Today is hip-hop‘s forty-eighth birthday. DJ Kool Herc appeared on LL Cool J’s Rock The Bells IG Channel to celebrate. The celebration featured a live DJ set from Kool Herc.
From its inception, Hip-Hop was meant to be an outlet for for young people to express themselves uninhibitedly. This is according the man known as the father of Hip-Hop, Kool Herc. As the pioneer of turntable techniques which would give us everything from sampling to moving the crowd or controlling the dance floor. Keeping in mind that at this time, this was unprecedented. No one had ever done this which means Kool Herc had to be creative and use the tools that were available to him.
“The Merry Go Round was a technique I created from watching the B-Boys and B-Girls waiting for the break beats on the vinyl,” he explains. “I decided to put those breakbeats from different songs together on both turntables and extend the breakbeats.” Such techniques opened the doors for further innovators like Grandmaster Flash to build on Herc’s foundation, and before long, hip-hop had infiltrated the mainstream. “
Hip-Hop has had twists and turns over the past forty-eight years but appears to be headed in the right direction. This thing of ours called Hip-Hop is now the number one genre of music despite the many attacks hurled at her. We want to thank Kool Herc for what he has created. This is to Kool Herc and Hip-Hop!!!
