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Hip Hop is a culture consisting of 4 elements which are based on creativity:

• B-Boying stands for the dance

• MCing for the lyrical

• DJing for the musical

• Graffiti for the graphical expression


Hip Hop can't be consumed; it has to be lived, not by buying expensive clothes, but by improving skills in one or more of the elements day by day. Hip Hop started in the middle of the 70’s in the Bronx in New York City (USA). The basic idea of this culture was that there should be a war with creativity, not with weapons, a battle of different and better styles to turn the senseless violence into productive energy.

History of Hip Hop

The origin and the roots of the Hip Hop culture are located in the South Bronx, New York City (USA). This borough experienced radical changes during the 60’s because of bad urban construction planning (e.g. building an expressway through the heart of the Bronx, building of huge apartment complexes). The middle class consisting of Italian, German, Irish and Jewish families moved away because of the decreasing quality of life. Instead, more and more poor Afro-American and Hispanic families settled down. Because of the augmented poverty the problems caused by crime, drugs and unemployment increased.
In the year 1968, seven teenagers who named themselves the Savage Seven started to terrorize their neighborhood, and with their activities they laid the groundwork for something that dominated the Bronx during the next 6 years, street gangs. Within a short time gangs appeared on every street corner and names like The Black Spades, Savage Skulls, Seven Immortals, Seven Crowns, Savage Nomads, Ching Alings, Black Skulls, Latin Kings, Young Lords and many others arose out of the Savage Seven. Because of the increasing number of members they could be seen everywhere.
After the gang activities reached their top in 1973, they died out one after the other. The reason for this turn can be found on different levels. On one side gangs got rotten out by other gangs, they got involved in the drug misery or got so big that their members didn't want to be involved anymore. On the other side, times were changing in general and people of the 70’s went to block-parties and clubs and loved the music and the dance more and more. The main reason that gangs decreased was because more and more people got involved in the Hip Hop culture and found a new activity. The basic idea of the Hip Hop culture was, and still is, to compete with creativity in one of the 4 elements and not with violence.
The driving force of all these activities within the 4 elements was to break out of the anonymity, to get heard and seen, and to spread one’s name. If somebody wanted to improve his skills he had no time left for doing bad things. He had to put all his energy into the Hip Hop culture, and with that he helped to bring it further, to the next level. He helped to develop its elements more and more, and he also inspired other heads.
Kool Herc is known all over and respected as the "father" of the Hip Hop culture, as he contributed a lot to its birth and development. Born in Jamaica he immigrated in 1967 at the age of 12 from Kingston, and he brought his knowledge about the Jamaican sound system scene and the "toasting" to the Bronx. Clive Campell, as Kool Herc is really named, was called "Hercules" by his fellow pupils in High School because of his physical appearance. He didn't like this nickname and took a shortcut to Herc. When he started to write he used the tag name Kool Herc. Around 1973 he attracted more and more attention as a DJ in his neighborhood. In the beginning he used his father’s sound equipment, but soon after he extended his equipment and his followers continuously. Besides numerous gigs at block parties, parties in parks and schoolyards, soon after he also got gigs in famous clubs like the Twilight Zone and the T-Connection.
The first reason for his success and for making people dance was because he followed the sound system philosophy of his homeland that the system had to be bigger, heavier and louder than all others. The second reason, and probably the most important, he created and developed a revolutionary technique to spin the records.
He never played the whole funk song but only the part which made people freak out the most, the break. This is the part where the beat was played in its purest form. Because the breaks of the songs were only a few seconds long he expanded them by using 2 turntables with 2 records. With these “break beats” he laid the foundation for the b-boys or break boys (dancers who freaked out on the dance floor during these breaks), and the MC’s or Masters of ceremony (entertainers on the microphone who amused the people and made them dance with their rhymes). Comparable to the Jamaican "toasting" from time to time Kool Herc used some phrases to make people dance and to welcome friends.
When the mixing of the beats got more complicated more concentration was needed and entertaining the crowd on the microphone wasn't possible anymore. So, Herc passed the microphone to 2 friends of his who consequently represented the first MC team, Coke La Rock and Clark Kent. Kool Herc and his sound system including his 2 friends on the mic were soon after known all over as Kool Herc and the Herculoids.
Afrika Bambaataa (aka Kahyan Aasim - born 1957) is well known and respected as the godfather or the grandfather of the Hip Hop culture as he brought everything together and laid the groundwork for the culture. He was a member and leader of one of the biggest gangs, the Black Spades, and he was also an eager record collector. Although he was DJing at parties already since 1970, he got more interested in it after seeing Kool Herc on the turntables in 1973. As a result, he began DJing more in the Bronx River Community Center where he also had his own sound system. Around the same time his gang started to die out. Soon after he formed a performance group named the Bronx River Organization which later he renamed The Organization. Because of his former position in the gang he soon had a faithful audience which consisted of former gang members.
Around 1974 he reorganized The Organization and renamed it Zulu Nation, inspired by his studies about African history at that time. He was impressed by the Zulus because they fought with full honor and simple weapons against the colonialism power in spite of apparent inferiority. Also, 5 dancers joined his organization and he named them the Shaka Zulu Kings or for short Zulu Kings. Besides the Nigger Twins they were the very first B-Boying crew ever. The Zulu Nation organized parties and meetings at which the members, especially Afrika Bambaataa, tried to pass as much knowledge about the Hip Hop culture as possible and to give people an alternative to the gang activities and the drug misery. Although Lovebug Starski was the one who came up with the notion "Hip Hop," it was mainly Afrika Bambaataa and his Zulu Nation who united the different elements and formed them into a whole culture. Afrika Bambaataa's idea was to transform the negativity of the gangs into positive energy.
Because he lost his best friend in a gang war during that time he was one of the very few who, not only realized that this gang war was senseless, but who also tried to do something about it. As people became more engaged in the 4 elements at that time and came together to have parties and show their skills (DJs mixed the break beats, MCs rhymed to them, B-Boys danced to them and most of these people were also writers) Bambaataa used them to spread his message to fight with creativity and not with violence.
With the integration of the 4 elements in the Hip Hop culture a situation of general competition arose that pushed people permanently to get better and more creative. Therefore it was an unwritten law that everybody was creating his own style without copying from others and stealing their ideas, so called "biting." Also, an overall respected guideline was, peace, unity, love and having fun. The groundwork for the different elements was laid down already, but with the integration in the Hip Hop culture their development came quickly.

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