Jamaican American DJ (born 1955)
DJ Kool Herc
|
---|
DJ Kool Herc in New York, 2006
|
|
Birth name
| Clive Campbell
|
---|
Also known as
| - Kool DJ Herc
- Kool Herc
- Father of Hip-Hop
|
---|
Born
| (
1955-04-16
)
April 16, 1955
(age 69)
[1]
Kingston
,
Jamaica
|
---|
Origin
| The Bronx
, New York City, U.S.
|
---|
Genres
| Hip hop
|
---|
Occupation(s)
| DJ
|
---|
Years active
| 1973?present
[2]
|
---|
|
Website
| djkoolherc
.com
|
---|
Musical artist
Clive Campbell
(born April 16, 1955), better known by his stage name
DJ Kool Herc
, is a Jamaican American DJ who is credited with being one of the founders of
hip hop music
in
the Bronx
, New York City, in 1973. Nicknamed the
Father of Hip-Hop
, Campbell began playing
hard funk
records of the sort typified by
James Brown
. Campbell began to isolate the instrumental portion of the record which emphasized the drum beat?the "
break
"?and switch from one break to another. Using the same two-turntable set-up of
disco
DJs, he used two copies of the same record to elongate the break. This
breakbeat
DJing, using funky drum solos, formed the basis of hip hop music. Campbell's announcements and exhortations to dancers helped lead to the
syncopated
, rhythmically spoken accompaniment now known as
rapping
.
He called the dancers "break-boys" and "break-girls", or simply b-boys and b-girls, terms that continue to be used fifty years later in the sport of
breaking
. Campbell's DJ style was quickly taken up by figures such as
Afrika Bambaataa
and
Grandmaster Flash
. Unlike them, he never made the move into commercially recorded hip hop in its earliest years. On November 3, 2023, Campbell was inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
in the Musical Influence Award category.
[3]
Biography
[
edit
]
Early life and education
[
edit
]
Clive Campbell was the first of six children born to Keith and Nettie Campbell in
Kingston, Jamaica
. While growing up, he saw and heard the
sound systems
of neighborhood parties called
dance halls
, and the accompanying speech of their DJs, known as
toasting
. He emigrated with his family at the age of 12 to
The Bronx
,
New York City
in November 1967,
[4]
where they lived at
1520 Sedgwick Avenue
.
Campbell attended the
Alfred E. Smith Career and Technical Education High School
in the Bronx, where his height, frame, and demeanor on the basketball court prompted the other kids to nickname him "
Hercules
".
[5]
After being involved in a physical altercation with school bullies, the
Five Percenters
came to Herc's aid, befriended him and as Herc put it, helped "Americanize" him with an education in New York City street culture.
[6]
He began running with a
graffiti
crew called the Ex-Vandals, taking the name Kool Herc.
[7]
Herc recalls persuading his father to buy him a copy of "
Sex Machine
" by
James Brown
, a record that not a lot of his friends had, and which they would come to him to hear.
[8]
He used the recreation room of their building, 1520 Sedgwick Avenue.
[9]
Herc's first sound system consisted of two turntables connected to two
amplifiers
and a Shure "Vocal Master" PA system with two speaker columns, on which he played records such as
James Brown
's "
Give It Up or Turnit a Loose
",
Jimmy Castor
's "It's Just Begun" and
Booker T. & the M.G.'s
' "Melting Pot".
[7]
With Bronx clubs struggling with street gangs, uptown DJs catering to an older disco crowd with different aspirations, and commercial radio also catering to a demographic distinct from teenagers in the Bronx, Herc's parties, organized and promoted by his sister Cindy, had a ready-made audience.
[7]
[10]
[11]
The "break"
[
edit
]
DJ Kool Herc developed the style that was used as one of the additions to the blueprints for
hip hop music
. Herc used the record to focus on a short, heavily percussive part in it: the "
break
". Since this part of the record was the one the dancers liked best, Herc isolated the break and prolonged it by changing between two record players. As one record reached the end of the break, he cued a second record back to the beginning of the break, which allowed him to extend a relatively short section of music into a "five-minute loop of fury".
[12]
This innovation had its roots in what Herc called "The Merry-Go-Round", a technique by which the deejay switched from break to break at the height of the party. This technique is specifically called "The Merry-Go-Round" because according to Herc, it takes one "back and forth with no slack."
[13]
Herc stated that he first introduced the Merry-Go-Round into his sets in 1973.
