History of Hip Hop

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HISTORY OF HIP HOP Hip-Hop emerged in the 1970’s upon the arrival of a one Kool DJ Herc. Kool DJ Herc migrated to the United States from Kingston, Jamaica and settled in the West Bronx of New York. Kool DJ Herc was a disc jockey that attempted to incorporate his Jamaica style of disc jockeying, which involved reciting improvised rhymes over reggae records. Unfortunately for Kool DJ Herc New York seemed uninterested in reggae at that time. This forced Kool DJ Herc to find another appealing sound in order to please his audiences, which he did. Kool DJ Herc adapted a new style, which involved him by chanting over the instrumental or percussion sections of the popular music of the day. He learned that by taking two identical records using an audio mixer, that he could play any segment over and over, there fore extending one segment for entire song (Light, 1999). In the early 1970’s and with the emergence of disc jockeys such as Kool DJ Herc, hip-hop began to spread through urban areas of New York like “wild fire.” Kool DJ Herc, who actually coined the term “hip hop,” began to realize that this was the beginning of a new genre (Light, 1999). As this phenomena evolved the party shouts became more elaborate, d jays began to incorporate little rhymes such as “throw your hands in the air and raise ‘em like you just don’t care.” With regards to Kool DJ Herc, as he progressed eventually turned his attention to the complexities of d-jaying and let two friends Coke La Rock and Clark Kent handle the microphone duties. They became known as Kool DJ Herc and the Herculoids (Brewster and Broughton, 2000). As rap music spread throughout the urban community of New York, many people began to use it as a form of expression that offered unlimited boundaries. There were no set rules, except to be original and to rhyme to the beat of the music. One could rap about the

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