Madison Arkadie
ANTH 3980
February 19th,
208
DJ Kool Herc:
A Hip-Hop Pioneer
It
may appear to many that people that rap and hip-hop appeared out of nowhere.
Yet the sounds of hip hop have originated through already existing music, it
could be heard in African griots, Chicago blues, bebop scat, Jamaican toasts,
the beat poetry of Gil Scott-Heron and even the verses of Muhammad Ali (Mervis
& Post-Gazette, 2004). Yet the credit for hip-hop, that which encompasses
rap, graffiti art, DJing and break dancing usually goes to Clive Campbell, aka
DJ Kool Herc (Mervis & Post-Gazette, 2004). ÒBefore there was hip-hop,
there was HercÓ (Kool Herc, 2007). DJ Kool Herc is one of the greatest and
often times one of the least known pioneers of hip-hop. He is known to be a hip-hop
pioneer for his development of break-beat Deejaying. To many, DJ Kool Herc is
the founder of a cultural movement transcended into a hip-hop phenomenon (Kool
Herc, 2007).
DJ
Kool Herc was born as Clive Campbell on April 16th, 1955 in
Kingston, Jamaica. He was the first born child of six to parents Keith and
Nettie Campbell. Clive Campbell's father, Keith Campbell, was a worker at the
Kingston Wharf garage, and even though it was a working class job, the job he
did came with status and he was considered as a community leader. Keith
Campbell was also a collector of music. Although they lived in Jamaica, Keith
did not only buy reggae music but jazz, country, and gospel music, which had a
great influence on Clive. It was because of Keith's love for music that he
became a sponsor to a local rhythms and blues band (Chang, 2005). By sponsoring
this band, Keith became the soundman and invested his money in a Shure P.A.
system which was known to have great sound power. Yet Keith did not know how to
make the sound system peak. On one afternoon while his father was away, Clive
Campbell decided to play with the wires to see if he could get the system to
peak like it was suppose to, and he did. This is an important part of Clive's
history and how he came about Deejaying the way he does. Here is a how he did
it:
What I did was I took the
speaker wire, put a jack onto it and jacked it into one of the channels, and I
had extra power and reserve power...I got to Bogart amps, two Girard
turntables, and then I just used the channel knobs as my mixer. No headphones.
The system could take eight mics. I had an echo chamber in one, and a regular
mic to another. So I could talk plain and, at the same time, I could wait
halfway for the echo to come out (Chang, 2005).
Jamaica
was a place of civil war in 1966
and this was one of the reasoningÕs that Clive's family decided to move out of
Jamaica and move to New York where it was believed that, ÒAmerica was a place
for you to excel and do better for you kids,Ó (Chang, 2005). In 1967 when Clive
was twelve years old he moved from Kingston to the Bronx. The transition was
not easy for Clive, he didn't have the right apparel to fit in with everyone
else, he wore a corduroy coat, a bad snow-cap, and cowboy boots, and to top all
of that off he also had a rather harsh Rasta accent and for all of this he was
teased heavily in school and he found it very difficult to fit in.
By
time Clive reached high school in 1970 he had almost masked his Jamaican accent
completely, in fact so that his peers would not know he was Jamaican. It was at
this time that Clive changed his name. It was through the art of graffiti in
which Clive's first name change came about, he renamed himself ÒClyde As KoolÓ
(Chang, 2005, Kool Herc 2007). Since Clive was a difficult name for many to
pronounce he changed it to Clyde and he got the Kool from a commercial about
the brand name cigarettes Kool. Clive was also an athlete and had grown an
almost mythical shadow behind him, a mammoth physique inside a six foot five frame,
and with his steam-rolling drives to the basket peers and onlookers dubbed him
ÔHerculesÕ (Kool Herc, 2007). Clive did not like the name Hercules and so he
decided to shorten it and make it Herc. Then it all came together, he dropped
the Clyde and became Kool Herc.
