With hip-hop’s 50th anniversary soon approaching, we’re delving into some history since its West Bronx inception in 1973. It eventually morphed to become a global phenomenon, affecting various aspects of society culturally, economically, educationally, politically, socially, and theologically. Kool DJ Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, and Grandmaster Flash, known as “The Hip-Hop Trinity,” are recognized as its founders.
Beginning as a way for local African Americans and Caribbean Americans to express themselves artistically, hip-hop incorporated DJ-in’, MC-in’, B-Boyin’/B-Girlin’ (break dancin’), graffiti, and the “knowledge, wisdom, and overstanding”’ as “Hip-Hop’s 5 Elements.” Area youths were urged to invest time in developing their talents and using them to unite and better their communities, rather than combating each other in the streets.
“Hip-hop is Afro-indigenous culture, which has existed since the beginning of time,” contended Paradise Gray, chief curator of the Universal Hip-Hop Museum. “The oratory history of rappin’ goes through the deep cultural knowledge that we’ve had.”
He also mentioned several preceding influences, such as the Black Spades and other street organizations, the Black Power and Civil Rights Movements, and the Last Poets and Watts Prophets.
By the end of the 1970s, the culture became known as “hip-hop,” a name credited to MCs Lovebug Starski and Keef Cowboy from Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five.
“I picked up the mic and just started saying ‘a hip-hop, hip hop, de hibbyhibbyhibbyhibby hop.’ The people couldn’t believe it, but it stuck,” Starski explained during a 1986 interview with The Observer.
In 1979, the Sugar Hill Gang released their single “Rapper’s Delight,” recognized as the first rap record, which opens: “I said-a hip, hop, the hippie, the hippie, to the hip hip hop-a ya do’’t stop the rock it to the bang-bang boogie, say up jump the boogie to the rhythm of the boogie, the beat.”
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Also that year, the “World Famous Supreme Team Show”’ began broadcasting over Newark’s WHBI 105.9FM’s airwaves. This was the first radio program anywhere featuring an exclusive hip-hop playlist, and they broke many new rap recordings on-air. Mr. Magic and DJ Marley Marl were featured on their show, and later hosted “Mr. Magic’s Rap Attack”’ on WBLS 107.5FM, starting in the summer of 1982. DJ Chick Chillout and Kool DJ Red Alert started their mix-shows on WKRS 98.7FM shortly thereafter.
While on the air, they used street slang from their ’hoods, which was swiftly changing the lexicon in the metropolitan area and beyond. “Hoods” were renamed as “Money Makin’ Manhattan; the boogie-down Bronx; Do or Die Bed-Stuy; and Never ran, never will, Brownsville,” for example.
“Brothers and sisters in the military, or who went away to school, took those cassettes with them around the world,” Paradise said.
Harlem’s Kurtis Blow was the first hip-hop artist to sign a major record contract, releasing his self-titled album on Mercury Records in autumn 1980. Throughout the rest of the decade, many local artists signed record deals and began touring cross-country, as well as overseas, selling millions of records. due to the prominence of on-air music video programs, many people outside New York got a glimpse of inner-city life and began to imitate their fashions and vernacular, and the theology of the Nation of Islam, Five Percenters, and Zulu Nation became more widespread.
During his May 16 1983 performance at “Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever,” popstar Michael Jackson introduced multi-millions of viewers to the moonwalk.
These events helped popularize hip-hop to a broader audience.
“Hip-hop is a cultural depository of a unified people whose origins are Afro-indigenous,” Paradise said. “It’s what the Creator gave us to bring the whole human family back together.”
By the mid-1990s, many cities nationwide had exclusive hip-hop programs on their airwaves.
Several local events are scheduled for this August 11 in commemoration of hip-hop’s 50th anniversary, including a grand one at its birthplace, 1520 Sedgewick Ave.
Next week, Part 2.