The Rising Phoenix:
How the Bronx rose from the ashes to become the birthplace of a global phenomenon
“Hip-hop is the most listened to genre in the world” according to a recent Spotify analysis of 20 billion tracks across the globe.
It’s the most popular genre of regardless of language or ethnicity The culture, fashion, and power behind the industry generates over $10 Billion dollars a year. Many of the major icons of fashion and culture have emerged from hip hop, including Kanye West, Tupac Shakur, Puff Daddy, Notorious B.I.G., Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Will Smith, and Jay Z. Hip hop is probably the most important cultural movement in the world today. The things that led hip hop into what it is today were ingredients that could only be found in some place that no one expected to look–the Bronx. But why did hip hop/rap start in the Bronx? And what was it about the Bronx that allowed this cultural style to become a global movement. The Bronx had three key qualities that made it an important birthplace of hip hop/rap: first, it was home to many different ethnic groups, and people without any money who had to make something from nothing; second, the people of the Bronx are fiercely loyal to each other and were able to support this music when no one else would have; and third, the Bronx location within New York City, allowed the movement from the Bronx to spread out into the world almost instantly.
New York City in the early 1970’s was experiencing a great deal of transformation. Many of the jobs for working class families were disappearing, and people were poor and desperate and did not see an end. People still living in the city turned to drugs and soon gangs began to operate, dealing drugs and controlling what little piece of New York they could. Any people who could move away from the Bronx did so, and those left behind were the poorest of the poor, and were mostly African American or recent immigrants coming from poorer countries–like Jamaica and Puerto Rico. The culture that had been the pride of Harlem, the Harlem Renaissance, was completely dead, and all of the old cultural landmarks were disappearing. The conditions in the Bronx were so awful even landlords in the Bronx were burning down their apartments to collect the insurance money. This led to the famous phrase “The Bronx is Burning.” In 1977, “President Jimmy Carter survey[d] a landscape of burnt homes, vacant buildings, and gray slums [and] [to] an aid, he [said], ‘see which areas can still be salvaged.’ The President words showed that the South Bronx had become a written-off area of New York City which had fallen into a state of urban decay. In the 1970’s, it looked like a civilization on its deathbed. But one New York City resident will not give up, and decides to throw a block party in a building stood against the blight, and gave birth to a brand new culture. Ironically, it was Bronx with a unique combination of recently arrived immigrants, competition between rival gangs and horrible living conditions where a cultural movement would transform the Bronx, New York City, the Unites States, and eventually the world. This movement would come to be known as hip hop and its founding father was DJ Kool Herc, a man who was thoroughly a product of the Bronx.
DJ Kool Herc’s 1973 block party at 520 Sedgwick Avenue, Bronx, New York, gave birth to hip-hop. Why was it DJ Kool Herc, and why was it in the Bronx? DJ Kool Herc came from Jamaica, like many other residents of the Bronx. DJ Kool Herc brought with him a similar musical style to rapping known as “toasting,” which was popular in Jamaica. This musical style involves DJ’s doing celebratory rhyming to get people in a party (or a dance hall) hyped up. Had DJ Kool Herc stayed in Jamaica, hip hop rap may never have even been born. In New York, though, Herc encountered new musical types like disco, with its heavy break beats and Puerto-Rican salsa, with its horns and pulsing baselines. As the Bronx was a poor neighborhood, it attracted lots of new immigrants who were seeking affordable housing. All of these immigrants brought with them their own cultures. Herc would combine the music of these many different musical styles on turntables. It was at the 1973 “back-to-school” block party where DJ Kool Herc invented hip hop. DJ Kool Herc wanted to make it known that whoever fought during his block party would be immediately kicked out, and Herc at a reason to be worried. At the time, the Bronx had suffered with gangs; however, block parties were one place where these gang members could come and enjoy themselves without having to worry about fighting. The gangs were still competitive, though, and so they competed in dance offs using a style of dancing known as “breaking”. This party, where DJ Kool Herc for the first time incorporated the break beats in disco together by going back and forth from one turntable to the other to create a prolonged dancing beat, was a mix of many different elements coming from many different places. At this party, American disco was mixed with Latin baselines, Jamaican toasting, an American gang culture to lay the foundation for hip hop music, and the Bronx was the only place where these things could have come together.
