From Dancehall to Hip Hop - DJ Kool Herc

There is no denying that Hip-Hop was created or even born from the roots of the DJ Sound Systems that started out in Jamaica way back in the late 1950's. Sure it was a gradual process but I think you can trace it back to there with first the Mento patterns, and then with just the simple idea of putting up some big speakers on street corners and getting people to dance, to the point where “The Great Wuga Wuga,” by Sir Lord Comic was released in around 1966 and is possibly the earliest example of the D.J. style on record. Perhaps also with out this people like Count Machuki, Dennis Alcapone, Dillinger and the mighty U-Roy, who's “Wear You To The Ball,” from 1969, was in turn probably the first record to really popularize the D.J. style, we may never have heard of, or seen the rise, and almost complete domination Hip-Hop / Rap has had over most of modern dance music over the last 20 or so years.
To say that Hip Hop has its roots entirely in Jamaica is a bit of a falsehood though as the Jamaicans were originally influenced by late 50's early 60's American DJ's, mainly from Louisiana and the South, who would hoot, holler, and chant over tunes, which in turn led to the invention of the Jamaican DJ style, and it is through this cross fertilization and influence of styles that both have become entwined, as can be heard so very clearly on the Soul Jazz LP '100% New York Dynamite' that was reviewed on this blog back in April.
What is considered to be the biggest creative input to this blend of styles occurred in the early to mid 1970's, when a young and ingenious Clive Campbell, the son of Jamaican immigrants, started having parties in the community room of 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx that global assault of Hip Hop and thus Rap began. When Campbell started out with his parties he found that his American audience was rather unresponsive to the slower reggae beats he had brought from home, so he sought out the paceier funk and Latin-influenced tracks that were very popular on the streets of New York. The one problem with a lot of these tunes however was that there was no dub or instrumental tracks on the B-side, like those that were common place with reggae releases for him to 'chat / rap' over, so Campbell had to find a new way to create his backing tracks. He started by buying whatever records he could find with juicy snippets of bare rhythm in them and by playing these sections repeatedly, by bringing the needle on the record player back to that same spot, or switching between multiple records to keep the beat going and gradually he turned American audiences onto a style of music that was already growing in Jamaica...Dancehall. It was also with this style of playing that Campbell would now become known as DJ Kool Herc.

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Armed with his new name and style his parties began to grow and he secured his first professional DJ job at the 'Twilight Zone' in 1973. A couple of years later he moved to a residency at the 'Hevalo' in the Bronx. Once here he helped coin the phrase b-boy (break boy) and his fame peaked. Other young DJ's were now also picking up on Herc's style and the task of creating the best breaks was becoming more and more intensive and meant that Herc was having less time to talk to the crowd and get them going. He needed someone else to help out and act as the Master of Ceremonies for him, and so for practical purposes, Coke La Rock was hired and became the first hip hop MC ever.
Another club that Herc rocked was the Sparkle located at 174th and Jerome Avenue in the Bronx. This was the spot that came before the Hilltop, 371 (DJ Hollywood's spot) and Disco Fever. In 1977, Herc's career began to fall. The rise of Grandmaster Flash and Furious Five, and Bambaataa's various crews with their polished delivery and style put Herc at a disadvantage, and then to top it all one night he was stabbed three times at one of his own parties and his career never fully recovered, until eventually in 1980 Herc decided to stop DJing altogether and went to work in a record shop in the South Bronx.
Since then has made sporadic appearances. He turned up in the Hollywood motion picture take on hip-hop, 'Beat Street' from 1984, as himself, then some 10 years later and after recovering from cocaine addiction he appeared on Terminator X & the Godfathers of Threatt's album, 'Super Bad'. In 2005, he wrote the foreword to Jeff Chang's book on hip hop, ‘Can't Stop Won't Stop’, and in 2006, he became involved in getting hip-hop commemorated at Smithsonian Institution museums. He can now also be found playing out djing from time to time and as recently as February 2009 he did a spot at Hunts Point section of the Bronx addressing the "West Indian Roots of Hip-Hop". One thing is for sure though I believe, that whatever happens to DJ Kool Herc now, and what ever path he decides to take the beat, thanks to him, is sure to go on.

[DJ Kool Herc in action @ West Indian Roots of Hip Hop 2009]