{"id":268062,"date":"2026-06-16T00:38:02","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T00:38:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/268062\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T00:38:02","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T00:38:02","slug":"they-were-just-having-a-back-to-school-party-in-an-apartment-rec-room-little-did-they-know-they-were-creating-hip-hop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/268062\/","title":{"rendered":"They Were Just Having a Back-to-School Party in an Apartment Rec Room. Little Did They Know They Were Creating Hip-Hop"},"content":{"rendered":"

America at 250: The Revolutionary Spark<\/a><\/p>\n

A Smithsonian magazine special report<\/p>\n

The music genre that became a global sensation started with some creative teens just getting together and riffing rhymes to DJ Kool Herc\u2019s curated beats<\/p>\n

\"Clive<\/p>\n

Clive Campbell in 1980. \u201cHip-hop is both an American immigrant story and a global story,\u201d he later said. \u201cIt belongs to everybody.\u201d
\n NMAAHC, SI<\/p>\n

When 18-year-old D.J. Clive Campbell decided to provide music for a back-to-school \u201cjam\u201d in the rec room of his Bronx apartment building in August 1973, he introduced his guests to something new. Instead of allowing songs to play linearly as recorded, he used two turntables to isolate and loop the breaks\u2014the instrumental measures, often in the middle of tracks, that allow music to swell\u2014elongating the drumbeats that brought dancers to the floor. Without singers vocalizing over the music, M.C.s took to the microphones, delivering clever rhymes, beatboxing and shouting out call-and–response verses, to keep the party going. Jamaican-born Campbell, better known as DJ Kool Herc<\/a>, had inadvertently created hip-hop.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At that party, the five elements of hip-hop culture all came together, says Emmett G. Price\u00a0III<\/a>, dean of Africana studies at Berklee College of Music. Along with the rap, dance (breaking) and the looping, merry-go-round style of spinning records, there was art (graffiti) and fashion (streetwear). Teens representing different neighborhoods often fused the two, explains Price, by spray-painting insignia on their jean jackets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Adolescents who couldn\u2019t get into 21-and-up nightclubs were drawn to Campbell\u2019s parties. \u201cIt\u2019s a substantially younger crowd,\u201d says Chuck D<\/a>, of the Grammy-nominated 1980s rap group Public Enemy.<\/a> \u201cHe\u2019s playing records for the kids.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Price says that the youth \u201ctook the soundtrack of their ancestors and remixed and remastered it. Listen to hip-hop, and you end up learning about funk, soul, jazz, blues and spirituals.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hip-hop may borrow from earlier American music forms, but what makes it unique, according to Price, is its innovators: the teenagers of 1970s New York City, mostly marginalized Black youth who, until then, had no collective voice. Although genres like rock \u2019n\u2019 roll had a primarily teenage fan base, the artists were typically adults. \u201cHip-hop culture was created and defined by young people,\u201d Price says, \u201cand not necessarily by the industry or by historians and music journalists.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Did you know? Holding onto hip-hop culture<\/p>\n


\n\t <\/p>\n

In August 2022,\u00a0Christie\u2019s\u00a0auctioned\u00a0more than 200 of Clive Campbell\u2019s belongings, including his\u00a0six-foot-tall custom speakers,\u00a0turntables, classic\u00a0vinyl records, disco\u00a0balls\u00a0and\u00a0other memorabilia, earning\u00a0more than $850,000.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n


\n\t
\n\t <\/p>\n

The Smithsonian\u2019s collection of hip-hop related items, primarily on exhibit in the National Museum of African American History and Culture<\/a>,\u00a0includes\u00a0a\u00a0clock worn by Flava Flav <\/a>of\u00a0Grammy-winning rap group\u00a0Public Enemy, a suit worn by\u00a0flamboyant West Coast artist\u00a0M.C.\u00a0Hammer\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0a microphone used by Rakim<\/a>,\u00a0a Grammy Hall of Fame lyricist.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n


\n\t
\n\t <\/p>\n

In 2010, the Birthplace of Hip-Hop, 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx, was saved from\u00a0potential\u00a0sale\u00a0by a $5.6 million loan from the\u00a0city of New York\u2019s New Housing Marketplace plan.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n


\n\t <\/p>\n

By the mid-\u201980s, corporate America had begun to recognize hip-hop\u2019s financial potential. Break dancers performed at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, and Hollywood released films like Beat Street <\/a>and Krush Groove<\/a>, starring a teenage LL Cool J<\/a>, Doug E. Fresh<\/a> and other budding young artists, bringing the culture into the mainstream.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today, hip-hop is a $15 billion industry in the United States and a global phenomenon. Graffiti exhibitions can be found in Benin and Singapore, and streetwear is celebrated on runways in Paris and Milan. The music is everywhere.<\/p>\n

Campbell unleashed it all in that Bronx rec room. \u201cHerc was the innovator,\u201d Price says. \u201cRarely do young people get the credit for changing the global economy. To think about their impact and influence and what they created then\u2014that\u2019s phenomenal.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n


\n \"Cover
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

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