One thing positive about growing up in a poor neighborhood is the fierce loyalty members of those neighborhoods feel for each other and anything from their neighborhood. Because this new musical style was emerging from the Bronx, many Bronx residents began to see hip hop as something to be proud of. When they got on the subway trains they wore hip hop clothing, break-danced, and listened to hip hop mixtapes on their radios. Through the subways, Bronx residents grew the gospel of hip hop across the city of New York. Now there was demand, and the residents of the Bronx as well as the rest of New York would be willing to spend what little money they had, supporting something that was uniquely their own. As more rappers started to make bigger money, the industry became more and more international, and in 1979 rap hit the mainstream when the Sugarhill Gang released the song “Rapper’s Delight” using the instrumental to “Good Times” by Chic. The Sugarhill Gang was actually a manufactured band that was designed to make money off of the emerging hip hop trend coming out of New York city. Ironically even though they were from Englewood, New Jersey they named their group the Sugarhill Gang after Sugarhill, a Bronx neighborhood. This still showed, that in order to become a big name in hip hop, you had to identify yourself as someone from the Bronx. Their single “Rapper’s Delight” was the first rap single to become a top 40 song on the Billboard hot 100 list. Around the same time the Sugarhill Gang was becoming a popular, a young MC known as Kurtis Blow who was managed by a young Russell Simmons, also had a growing celebrity status. Kurtis Blow, a Harlem born rapper and producer, was the first MC to sign a major record deal. Russell Simmons, a Queens born producer, would then go on to found Def Jam records out of an NYU dorm room, and launch the career of Run DMC. The sound from the Bronx soon touched all of New York, and because of the close proximity of the Bronx to the rest of the New York City boroughs, rap was able to become mainstream.
There were three things that made the Bronx a special and diverse enough birthplace of hip hop, the first being that there were many different ethnic groups in the neighborhood, most of which came from nothing; secondly, the tight knit community of the Bronx allowed many people to support the upcoming music style; third, where the Bronx is, in terms of New York made it easy for the growing culture and music to spread across New York and eventually the world. Even though hip hop came from the Bronx, it is now beginning to bring in new aspects of different cultures, such as Korean, Israeli, Latino, and even Portuguese rappers. All of these artists have added their own twist to hip hop, but have still kept the legacy of the movement started in the Bronx. The movement includes struggles in poverty, trying to create something from nothing, and giving people an opportunity to have a good time. With a musical form that’s this popular and adaptable, I only see a bright future for rap.
New York City in the early 1970’s was experiencing a great deal of transformation. Many of the jobs for working class families were disappearing, and people were poor and desperate and did not see an end. People still living in the city turned to drugs and soon gangs began to operate, dealing drugs and controlling what little piece of New York they could. Any people who could move away from the Bronx did so, and those left behind were the poorest of the poor, and were mostly African American or recent immigrants coming from poorer countries–like Jamaica and Puerto Rico. The culture that had been the pride of Harlem, the Harlem Renaissance, was completely dead, and all of the old cultural landmarks were disappearing. The conditions in the Bronx were so awful even landlords in the Bronx were burning down their apartments to collect the insurance money. This led to the famous phrase “The Bronx is Burning.” In 1977, “President Jimmy Carter survey[d] a landscape of burnt homes, vacant buildings, and gray slums [and] [to] an aid, he [said], ‘see which areas can still be salvaged.’ The President words showed that the South Bronx had become a written-off area of New York City which had fallen into a state of urban decay. In the 1970’s, it looked like a civilization on its deathbed. But one New York City resident will not give up, and decides to throw a block party in a building stood against the blight, and gave birth to a brand new culture. Ironically, it was Bronx with a unique combination of recently arrived immigrants, competition between rival gangs and horrible living conditions where a cultural movement would transform the Bronx, New York City, the Unites States, and eventually the world. This movement would come to be known as hip hop and its founding father was DJ Kool Herc, a man who was thoroughly a product of the Bronx.
DJ Kool Herc’s 1973 block party at 520 Sedgwick Avenue, Bronx, New York, gave birth to hip-hop. Why was it DJ Kool Herc, and why was it in the Bronx? DJ Kool Herc came from Jamaica, like many other residents of the Bronx. DJ Kool Herc brought with him a similar musical style to rapping known as “toasting,” which was popular in Jamaica. This musical style involves DJ’s doing celebratory rhyming to get people in a party (or a dance hall) hyped up. Had DJ Kool Herc stayed in Jamaica, hip hop rap may never have even been born. In New York, though, Herc encountered new musical types like disco, with its heavy break beats and Puerto-Rican salsa, with its horns and pulsing baselines. As the Bronx was a poor neighborhood, it attracted lots of new immigrants who were seeking affordable housing. All of these immigrants brought with them their own cultures. Herc would combine the music of these many different musical styles on turntables. It was at the 1973 “back-to-school” block party where DJ Kool Herc invented hip hop. DJ Kool Herc wanted to make it known that whoever fought during his block party would be immediately kicked out, and Herc at a reason to be worried. At the time, the Bronx had suffered with gangs; however, block parties were one place where these gang members could come and enjoy themselves without having to worry about fighting. The gangs were still competitive, though, and so they competed in dance offs using a style of dancing known as “breaking”. This party, where DJ Kool Herc for the first time incorporated the break beats in disco together by going back and forth from one turntable to the other to create a prolonged dancing beat, was a mix of many different elements coming from many different places. At this party, American disco was mixed with Latin baselines, Jamaican toasting, an American gang culture to lay the foundation for hip hop music, and the Bronx was the only place where these things could have come together.
