumental sections of a song as background for spoken rhymed lyrics. These Jamaican artists often carried their own boom boxes or sound systems when performing in front live crowds.
In 1975, one of such artists, Clive “Hercules” Campbell, who is also popularly called “Kool Herc”, introduced the use of dual turntables for making music. The turntables were often used during instrumental breaks or breakbeats.
Theodore Livingstone, also another Bronx resident like Campbell, is one more pioneer in the history of hip hop music when he unintentionally discovered the “skratching” noise created by turntables.
Rapping
Rapping eventually developed from Jamaican music and emerged from the poor neighborhoods of New York suburbs such as Bronx, Harlem, Queens, and Brooklyn. After pre-recording a foundational base or beat composed of horn and percussion instruments, rappers would start their performance. Before full-fledged performers, disc jockeys used rapping when talking about a particular song or to enliven the crowd.
As Campbell began to rise in fame and the art of rapping became more popular, younger fans soon began to merge hip hop music with a new style of dance inspired by music of James Brown. This would be the beginning of hip hop dance or breaking in particular.
After some time, hip hop music inspired another art form, this time visual in nature. Graffiti, which is akin to artistic vandalism, began to be more noticeable. Although graffiti had already emerged as early as the 1990’s, a different style had been made popular by hip hop and commonly seen in subways. Some of the graffiti artists during those times are now professionals in their own right, including Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
First Feats for Records
Rapper’s Delight was the first hip hop music record, which was produced by Sugar Hill Gang. It was The Breaks by Kurtis “Blow” Walker, however, that was the first hip hop or rap single to reach certified gold status.
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