[14]
The earliest known
Merry-Go-Round
involved playing James Brown's "
Give It Up or Turnit a Loose
" (with its
refrain
, "Now clap your hands! Stomp your feet!"), then switching from that record's break into the break from a second record, "
Bongo Rock
" by
The Incredible Bongo Band
. From the "Bongo Rock"'s break, Herc used a third record to switch to the break on "
The Mexican
" by the English rock band
Babe Ruth
.
[15]
Kool Herc also contributed to developing the rhyming style of hip hop by punctuating the recorded music with slang phrases, announcing: "Rock on, my mellow!" "B-boys, b-girls, are you ready? keep on rock steady" "This is the joint! Herc beat on the point" "To the beat, y'all!" "You don't stop!"
[16]
[17]
For his contributions,
Time
nicknamed Herc the "Founding Father of Hip Hop",
[18]
[19]
called him "nascent cultural hero",
[20]
and an integral part of the beginnings of hip hop.
[21]
[22]
On August 11, 1973, DJ Kool Herc was a disc jockey and
emcee
at a party hosted by himself and his younger sister Cindy at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue.
[23]
She wanted to earn extra cash for back-to-school clothes, so she decided to throw a party where her older brother, then just 18 years old, would play music for the neighborhood in their apartment building. She promoted the event with flyers and organized the party.
[24]
She also styled her brother's clothes for the party.
[25]
According to music journalist Steven Ivory, in 1973, Herc placed on the turntables two copies of Brown's 1970
Sex Machine
album and ran "an extended cut 'n' mix of the percussion breakdown" from "Give It Up or Turnit a Loose", signaling the birth of hip hop.
[26]
B-boys and b-girls
[
edit
]
The "b-boys" and "b-girls" were the dancers to Herc's breaks, who were described as "breaking". Herc has noted that "breaking" was also street slang of the time meaning "getting excited", "acting energetically", or "causing a disturbance".
[27]
Herc coined the terms "b-boy", "b-girl", and "breaking" which became part of the lexicon of what would be eventually called hip hop culture. Early Kool Herc b-boy and later DJ innovator
Grandmixer DXT
describes the early evolution as follows:
... [E]verybody would form a circle and the B-boys would go into the center. At first the dance was simple: touch your toes, hop, kick out your leg. Then some guy went down, spun around on all fours. Everybody said wow and went home to try to come up with something better.
[16]
In the early 1980s, the media began to call this style "
breakdance
", which in 1991
The New York Times
wrote was "an art as demanding and inventive as mainstream
dance
forms like ballet and jazz."
[28]
Since this emerging culture was still without a name, participants often identified as "b-boys", a usage that included and went beyond the specific connection to dance, a usage that would persist in hip hop culture.
[29]
Move to the streets
[
edit
]
With the mystique of his
graffiti
name, his physical stature, and the reputation of his small parties, Herc became a folk hero in the Bronx. He began to play at nearby clubs including the Hevalo (now Salvation Baptist Church),
[30]
Twilight Zone,
[9]
Executive Playhouse, the
PAL
on 183rd Street,
[7]
as well as at high schools such as Dodge and
Taft
.
[31]
Rapping duties were delegated to
Coke La Rock
[32]
and Theodore Puccio.
[33]
Herc's collective, known as The Herculoids, was augmented by Clark Kent and dancers The Nigga Twins.
[7]
Herc took his soundsystem (the herculords) ?still legendary for its sheer volume
[34]
?to the streets and parks of the Bronx.
Nelson George
recalls a schoolyard party:
The sun hadn't gone down yet, and kids were just hanging out, waiting for something to happen. Van pulls up, a bunch of guys come out with a table, crates of records. They unscrew the base of the light pole, take their equipment, attach it to that, get the electricity ? Boom! We got a concert right here in the schoolyard and it's this guy Kool Herc. And he's just standing with the turntable, and the guys were studying his hands. There are people dancing, but there's as many people standing, just watching what he's doing. That was my first introduction to in-the-street, hip hop DJing.
[35]
Influence on artists
[
edit
]
In 1975, the young
Grandmaster Flash
, to whom Kool Herc was, in his words, "a hero", began DJing in Herc's style. By 1976, Flash and his
MCs
The Furious Five
played to a packed
Audubon Ballroom
in
Manhattan
. Venue owners were often nervous of unruly young crowds, however, and soon sent hip hop back to the clubs, community centres and high school gymnasiums of the Bronx.
[36]
Afrika Bambaataa
first heard Kool Herc in 1973. Bambaataa, at that time a general in the notorious
Black Spades
gang of the Bronx, obtained his own soundsystem in 1975 and began to DJ in Herc's style, converting his followers to the non-violent
Zulu Nation
in the process. Kool Herc began using
The Incredible Bongo Band
's "
Apache
" as a break in 1975. It became a firm b-boy favorite?"the Bronx national anthem"
[16]
?and is still in use in hip hop today.