One thing positive about growing up in a poor neighborhood is the fierce loyalty members of those neighborhoods feel for each other and anything from their neighborhood. Because this new musical style was emerging from the Bronx, many Bronx residents began to see hip hop as something to be proud of. When they got on the subway trains they wore hip hop clothing, break-danced, and listened to hip hop mixtapes on their radios. Through the subways, Bronx residents grew the gospel of hip hop across the city of New York. Now there was demand, and the residents of the Bronx as well as the rest of New York would be willing to spend what little money they had, supporting something that was uniquely their own. As more rappers started to make bigger money, the industry became more and more international, and in 1979 rap hit the mainstream when the Sugarhill Gang released the song “Rapper’s Delight” using the instrumental to “Good Times” by Chic. The Sugarhill Gang was actually a manufactured band that was designed to make money off of the emerging hip hop trend coming out of New York city. Ironically even though they were from Englewood, New Jersey they named their group the Sugarhill Gang after Sugarhill, a Bronx neighborhood. This still showed, that in order to become a big name in hip hop, you had to identify yourself as someone from the Bronx. Their single “Rapper’s Delight” was the first rap single to become a top 40 song on the Billboard hot 100 list. Around the same time the Sugarhill Gang was becoming a popular, a young MC known as Kurtis Blow who was managed by a young Russell Simmons, also had a growing celebrity status. Kurtis Blow, a Harlem born rapper and producer, was the first MC to sign a major record deal. Russell Simmons, a Queens born producer, would then go on to found Def Jam records out of an NYU dorm room, and launch the career of Run DMC. The sound from the Bronx soon touched all of New York, and because of the close proximity of the Bronx to the rest of the New York City boroughs, rap was able to become mainstream.
There were three things that made the Bronx a special and diverse enough birthplace of hip hop, the first being that there were many different ethnic groups in the neighborhood, most of which came from nothing; secondly, the tight knit community of the Bronx allowed many people to support the upcoming music style; third, where the Bronx is, in terms of New York made it easy for the growing culture and music to spread across New York and eventually the world. Even though hip hop came from the Bronx, it is now beginning to bring in new aspects of different cultures, such as Korean, Israeli, Latino, and even Portuguese rappers. All of these artists have added their own twist to hip hop, but have still kept the legacy of the movement started in the Bronx. The movement includes struggles in poverty, trying to create something from nothing, and giving people an opportunity to have a good time. With a musical form that’s this popular and adaptable, I only see a bright future for rap.
Works Cited:
Kangas, Chaz. "Hip-Hop Did Not Begin How You Think It Did." L.A. Weekly. N.p., 02
Apr. 2016. Web
http://www.laweekly.com/music/hip-hop-did-not-begin-how-you-think-it-did-4762859
“Birthplace of Hip Hop”, The History Detectives. Season 6, Episode II. (2011).
Public Broadcasting Corporation. Television.
http://www-tc.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/static/media/transcripts/2011-05-21/611_hiphop.df
“In the beginning: hip hop’s early influences”, Oxford University PressBlog.
https://blog.oup.com/2006/08/in_the_beginnin/
Swanson, Abbie Fentress. "The South Bronx: Where Hip Hop was born." WNYC News. 02 Aug 2010, 25 Feb 2016. Web.
http://www.wnyc.org/story/89709-south-bronx-hip-hop-year-zero/
Hooton, Christopher. "Hip-hop Is the Most Listened to Genre in the World, According to Spotify Analysis of 20 Billion Tracks." The Independent. Independent Digital News and Media, 14 July 2015. Web.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/hip-hop-is-the-most-listened-to-genre-in-the-world-according-to-spotify-analysis-of-20-billion-10388091.html
Kangas, Chaz. "Hip-Hop Did Not Begin How You Think It Did." L.A. Weekly. N.p., 02
Apr. 2016. Web
http://www.laweekly.com/music/hip-hop-did-not-begin-how-you-think-it-did-4762859
“Birthplace of Hip Hop”, The History Detectives. Season 6, Episode II. (2011).
Public Broadcasting Corporation. Television.
http://www-tc.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/static/media/transcripts/2011-05-21/611_hiphop.df
“In the beginning: hip hop’s early influences”, Oxford University PressBlog.
https://blog.oup.com/2006/08/in_the_beginnin/
Swanson, Abbie Fentress. "The South Bronx: Where Hip Hop was born." WNYC News. 02 Aug 2010, 25 Feb 2016. Web.
http://www.wnyc.org/story/89709-south-bronx-hip-hop-year-zero/
Hooton, Christopher. "Hip-hop Is the Most Listened to Genre in the World, According to Spotify Analysis of 20 Billion Tracks." The Independent. Independent Digital News and Media, 14 July 2015. Web.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/hip-hop-is-the-most-listened-to-genre-in-the-world-according-to-spotify-analysis-of-20-billion-10388091.html