Hip hop’s roots lie in street culture and it has since influenced fashion choices, dance moves and graffiti art that make a statement about this movement. Furthermore, it has had an effect on music genres like pop and rap rock which continue to benefit from hip hop’s influence.
The 1980s marked an essential era in hip hop’s development. Run-D.M.C and LL Cool J were instrumental in popularizing its style nationwide while Public Enemy explored new lyrical content horizons.
DJ Kool Herc
Hip hop is an international cultural movement composed of four elements: rapping, graffiti painting, break dancing (B-boying) and deejaying. DJ Kool Herc has long been considered the founder and father of hip-hop; his rise from mid 1970s Bronx music scene that would later be known as hip hop is often cited. Herc was Jamaican American disc jockey (DJ), his parties played an essential part in shaping what would later become hip hop culture.
Clive Campbell, better known by his nickname of Herc, grew up listening to an array of genres of music influenced by Jamaican and American styles including soul, rock, funk and reggae as well as jazz and gospel from both sources. Utilizing his father’s large sound system for block parties in West Bronx.
At these parties, Herc introduced dancers to artists and songs they hadn’t experienced before, using an innovative technique he developed for distilling music down to its rhythmic elements; dancers found they were most energized during instrumental sections. Drawing inspiration from Jamaican toasting tradition, Herc used his microphone to rally his audience through rhymed exhortations using rhymed exhortations on rhymed exhortations he coined: break boys/break girls which eventually lead hip-hop’s evolution of MCing/MCing roles today.
Herc kicked off his DJing career at his sister’s birthday celebration in 1973 with the “merry-go-round.” To do so, he used two copies of each record to loop its break parts, creating an endlessly repeating rhythm that drove dancers wild. Additionally, Herc employed Jamaican toasting techniques in order to maintain peace during events hosted by him.
Herc’s impact on hip hop cannot be overstated; his parties inspired a generation of DJs and MCs – including Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaata – whose parties helped lay the groundwork for what became mainstream hip-hop today. Without them, hip hop would not exist today.
The Sugarhill Gang
Sugarhill Gang are widely considered one of the pioneering Hip Hop groups, having reached star status with their 1979 single “Rapper’s Delight”, which charted on Billboard Hot 100 chart and became a significant milestone in rap music history. Although their group only produced one hit wonder record, their legacy lives on.
Hip hop first emerged during a period of economic hardship and violence for black Americans, in the early 1970s. Emerging from block parties and underground clubs, its key components included music, culture and rough-hewn joy. DJ Kool Herc is widely credited with beginning this movement at an August 1973 dance party by using twin turntables to isolate and extend percussion breaks (the most danceable sections of a song). His groundbreaking techniques filled the floor and ignited what would soon become one of America’s greatest musical revolutions.
In 1979, The Sugar Hill Gang was established in Englewood, New Jersey by producer Sylvia Robinson of Mickey & Sylvia fame. Robinson recruited Michael Wright, Guy O’Brien, and Henry Jackson into this trio that would eventually bear her label’s name after Sugar Hill neighborhood in Harlem – hence the group name and label’s identity as Sugar Hill Gang.
Sugarhill Gang was one of the first rap groups to achieve commercial success despite not possessing any musical training, setting an example for other rappers who later followed in their footsteps and saw similar success. Their efforts also brought hip hop music to a wider audience and altered society’s views of it.
Sugarhill Gang’s style of rap was heavily influenced by Jazz and African American traditions of spoken word poetry, where artists would combine rhythm, cadence, vocal inflection, tone and poetic elements into what would eventually become hip hop music. Today this genre of music has grown into a multi billion dollar industry and many rappers of today give credit to The Sugarhill Gang for creating it.
Dr. Dre
Dr. Dre is one of the most significant figures in hip hop music history, famed for producing Eminem albums as well as helping to launch several other rappers’ careers. Born Andre Romelle Young to musical parents (both singers), he began rapping early and was greatly influenced by other rappers including Cold 187um from Above the Law who is often credited as creating G-Funk.
Dr. Dre’s debut hit album was 1992’s The Chronic, for which he won a Grammy Award. Two more awards followed for his work on Eminem albums; Dre also released several other successful works such as Compton in 1995 which highlighted street life struggles; subsequent to this he was arrested and eventually served a jail term on assault charges.
Sugarhill Gang was another influential group that helped shape hip hop music. Their 1979 single Rapper’s Delight, was the first time hip hop was used as an umbrella term; using jazz and spoken word poetry–a form popular in African American culture at that time–a song used rhytmic cadence, rhythmical inflections and tones to convey a message.
It was a powerful statement about urban America and helped spark a movement to remove barriers that divided people, regardless of background. Furthermore, hip hop artists connect through style and technique as an umbrella movement to provide intellectual support for its ideas.
In the 1980s, synthesizers and drum machines became more affordable, making it easier for musicians to create their own beats. Roland TR-808 drum machines became standard for hip hop music due to their bass drum sounds; rappers could create custom beats instead of using prerecorded breaks from DJs.
In the late 80s and 90s, hip hop witnessed another revolution. Run-DMC became famous by elevating MCs into prominence while The Beastie Boys pioneered digital sampling techniques; then artists like LL Cool J and Public Enemy introduced romance themes while furthering political ideologies through hip hop rap music.
The Four Pillars of Hip-Hop
Hip hop culture emerged through a combination of four elements: rapping, DJing, breakdancing and graffiti art. Deejaying (also known as turntabling) was first popularized among urban youth by DJ Kool Herc in New York City during the 1970s using enormous sound systems to bring Jamaican music directly to inner-city parties and two turntables to fuse percussive fragments from older records with drum tracks from popular dance songs while isolating and extending break beats (where all but drums stop playing), stimulating spontaneous dancing improvised moves from urban youth.
Rapping, which emerged from spoken word poetry popular in African American communities, combines musical elements like rhythm, cadence and vocal inflection with poetic elements like rhyme and metaphor to produce its distinctive style of rapping. Early artists like Gil Scott-Heron used microphones as powerful vehicles for conveying social commentary and protest.
Sugarhill Gang’s song Rapper’s Delight made an impactful entry on the charts in 1979 and brought commercial recognition to MCs at that time. By this time, hip hop had become an international phenomenon and its work-with-what-you’ve-got philosophy had spread internationally and impacted music styles, fashion trends, technologies, entertainment venues, dance performances, education systems, politics and media worldwide.
Hip hop culture includes many integral components that define its culture, such as breakdancing. Breakdancing was initially used to express personal freedom and self-expression; today it’s considered an athletic form influenced by martial arts like Jiu Jitsu as well as street dance styles from African American communities.
Graffiti art emerged at the same time as rapping and breakdancing, emerging out of an urban art scene that included murals and posters created for public viewing. With its unconventional color-outside-the-lines style that seamlessly fit the energetic hip hop environment.
In the 1980s, gangsta rap gained immense popularity, inspiring rappers such as Master P, 50 Cent, T.I. and Lauryn Hill while conscious hip hop continued with acts like the Fugees, A Tribe Called Quest and Lauryn Hill. By the 1990s, however, East-West rivalries within hip hop had become an active source of conflict and tragedy. Meanwhile, mainstream popularity was being gained by Run-D.M.C, LL Cool J and Public Enemy who all gained worldwide popularity within their genre.