The Rise of the Hip-Hop DJ 1 74 The Rise of The Hip-hop DJ DJs were Hip-hop’s original architects, and remain crucial to its contin- ued development. Hip-hop is more than a style of music; it’s a culture. As with any culture, there are various artistic expressions of Hip-hop, the four principal expressions being: • visual art (graffiti) • dance (breaking, rocking, locking, and popping, collectively known in the media as “break dancing”) • literature (rap lyrics and slam poetry) • music (DJing and turntablism) Unlike the European Renaissance or the Ming Dynasty, Hip-hop is a culture that is very much alive and still evolving. Some argue that Hip-hop is the most influential cultural movement in history, point- ing to the globalization of Hip-hop music, fashion, and other forms of expression. Style has always been at the forefront of Hip-hop. Improvisation is called free styling, whether in rap, turntablism, breaking, or graf- fiti writing. Since everyone is using the essentially same tools (spray paint for graffiti writers, microphones for rappers and beat boxers, their bodies for dancers, and two turntables with a mixer for DJs), it’s the artists’ personal styles that set them apart. It’s no coincidence that two of the most authentic movies about the genesis of the move- ment are titled Wild Style and Style Wars. There are also many styles of writing the word “Hip-hop.” The mainstream media most often oscillates between “hip-hop” and “hip hop.” The Hiphop Archive at Harvard writes “Hiphop” as one word, 2 DJ Skills The Rise of the Hip-Hop DJ 3 with a capital H, embracing KRS-ONE’s line of reasoning that “Hiphop Kool DJ Herc is a culture with its own foundation narrative, history, natives, and 7 In 1955 in Jamaica, a young woman from the parish of Saint Mary mission.” After a great deal of input from many people in the Hip-hop community, I’ve decided to capitalize the word but keep the hyphen, gave birth to a son who would become the father of Hip-hop. As a to show both respect and deference to decades of tradition. child, Clive Campbell was inspired by local Jamaican DJs, who would set up their massive sound systems for outdoor parties in the open Background spaces (called “lawns”) around Kingston, and enhance the dance by toasting on the mic over the instrumental sections of the records 7 To understand any culture, it’s helpful to look at the political and eco- they played. nomic factors that faced the civilization that created it. Top Jamaican DJs were fiercely competitive with each other. The In 1945, Robert Moses, an autocratic New York state municipal of- size of their sound system and freshness of their records was espe- ficial, proposed the Cross Bronx Expressway. His plan would displace cially important. DJs would name their sound systems. Duke Reid’s tens of thousands of lower income families and necessitate the build- was “the Trojan,” while Prince Buster put together “the Supertown” ing of massive housing projects to replace existing tenements. sound system. “I dare say that only a man like Mr. Moses would have the audacity In order to play records no one else had, Jamaican DJs made re- to believe that one could push (the expressway) from one end of the cord buying trips to the U.S. Eventually, the major Jamaican DJs raced Bronx to the other,” expressway designer Ernest Clark in an inter- to become record producers. They recorded local talent to have ex- viewer from the PBS series The American Experience. clusive, danceable tracks to feed their sound systems, which led di- rectly to the development of ska, rock steady, reggae, and dub music. In the ’50s and early ’60s, scores of Bronx neighborhoods were leveled While young Clive Campbell was especially fond of records by to build the eight-and-a-half mile stretch of highway, which to some the Godfather of Soul, American R&B singer James Brown, Clive’s Ja- became the symbol of “white flight” from the city to upscale suburbs maican roots shaped his concept of the role of the DJ and how to in Westchester County and Connecticut. During Governor Rockefell- rock a party. er’s administration, the imperious Moses was finally ousted from his Immigrating to the Bronx in 1967 when he was twelve years old, state job, but the events he had set in motion were irreversible. Clive was growing up tall. At Alfred E. Smith High School, he spent a The Bronx became an area of destroyed communities, abandoned lot of time in the weight room, which earned him the nickname of buildings, piles of rubble, and austere new high-rise housing projects Hercules. Like a lot of his