[14]
Steven Hager
wrote of this period:
For over five years the Bronx had lived in constant terror of street gangs. Suddenly, in 1975, they disappeared almost as quickly as they had arrived. This happened because something better came along to replace the gangs. That something was eventually called hip-hop.
[16]
In 1979, the record company executive
Sylvia Robinson
assembled a group she called
The Sugarhill Gang
and recorded "
Rapper's Delight
". The hit song ushered in the era of commercially released hip hop. By that year's end,
Grandmaster Flash
was recording for
Enjoy Records
. In 1980, Afrika Bambaataa began recording for
Winley
. By this time, DJ Kool Herc's star had faded.
Grandmaster Flash suggests that Herc may not have kept pace with developments in techniques of cueing (lining up a record to play at a certain place on it).
[37]
Developments changed techniques of cutting (switching from one record to another) and scratching (moving the record by hand to and fro under the stylus for percussive effect) in the late 1970s. Herc said he retreated from the scene after being stabbed at the Executive Playhouse while trying to intercede in a fight, and the burning down of one of his venues. In 1980, Herc had stopped DJing and was working in a record shop in South Bronx.
Later years
[
edit
]
Kool Herc appeared in Hollywood's motion picture take on hip hop,
Beat Street
(
Orion
, 1984), as himself. In the mid-1980s, his father died, and he became addicted to
crack cocaine
. "I couldn't cope, so I started medicating", he says of this period.
[38]
In 1994, Herc performed on
Terminator X
& the Godfathers of Threatt's album,
Super Bad
.
[7]
In 2005, he wrote the foreword to
Jeff Chang
's book on hip hop,
Can't Stop Won't Stop
. In 2005 he appeared in the music video of "Top 5 (Dead or Alive)" by
Jin
from the album
The Emcee's Properganda
. In 2006, he became involved in getting Hip Hop commemorated at the
Smithsonian Institution
museums.
[39]
He participated in the 2007
Dance parade
.
Since 2007, Herc has worked on a campaign to prevent 1520 Sedgwick Avenue from being sold to developers and withdrawn from its status as a
Mitchell-Lama
affordable housing property.
[40]
In the summer of 2007, New York state officials declared 1520 Sedgwick Avenue the "birthplace of hip-hop", and nominated it to national and state historic registers.
[9]
The city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development ruled against the proposed sale in February 2008, on the grounds that "the proposed purchase price is inconsistent with the use of property as a Mitchell-Lama affordable housing development". It is the first time they have so ruled in such a case.
[41]
According to
The Source
,
[42]
DJ Kool Herc fell gravely ill in early 2011 and was said to lack health insurance.
[43]
He had surgery for
kidney stones
, with a
stent
placed to relieve the pressure. He needed follow-up surgery but
St. Barnabas Hospital
in the
Bronx
, the site that performed the previous surgery, requested that he make a deposit toward the next surgery, because he had missed several follow-up visits. (The hospital noted that it would not turn away uninsured patients in the emergency room.)
[44]
DJ Kool Herc and his family set up an official website on which he described his medical issue and set a larger goal of establishing the DJ Kool Herc Fund to pioneer long-term health care solutions.
[45]
In April 2013, Campbell recovered from surgery and moved into post-medical care.
[45]
In May 2019, Kool Herc released his first vinyl record with
Mr. Green
.
[46]
Discography
[
edit
]
Albums
[
edit
]
- DJ Kool Herc and
Mr Green
:
Last of the Classic Beats
(2019)
[47]
Live albums or recordings
[
edit
]
- L Brothers vs The Herculoids ? Bronx River Centre
(1978)
- DJ Kool Herc and Whiz kid with the Herculoids:
Live at T-Connection
(1981)
- DJ Kool Herc: Tim Westwood show December 28, 1996
Guest appearances
[
edit
]
Songs
[
edit
]
- DJ Kool Herc ? B-Boy Boogie
[52]
See also
[
edit
]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
"Today In Hip-Hop: DJ Kool Herc Celebrates 10th Birthday ? XXL"
. June 30, 2013. Archived from
the original
on June 30, 2013
. Retrieved
November 13,
2021
.
- ^
Hess, Mickey (November 2009).
Hip Hop in America: A Regional Guide
. Bloomsbury Academic.
ISBN
9780313343216
.
- ^
"2023 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee: DJ Kool Herc"
.
www.rockhall.com
. May 3, 2023.
- ^
Chang, pp. 68?72.
- ^
Rhodes, Henry A. (2003).
"The Evolution of Rap Music in the United States"
(PDF)
.
