Old School Hip Hop History
Hip-hop, or rap music and culture, has its origins in 1970s New York City. Acceptance of hip-hop by radio and television stations in the 1980s elevated several key artists; music historians agree that urban American culture was impacted indelibly by old-school hip-hop musicians.
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Origins
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Hip-hop's beginning in the Bronx was characterized by block parties featuring music, dancing, and graffiti in largely black neighborhoods spawned a new disc-jockey culture.
Founders
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DJ Kool Herc, a Jamaician immigrant to the Bronx, is largely credited with being the founding father of hip-hop. Historian Jeff Chang cites Kool Herc's legendary "block parties," where Herc would play funk and soul records. Afrikka Bambaata started "DJ battles" in the South Bronx around 1976.
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Innovators
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Musicians like the Sugar Hill Gang and Grandmaster Melle Mel showed up at block parties to rap over the music, calling themselves emcees. 'B-Boys' danced and spun on the floor during drum breaks in the records.
Mainstream Acceptance
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Sugar Hill Gang had the first hit rap record in 1979 with "Rappers Delight." Kurtis Blow performed his hit "The Breaks" on Soul Train in 1980. In 1981, the news show 20/20 broadcast the first national television report about hip-hop. In the early to mid-1980s, acts like Run-DMC and Ice-T begin to forge an East Coast-West Coast rivalry.
Old-School Legacy
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Chang explains that old-school hip-hop, rather than being exclusively about black culture, was inclusive of other marginalized urban groups like Latinos. Chang also recognizes that hip-hop today is more of an urban and male-oriented genre.
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