friends, Hercules was a graffiti writer, running surrounded by asphalt basketball courts and chain-link fences. with a crew called “the Ex-Vandals.” They were also getting into rock- ing, but the DJs playing the parties were not catering to this explo- Tough economic times in the ’70s put New York City on a restrictive sive new energy on the dance floor the way he and his young friends budget that had little money for social programs, and no money for thought that they should. Hercules knew he could do better. music or art in inner-city schools. One could argue that the first Hip-hop events happened in the com- Gangs clashed with police and each other. The job of survival made munity center of Clive’s building, 1520 Sedgwick Avenue. concepts like art and civic pride seem a luxury. In the excellent small book, The Rough Guide to Hip-hop, Peter Taking on the DJ name of Kool Herc, Clive charged the guys 50 cents, Shapiro contends: and the ladies 25. Herc’s impressive presence (and mutually respectful relationship with gang members) helped keep order, and his choice The first generation of post-CBE (Cross Bronx Expressway) children of music helped draw the crowds. in the Bronx was the first group to try to piece together bits from At first, Herc was playing through “PA columns and guitar amps,” this urban scrap heap. Like carrion crows and hunter-gatherers, but he quickly plowed his earnings into building up a massive sound they picked through the debris and created their own sense of com- system capable of bone-rattling bass. The Jamaican DJs he remem- munity and found vehicles for self-expression from cultural ready- bered from his childhood all named their sound systems, and Herc mades, throwaways, and aerosol cans. dubbed his “the Herculords system.” Another Jamaican influence was his work on the microphone. All they needed was a leader, and they found Hercules. Herc would give shout-outs to his friends in the audience and extol 4 DJ Skills The Rise of the Hip-Hop DJ 5 the virtues of his sound system, often in rhyme (à la Jamaican toasting The crowds were large and young. There were no movie theatres style) over the instrumental portions of the records he was spinning. in the projects, cable TV and video games were still years away. Eventually, Herc turned his attention to increasingly complex manipulations on the turntables, and let his friends Coke La Rock and In many ways, the birth of Hip-hop was the beginning of a ghetto Clark Kent take over on the mic. They became known collectively as Renaissance. “Kool Herc and the Herculoids,” and were probably Hip-hop’s first DJ/ The term “Renaissance man” depicts someone who is into many MC crew. disciplines; its equivalent in Hip-hop culture is the “B-boy.” Often used One turntable technique Herc pioneered was the practice of ex- to describe a virtuoso dancer, the “B” can stand for “beat” or “Bronx,” tending “breaks.” The break was the part of the record when every- and often depicts someone skilled in multiple expressions of Hip- thing dropped out except for the drums and percussion, and some- hop: graffiti, breaking, beat boxing (the act of emulating a drumbeat times the bass. This section was usually only four to sixteen bars in with your mouth), rapping, etc. length, but it made the best part of the record to rhyme over, and the B-boys and B-girls (the name bestowed upon the virtuoso dancers, Afrika Bambaataa also known as “breakers”) would save their best, most crowd-pleasing 7 Impressed by Kool Herc’s block parties, young Afrika Bambaataa saw moves for the break. Herc got the B-boys off the sidelines and became their favorite the potential of turning this burgeoning scene into a positive force DJ by playing just the breaks (or breakbeats) of the records, instead with an international scope. He and his friends started to throw par- of the entire record. The “Clap your hands, stomp your feet” section of ties at the Bronx River Community Center, dragging their home ste- James Brown’s “Give It Up or Turn It Loose,” was one such favorite, as reos in to DJ for the gatherings. Setting up on opposite sides of the was the drum part on “Apache,” by the Incredible Bongo Band. room, Bambaataa and his friends would signal each other with flash- lights as their records were ending, so they could keep the music go- Herc explained that he would go right to the “yolk” of the record, ing non-stop like DJ Kool Herc. leaving off all anticipation and just playing the beats. Bambaataa was a born organizer. He was also a member of the Black Spades, one of New York City’s notorious street gangs.