People.artcenter.edu
. pp. 5?6. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on March 3, 2016
. Retrieved
February 21,
2019
.
- ^
Hager, Steven. Hip Hop: The Illustrated History of Break Dancing, Rap Music, and Graffiti. St Martin's Press, 1984 (out of print).
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
Shapiro, pp. 212?213.
- ^
Ogg, p. 13.
- ^
a
b
c
Roug, Louise.
"Hip-hop May Save Bronx Homes"
Archived
October 20, 2012, at the
Wayback Machine
,
Los Angeles Times
, February 24, 2008. Link retrieved September 9, 2008.
- ^
Ogg, p. 14, p. 18.
- ^
Toop, p. 65.
- ^
Chang, p. 79
- ^
"The Freshest Kids: The History of the B-Boy (Full Documentary)"
.
YouTube
. January 8, 2014.
Archived
from the original on April 21, 2014
. Retrieved
April 26,
2017
.
- ^
a
b
Hermes, Will.
"All Rise for the National Anthem of Hip-Hop"
Archived
March 11, 2023, at the
Wayback Machine
,
The New York Times
, October 29, 2006. Retrieved on September 9, 2008.
- ^
Ogg, pp. 14?15.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Hager, in Cepeda, p. 12?26. Cepeda writes that this article was the first appearance of the term hip hop in print, and credits Bambaataa with its coinage (p. 3).
- ^
Toop, p. 69
- ^
Karon, Tony (September 22, 2000).
"
'Hip-Hop Nation' Is Exhibit A for America's Latest Cultural Revolution"
.
Time
. Archived from
the original
on February 20, 2005
. Retrieved
January 1,
2009
.
- ^
Farley, Christopher John (October 18, 1999).
"Rock's New Spin"
.
Time
. Archived from
the original
on January 24, 2005
. Retrieved
January 1,
2009
.
- ^
"5 Fine Books You Missed (We Did)"
.
Time
. June 11, 2006. Archived from
the original
on July 6, 2006
. Retrieved
January 1,
2009
.
- ^
Farley, Christopher John (July 9, 2001).
"DJ Craze"
.
Time
. Archived from
the original
on January 12, 2005
. Retrieved
January 1,
2009
.
- ^
"Dancehall Days"
.
Time
. June 11, 2003. Archived from
the original
on June 22, 2009
. Retrieved
January 1,
2009
.
- ^
Tukufu Zuberi ("detective"), "BIRTHPLACE OF HIP HOP",
History Detectives
, Season 6, Episode 11, New York City, found at
PBS official website
. Accessed February 24, 2009.
- ^
Baruch, Yolanda.
"DJ Kool Herc's Sister Cindy Campbell Talks The Birth Of Hip Hop Christie's Auction"
.
Forbes
.
Archived
from the original on May 3, 2023
. Retrieved
April 27,
2023
.
- ^
Allah, Sha Be (August 11, 2018).
"Today in Hip Hop History: Kool Herc's Party At 1520 Sedgwick Avenue 45 Years Ago Marks The Foundation Of The Culture Known As Hip-Hop"
.
The Source
.
Archived
from the original on March 21, 2019
. Retrieved
March 12,
2019
.
- ^
Ivory, Stephen (2000).
The Funk Box
(CD box set booklet).
Hip-O Records
. p. 12. 314 541 789-2.
- ^
Kool Herc, in Israel (director),
The Freshest Kids
, QD3, 2002.
- ^
Dunning, Jennifer. "Nurturing Onstage the Moves Born on the Ghettos' Streets",
The New York Times
, November 26, 1991.
- ^
See for example Suggah B in Cross, p. 303: "I'm a B-girl till I die, when they bury me they're gonna bury me with some
shelltoes
on my feet and some gold around my neck because that is how I feel."
- ^
Hess, Mickey (November 2009).
Hip Hop in America: A Regional Guide
. Bloomsbury Academic.
ISBN
9780313343216
.
Archived
from the original on May 21, 2024
. Retrieved
June 2,
2022
.
- ^
Ogg, pp. 14, 17.
- ^
"Black Awareness Foundation | The Footsteps of History"
. February 12, 2016. Archived from
the original
on February 12, 2016
. Retrieved
November 13,
2021
.
- ^
"Breaks, Bronx, Boogie, Beat: What Is Bboying?"
.
Breakdancedecoded.com
. Archived from
the original
on August 23, 2017
. Retrieved
August 23,
2017
.
- ^
Toop, p. 18?19
- ^
Ogg, p. 17
- ^
Toop, pp. 74?76.
- ^
Toop, p. 62.