It
was in 1973 that DJ Kool Herc started to make a name for himself and started
his path to becoming one of the pioneers of hip-hop. In 1973 Cindy Campbell
decided to throw a party where Kool Herc was the DJ. ÒIt has become myth, a
creation myth, this West Bronx party at the end of the summer in 1973. Not for
its guestsÉnot even for its locationÉTime remembers it for the night DJ Kool
Herc made his name (Chang, 2007).When he played at this first party, DJ Kool
Herc stated that ÒAt the time I was into graffiti so there was a lot of
curiosity was about who I was. And so when they came there they saw who I was
and what I did, I fulfilled their expectations on me (Davey D, 1989). This
party opened doors for young Clive Campbell to give Kool Herc its predestined
legend. Another pivotal moment for DJ Kool Herc came again from his sister
Cindy. In late August of 1973 CindyÕs was the organizer of a Dodge High School
event. This, to some, would later become one of the single-most pivotal moments
in hip-hopÕs early timeline staining Kool Herc in history forever as the
foremost revolutionary hip-hop Deejay and on this night hip-hopÕs ball of
culture started rolling. (Kool Herc, 2007).
At
these parties, Herc became aware that although he new which records would keep
the crowd moving and dancing, he was more interested in the break section of
the song. The break section in a song is when the vocals would stop and the
beat would just ride for a short period of time (Kool Herc Online, 2008). DJ
Kool Herc realized that the moment that a dancer was waiting for in the song
was the instrumental break. This
is where Kool Herc zeroed in on the fundamental vibrating loop at the heart of
the record, the break (Chang, 2004). His first try at creating this new technique
is what he called, Òthe Merry-Go-RoundÓ (Chang, 2004). What he did with the
Merry-Go Round was work two of the same records at the same time. He would
back-cue one the records to the beginning of the break as the other record was
reaching its end. This enabled him to turn a five second breakdown into a five
minute loop. He would find the most danceable section of the record and
manipulate it between each turntable so that it appeared to repeat endlessly.
Originally, DJ Kool Herc drew inspiration for his break beats from reggae music but this was before reggae had
hid it big here in America. By popular demand Kool Herc decided to draw
inspiration for his breakbeat from funk from artists such as the Apache, James
Brown, Johnny Pates version to shaft in Africa, Dennis Coffey, he drew a lot of
his inspirations for his backbeats from Afro-Latinized sounds (Chang, 2004). To
simply define what Herc did, in his own words, ÒI cut off all anticipation and
played the beats. I'd find out where the break in the record was at and prolong
it and people would love it. So I was giving them their own taste and beat
percussion wise. Cause my music is all about heavy bass (Davey D, 1989). This
style of music became popularized and can be considered one of the back bones of
hip-hop.
Traditionally
DJ Kool Herc played a lot of his parties in the rec room of his apartment
building. In the summer of 1974, he decided to play a free block party. Once he
did this block party he decided that he just couldn't go back to playing in the
rec room, that era of his deejaying was over. There were however risk in
playing block parties, there was weather as a factor but the more important
factor to DJ Kool Herc was that possibility of fights breaking out. Herc would
always state at the parties, ÒListen. The first discrepancy, I'm pulling the
plug...I'm not going to be here for the repercussionsÓ (Chang, 2005).
It
was at these block parties that DJ Kool Herc was able to grab a new audience.
An audience he had not yet been able to reach. "Most of [the crowds] were
high-school kids, not gangsters. And they weren't just black. They were white
and Puerto Rican, too. There was also lots of women, unlike today's rap
shows" (Nelson, 1994). Other people whom are also considered pioneers of
hip-hop drew inspiration from the sounds of Kool Herc. Two prime examples are
Aaron O'Bryant (aka DJ AJ) and Joseph Saddler (aka Grandmaster Flash), whom
both regularly attended Kool Herc's block parties. As quoted by Grandmaster
Flash in Chang (2005), Ò[He's] playing music that wasn't being played on the
radio. I liked what he was doing and what he was playing, and I wanted to do
that, too.Ó Grandmaster flash was a person who drew a lot of his music
inspiration from the styles of DJ Kool Herc but changed them up a bit by perfecting and smoothing out
the breakbeat. Kool Herc also had a great influence for dancers. He gave them
music that they could go off to, and express all the creativity that they held.
