50 Years Old Hip Hop: How Beats and Bars Spread from the Bronx to the World

On this day in 1973, at a party in an apartment in the Bronx, New York, hip-hop was born.

Jamaican-born funk and soul DJ Kool Herc mixes two records using two turntables and microphones, separating and extending the kick drum beat, or “break,” while simultaneously A rhythmic announcement was made. The rest was history.

Soon DJs were showing off their versatility, releasing 12-inch records with crews of MCs rapping along to the beats.

An early old-school anthem came in the form of the Sugarhill Gang's 1979 hit “Rapper's Delight.” Although considered eccentric by critics at the time, the track, based on a sample of Chic's Good Times, became a classic and encapsulated hip-hop's early block party spirit.

The song was later covered to hilarious effect by Ellen Albertini Dow's rap grandmother in the film The Wedding Singer.

Rap and mixing, breakdancing (a new form of street dance that grew with music), and graffiti became the four pillars of the rebellious Ground Up movement.

Afrika Bambaataa, another DJ from the Bronx, formed Universal Zulu Nation and organized events where gang members could compete in breakdancing competitions and listen to music.

Moving from the streets to the screen, New York's leading graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and Fab 5 Freddie appear in MTV's first rap video for post-punk band Blondie's song “Rupture.”

On a technical level, Message star Grandmaster Flash had previously helped popularize “scratching,'' the deliberate movement of a record back and forth on steel wheels, while the Roland TR-808 drum machine The situation has progressed further with the introduction of

On a personal level, there were signs that hip-hop was no longer the exclusive domain of black men. Salt-N-Pepa was a hit with his Push It! And the Beastie Boys fought for the right to party, earning their first No. 1 rap album in America with License to Ill.

Hip-hop was beginning to find its voice as rappers tackled political and social issues. Inspired by the Black Power movement of the 1960s, the Long Island group Public Enemy's Fight the Power focused on issues facing black youth.

Nas' track “NY State Of Mind” is one of the few rap songs featured in the Norton Collection of African American Literature, and is described as “as clearly a ghetto song as a Gordon Parks photo or a Langston Hughes poem.” “It depicts the lives of people.''

On the West Coast, Dr. Dre declared on NWA's Express Yourself over an infectious borrowed hook that he was told to “forget the ghetto and rap for the pop charts.” .

The genre was becoming a multifaceted beast, from the hard sounds of the Compton Collective to everything from the Wu-Tang Clan.

As demonstrated by De La Soul's debut “Three Feet High and Rising'' and alternative, more spiritual “Daisy Age'' artists like A Tribe Called Quest, Hip-hop was diversifying its sound and audience. Then along came Mos Def and The Roots, dubbed “hip-hop's first legitimate band.” Ten years later, they became famous as American TV chat show host Jimmy Fallon's house band.

There was also a conscious movement to celebrate the experiences of black women, with Monie Love and Queen Latifah appearing on tracks such as UNITY, and later led by Lauryn Hill.

“I think that as we bring knowledge to our people, we bring knowledge to all other peoples and let them know how we lived,” Hill said, adding, “This is an important part of Black culture. It's aimed at people, but it's something everyone should know about.”

The late 1980s to mid-90s was a golden age for hip-hop, and the first number one single came in 1990, thanks to Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby.

Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. led the way with songs like California Love, Changes, and Juicy as it solidified itself as one of the biggest grossing genres. Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg chronicled the gang lifestyle in Nuthin' But A 'G' Thang.

Things worsened between 1996 and 1997 when California-based Tupac and Brooklyn-born “Biggie” (who were once friends) were murdered as high-profile victims of the East Coast-West Coast conflict. . Both murders remain unsolved, but their deaths prompted a cooling of tensions.

Experiments led by producer Timbaland and the brazen new sensation Missy Elliott transformed the sound once again, creating a template that was followed by the likes of Nicki Minaj and Megan Thee Stallion.

Fresh Prince of Bel-Air star Will Smith expressed a completely different side of the hip-hop coin with popular family raps like “Gettin Ziggy Wit It.”

History was made in 1999. Rapper and actress Lauryn Hill, previously known for films such as The Fugees and Dangerous Minds, wins her five Grammy Awards for her highly personal LP The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and bridged the gap between hip-hop and mainstream popular music.

Her soulful rapping style continued to inspire the next generation of British female rappers, including Mercury Prize winners Miss Dynamite, Speech Debel and Estelle.

Before the end of the millennium, hip-hop's first white megastar was on the way. Under the guidance of a resurgent Dr. Dre, Detroit's Marshall Mathers III, aka Eminem, aka Slim Shady, made a grand entrance.

His darkly humorous, politically incorrect, fast-talking, rhyming style brought newness to the game, leading him to play a version of himself in the rap battle film 8 Mile.

50 Cent, another disciple of Dre and Eminem, brought Da Club to life in the early 2000s. “The hip part of hip-hop is youth culture,” said the young Fiddy. “I don't think you need to be 50 years old to have the hottest verse.”

Innovation continued to emerge from pioneers such as Atlanta's Outkast, University of Chicago dropout Kanye West, Tyler, the Creator, and Kendrick Lamar, who transformed hip-hop into an art form as the digital age dawned.

Lamar said he wanted the record to say “brutal” things that “society may not want to hear” while “connecting” with listeners.

Her Grammy-winning, platinum-selling 2015 album To Pimp a Butterfly became an anthem of defiance for Black Lives Matter protesters in the wake of George Floyd's murder. He delivered a message of “Alright.'' His sequel, 2018's Damn, won the Pulitzer Prize.

Around the same time, Canadian pop rapper Drake became the first rap artist to be named Billboard Hot 100 Artist of the Year, thanks to his viral hit “One Dance.”

Previously, when hip-hop first crossed the Atlantic, many British artists were simply copying American artists. But Roots Manuva, So Solid Crew and The Streets each mixed hip-hop, dub and UK garage, giving rap an authentic British voice and accent.

In trip-hop, Bristol's Massive Attack and Portishead have created a slow-tempo, psychedelic fusion of hip-hop and electronica.

In 2002, the BBC launched a new radio station, 1Xtra, aimed at fans of contemporary black music. The grime scene was devised by bringing together influences from hip-hop, jungle and dancehall, centered around London's pirate radio rising stars Dizzee Rascal, Wiley and Kano.

Rap music, which has permeated British and American street culture for decades, will reach its zenith in 2022, with Eminem taking a knee at the Super Bowl in support of Black Lives Matter, Dre, Snoop, He co-starred with Mary J. Blige and others.

Today's generation of critically acclaimed young British rappers include Loyle Carner as well as Dave and Little Simz, who also starred in the Drake-backed Hackney gangster drama Top Boy. included. They all add accents to their sound and tell their stories to new audiences in their own unique way.

Hip-hop's dominance on radio, streaming, and charts in recent years is undeniable, and it's influencing everything from modern mainstream pop to drill, comedy, movies, and fashion.

The journey from the basement of the Bronx to Los Angeles, London, Paris, Puerto Rico, and around the world to the fields of Pilton was a long but rewarding one.