Today marks the 40th anniversary of what many consider the birth of Hip Hop. August 11th, 1973.
It all started in the recreation room of a tower block on 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx, New York City. This was the home of the family of DJ Kool Herc, who held a "Back To School Jam" fundraiser for his little sister.
Disco was the popular music at that time but Herc chose the funkier soul sounds of artists like James Brown and spanned genres to the sound of rock too. However, he played these records a little differently than anyone else. This party, and the ones that followed, witnessed a new style of record playing that would soon become known as Herc's "Merry-Go-Round" technique. Using two copies of the same record, he would take sections from songs that hyped up the crowd the most and double them up to make longer stretches of that particular section.
This would become the backdrop for B-Boys and dancers at parties and started the early guise of the Hip Hop DJ or turntablist. Many DJs followed, honing this craft and it became one of the foundations of Hip Hop, alongside graffiti, emceeing and breaking.
Take a look at this excerpt from the 1983 BBC documentary "Beat This: A Hip Hop History". The narration is quite funny to listen to, as it's all rhymed!
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