Hip-hop Timeline ➢ 1973 – Kool Herc deejays his first party in the Bronx, where his blending of breaks is first exhibited. The break dancers in attendance began to discover their style and form. ➢ 1975 – Grandmaster Flash begins the early forms of Turntabilism by blending and mixing, while Grandwizard Theodore invents what we now know as scratching. The first Emcee crews are formed. ➢ 1979 – The Sugarhill Gang, under the guidance of record label owner and former vocalist Sylvia Robinson, release Rapper’s Delight, the first commercially recognized rap song. *There is much debate over the first recorded rap song, but it’s widely believed to have been done sometime in 1977 or 1978. ➢ 1980 – Kurtis Blow releases the first best selling hip-hop album, The Breaks, and becomes the first star in hip-hop music. ➢ 1983 – Herbie Hancock, in collaboration with pioneer DeeJay GrandMixer DST (now known as GrandMixer DXT), creates the Grammy Award-winning song Rockit, which is the first time the public ever hears a DeeJay scratching on record. Pioneer hip-hop duo Run DMC releases their first single Sucker Emcee’s. ➢ 1988 – This year is considered the first golden year in hip-hop music with releases such as Public Enemy’s It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, Big Daddy Kane’s Long Live The Kane, Slick Rick’s The Great Adventures of Slick Rick, Boogie Down Production’s By All Means Necessary, Eric B And Rakim’s Follow the Leader and the first highly regarded non-New York hip-hop record, N.W.A.’s Straight Outta Compton. 1988 is remembered as an especially productive and creative year in hip-hop music. ➢ 1993 – This is a transitional year, the “end of the golden era” marked by A Tribe Called Quest’s Midnight Marauders. Wu-Tang Clan’s Enter the 36 Chambers, created a new sound and style that would carry through the 90’s. Salt–N–Pepa’s Very Necessary thrust women into the forefront of hip-hop music. ➢ 1994 – This was considered by many to be one of the greatest and most diverse years in hip-hop music. Albums such as NaS’s Illmatic and Notorious B.I.G’s Ready To Die are commercial and cultural phenomena, while the “underground” sounds begin to form with albums like Saafir’s Boxar Sessions and Jeru The Damaja’s The Sun Rises In The East. ➢ 1997 – The independent movement in hip-hop begins with groups like Company Flow and their album Funcrusher Plus. A year later, the hip-hop collective Heiroglyphics released their important independent album 3rd Eye Vision. Hip-hop also became commercially viable and began to dominate the airwaves. ➢ 2000 and Beyond – Hip-hop is now a global phenomenon. Every year a significant moment happens in hip-hop culture. The branches are now wide and spreading like wildfire as hip-hop shows us it is here to stay.