They would just break wild on each other, thus Kool Herc called them
b-boys/girls for short (Chang, 2005). It was through these block parties and
being able to open up to new and different audiences that DJ Kool Herc changed
the times meaning of cool. Well stated by Chang (2005), Òthe man with the
records replaced the man with colors.Ó
Kool
Herc assembled his own clique which consisted of rappers, deejays, and dancers.
This clique was known as the Herculords. This group consisted of Coke La Rock,
DJ Timmy Tim with Little Feet, DJ Clark Kent the Rock Machine, the Imperial JC,
Blackjack, LeBrew, Pebblee Poo, Sweet and Sour, Prince, and Whiz Kid (Chang,
2005). Kool Herc along with the Herculords started doing parties at the
Twilight Zone in 1975 followed by the club Hevalo. By 1976 Herc was considered
to be the draw into the Bronx, when so often before everyone had been trying to
get out, away, or avoid the Bronx. ÒI was the people's choice. I was their
investment. They made me who I am and I never fronted on them. No matter how
big my name got, I was always in the neighborhood. They could see and touch me.
The people have a way of showing they want or don't want youÓ (Davey D, 1989).
The sounds of DJ Kool Herc and the Herculords brought together almost all
elements of hip-hop for the first time, it was just not known yet to be
hip-hop. This another reason why
Kool Herc was a pioneer to hip-hop.
By
time 1977 rolled around, Kool Herc no longer was the main draw in the Bronx. On
July 13th and 14th, the New York Blackout took place.
During the blackout looting occurred and from this there were plenty of new
crews who emerged because they had brand new sound systems. They started to
take away the audiences of Kool Herc. Another main event that happened during
1977 was the stabbing of DJ Kool Herc. After these series of events hip-hop
started taking a new curve, moving from the Bronx to the downtown area. Yet
Herc decided to stay behind and continue playing for the people in the Bronx.
While others moved ahead with commercializing hip-hop, Herc stayed behind. Herc
stated that, Òa lot of them pioneers no matter how their names were out there
werenÕt getting paid. I didn't want to get on that bandwagon because I was
about my own thing and nobody ever approached me about that perspective of
letting me be my own man. Let me run whatever part I'm supposed to run and have
authority. Don't let me be like some sort of puppet. I wasn't with that...Ó
(Davey D, 1989).
In
an interview with Davey D (1989), Kool Herc was asked if he ever guessed the
idea that hip-hop would become the big million-dollar industry that it is
currently today and Herc answered by saying, ÒNo. Little did anybody know we
were making history by creating our own culture for our unborn family or unborn
child to be coming up into. Nobody knew.Ó
DJ
Kool Herc became a New York legend in the late '70s and early '80s, rocking
genre-jumping house parties, outdoor soundsystem blockos, and clubs like Disco
Fever, Hilltop and Twilight Zone. He pioneered extending breakbeats on a
two-turntable setup, and paved the way for Deejaying and scratching as we know
them now (Scott, 2005). Kool Herc is the father of this underground sound from
New York that found its way to becoming a worldwide phenomenon. (Kool Herc
Online, 2008). Herc is a pioneer to hip-hop because of his creation of a new
genre of music through breaks, he saved the most powerful and basic elements of
music Ð the rhythm, the motion, the voice, and the name.
Bibliography
Chang, J. (2005). Can't stop wont stop: A history of the hip-hop
generation. New York: St. Martin's Press
Davey, D. (1989). Interview w/ DJ Kool Herc: 1989 New Music Seminar.
Retrieved February 24th, 2008
from http://www.daveyd.com/interviewkoolherc89.html
Kool Herc. (2007) Retrieved,
February 25th, 2008 from
http://hiphop.sh/koolherc
Kool Herc. (2008) Retrieved February 24th, 2008 from
http://www.oldschoolhiphop.com/artists/deejays/kooldjherc.htm
Mervis, S., Post-Gazette, P. (2004, January). From kool
herc to 50 cent, the story of rap Ð so far. Retrieved February 26th,
2008 from http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/20040215rap0215aep1.asp
Nelson, H. (1994, January). Rookies forgo formulas and build new styles.
[Electronic version] Billboard, 106(2), 24.
Scott, C. (2005). Hip hops'
founding pop don't stop. [Electronic version] Mirror, 21(2).