- ^
Gonzales, Michael A.
"The Holy House of Hip-hop: How the Rec Room Where Hip-hop Was Born Became a Battleground For Affordable Housing"
Archived
March 10, 2023, at the
Wayback Machine
,
New York
, October 6, 2008.
- ^
Sisario, Ben (March 1, 2006).
"Smithsonian's Doors Open to a Hip-Hop Beat"
.
The New York Times
.
Archived
from the original on December 13, 2019
. Retrieved
January 1,
2009
.
- ^
Gonzalez, David (May 21, 2007).
"Will Gentrification Spoil the Birthplace of Hip-Hop?"
.
The New York Times
.
Archived
from the original on March 10, 2023
. Retrieved
January 1,
2009
.
- ^
Lee, Jennifer 8.
"City Rejects Sale of Building Seen as Hip-Hop's Birthplace"
Archived
March 10, 2023, at the
Wayback Machine
,
The New York Times
, March 4, 2008.
- ^
"DJ Kool Herc ? Health, Condition"
. Archived from
the original
on February 3, 2011
. Retrieved
January 30,
2010
.
- ^
Headlines
Archived
March 10, 2023, at the
Wayback Machine
,
Democracy Now
, February 1, 2011. Retrieved February 1, 2011.
- ^
Gonzales, David (January 31, 2011).
"Kool Herc Is in Pain, and Using It to Put Focus on Insurance"
.
The New York Times
.
Archived
from the original on August 9, 2011
. Retrieved
April 16,
2011
.
- ^
a
b
"Official DJ Kool Herc Website"
.
DJKoolHerc.com
. February 2, 2011.
Archived
from the original on May 16, 2011
. Retrieved
February 2,
2011
.
- ^
"Mr. Green & Kool Herc Release 'Last of the Classic Beats' Project"
. March 12, 2019.
Archived
from the original on April 7, 2023
. Retrieved
August 11,
2023
.
- ^
Montes, Patrick (March 12, 2019).
"Mr. Green & Kool Herc Release 'Last of the Classic Beats' Project"
.
hypebeast
.
Archived
from the original on April 7, 2023
. Retrieved
August 11,
2023
.
- ^
Marshall, Wayne (2007).
"Kool Herc"
. In Hess, Mickey (ed.).
Icons of Hip Hop: An Encyclopedia of the Movement, Music, and Culture
. Greenwood Publishing Group. p.
23
.
ISBN
978-0-313-33902-8
.
- ^
Wade, Ian (2011).
"The Chemical Brothers ? Dig Your Own Hole ? Review"
.
BBC
.
Archived
from the original on August 5, 2011
. Retrieved
July 16,
2015
.
- ^
Cooper, Roman (January 30, 2008).
"Substantial ? Sacrifice"
.
HipHopDX
.
Archived
from the original on July 17, 2015
. Retrieved
July 16,
2015
.
- ^
"Can't Stop Won't Stop ? The Next Lesson Mixtape ? DJ Sharp & DJ Icewater"
.
Discogs
. Retrieved
December 15,
2023
.
- ^
"Bboy Boogie ? DJ Kool Herc"
.
bboysounds
. July 12, 2013
. Retrieved
December 15,
2023
.
References
[
edit
]
- Chang, Jeff.
Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation
.
St. Martin's Press
, New York: 2005.
ISBN
978-0-312-42579-1
.
- Cross, Brian.
It's Not About a Salary...Rap, Race and Resistance in Los Angeles
. New York: Verso, 1993.
ISBN
978-0-86091-620-8
.
- Hager, Steven, "Afrika Bambaataa's Hip-Hop",
The Village Voice
, September 21, 1982. Reprinted in
And It Don't Stop! The Best American Hip-Hop Journalism of the Last 25 Years
. Cepeda, Raquel (ed.). New York: Faber and Faber, Inc., 2004.
ISBN
978-0-571-21159-3
.
- Ogg, Alex, with Upshall, David.
The Hip Hop Years
, London: Macmillan, 1999,
ISBN
978-0-7522-1780-2
.
- Shapiro, Peter.
Rough Guide to Hip-Hop
, 2nd. ed., London: Rough Guides, 2005,
ISBN
978-1-84353-263-7
.
- Toop, David.
Rap Attack
, 3rd. ed., London: Serpent's Tail, 2000,
ISBN
978-1-85242-627-9
.
External links
[
edit
]
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Primary influences
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Derivative styles
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Film
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Television
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People
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Theater
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Events
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Related topics
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Performers
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Non-performers
(Ahmet Ertegun Award)
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Award for Musical Excellence
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Award for Musical Influence
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International
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National
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Artists
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Other
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