The Grammys are set to honor the 50th year of hip-hop with a special performance at this year’s awards show. Featuring rap artists of all eras, it should be nothing short of amazing. On that note, we thought it was time to dive deeper into the history of it all.
Before we go any further, however, let me get personal for a moment. I live in the Bronx. My family is from the Bronx. My mom grew up on one side while my dad grew up on the other. When my dad moved out of the South Bronx at age 20, he simply moved to another area in the Bronx. Hip-hop itself was born in the Bronx, and my dad wasn’t too far from where it all started. Needless to admit, I grew up a fan of rap music. With that in mind, let me tell you a little story about its origins and its growth from a local phenomenon to a worldwide art form.
A couple months ago, there was a fire at an apartment building here in the Bronx at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue. Thankfully, it ended up being minor, and no one was hurt. Because of the location, when news first spread, it had some people here worried. Why? It’s a famous address that’s something of an unofficial landmark in hip-hop history. To put it plainly, it’s the birthplace of hip-hop.
Clive Campbell, who was 12 years old when his family moved to the Bronx from Kingston, Jamaica, was a musically inspired kid whose younger sister eventually encouraged him to DJ a dance party at their apartment building when he was 18. That’s when Clive hosted the “Back-to-School Jam” on August 11, 1973 at their apartment building at, you guessed it, 1520 Sedgwick Avenue.
Campbell already had two turntables and had been DJing, but this is where it all came together. He extended the instrumentals of a song by playing multiple copies of the same record, when one reached the end of the instrumental break in the song, he switched to the other turntable which was set at the beginning of the same instrumental break of the same song. This can be repeated for the music to keep playing as long as desired, and the building’s recreational center was filled with dancers who loved it. This was a method that Campbell used beginning a year earlier, which he called “The Merry Go-Round,” and it would soon be a staple at his events.
Thus was truly born DJ Kool Herc.
Hip-hop would soon take off locally. It was something of a tumultuous period. The Bronx was burning, and more than a quarter million people were displaced by fires. The South Bronx was in decline, and it became popular for locals to burn down buildings for landlords who wanted to collect insurance which, during that time, was easy to do. The city didn’t help. They had shut down numerous fire departments in the area. By the time someone arrived to a fire, the building was already destroyed. With little or no inspection following, the cause would never be found, and the landlord could thus collect the insurance.
My uncle, desperate for cash, got involved in such deeds, but to a lesser degree. He was paid by car owners to burn their cars so that they could collect the car insurance. To show you how lucrative the business was, he was paid $500 per car which, if adjusted for inflation, is the equivalent of over $2,500 today. My uncle did it sparingly to lessen the chance of getting caught, and, considering the money he made from one car, he didn’t have to do it all the time anyway.
The struggles experienced by anyone living in the Bronx in the 1970s, especially in or close to the South Bronx, begged for a political response, but it never quite happened. Instead, there was a movement. Bronx kids of the ’70s didn’t take the approach that others did before them. They didn’t make it about politics nor did they necessarily start fighting for what people told them were their rights. Instead, they did something pretty simple; they started having a good time.
They needed to get away from the struggles of everyday life and enjoy it if not for just one party at a time. In essence, they are what kept the art of hip-hop alive in those early years. It was an art that contrasted their lifestyle because hip-hop, at that time, was all about positivity.
Despite its inception and rapidly growing popularity in New York City, especially in the boroughs, hip-hop was deemed a fad by any outside of its origins. It’s not like there was a major MC, or rapper, in the mainstream. MC’s were Masters of Ceremonies at these parties. They were pumping up the crowd while also delivering poetry over music, sometimes doing so not just by talking over the beats but with impressive vocal deliveries. The MC soon became about lyrical entertainment.
Even if hip-hop did make it big, many thought it would easily crash. It certainly didn’t help when another popular feel-good music genre suddenly crashed — disco. Perhaps the most popular musical genre of the 1970s, at least in the United States, disco was everywhere until people decided it wasn’t cool anymore. Thus, it really was just a fad — an extremely popular fad, but a fad nonetheless.
Surely, rap music would suffer the same fate.
Unlike disco, rap was more than just music. It was a new mentality, a way of life, and it had its owns culture called hip-hop. That’s what made the music special; it wasn’t just a new form of music but also a new form of culture.
What is hip-hop? At the time, it was numerous things. It was music, it was breakdancing, it was graffiti, it was poetry, and it was actually an artistic way of living. Most importantly, it was upbeat. That’s the perfect word to describe the early days of hip-hop. Not only was the music literally “upbeat,” but the mentality was figuratively “upbeat” as well. Unlike today, rap music was only positive. It was meant to be enjoyed, meant to relieve stress, but also about displaying your skills — as a DJ, MC, dancer, or other — with the support of the party-goers encouraging you. In fact, in some ways, that’s why it soon caught on and grew from being a a local fad to no longer being a fad at all. Ultimately, it was here to stay.
It was colorful, both in terms of its lyrics and its music but also in terms of its look. Graffiti artists colored up New York City while breakdancers seemingly wore the most colorful outfits possible. How did it grow to become accepted by mainstream audiences? One has to mention Kurtis Blow, who became the first rapper to sign to a major label. When his label, Mercury, released “Christmas Rappin’” in 1979, it sold over 400,000 copies. Then, in 1980, Blow released the single, “The Breaks,” which sold over half a million copies to become the first rap song that was certified gold.
One has to also mention Sugarhill Records. Sylvia Robinson and her husband, Joe Robinson, founded Sugarhill Records in 1979 and was the first label to focus on hip-hop music. Some thought it was a foolish idea but the company’s first single, “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugarhill Gang, became hip-hop’s first hit. The label signed other artists that had success, including the legendary Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.
There are three DJs that were instrumental (pun intended) to the early success of hip-hop: Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, and Grandmaster Flash. It was Flash who perfected numerous DJ techniques, such as scratching, while one of his MCs, Melle Mel, redefined what it meant to be a lyricist. To this day, some hardcore hip-hop fans will tell you that Melle Mel is the greatest rap artist to ever live. He raised the standard of what it meant to be a lyricist. It’s as if he was competing against himself, continuously setting a new bar every time he graced the microphone. He was the lead MC on the group’s 1982 hit, “The Message,” which was the first socially conscious rap song, gaining tremendous popularity worldwide. His anti-drug song, “White Lines,” owned the radio airwaves and has been covered by countless artists, including Duran Duran.
His lyrics went unmatched in songs like “King of the Streets,” “Step Off,” “World War III,” and “New York, New York” as well as countless others. His arrival meant that rap lyrics would be taken seriously and that the quality of the music wasn’t just in the music but also in the words. Here’s just a snippet of Melle Mel’s lyrics from his 1984 song, “Beat Street.”
“I’m caught in a rat race, looking for my own space / There’s gotta be a better place for you and me / There’s pie in the sky and an eye for an eye / Some people gotta die just to be free / Search for justice and what do you find? / You find just us on the unemployment line / You find just us sweatin’ from dawn to dusk / There’s no JUSTICE – it’s JUST US”
It’s the type of lyrics that unintentionally gave birth to the idea of the rap “artist.” Suddenly, those calling themselves rap artists grew, and by decade’s end, there were more and more rappers signing record deals, appearing on MTV, and being something that rappers never fully were before — in demand.
Now, the Grammys will celebrate the legacy of hip-hop with a segment produced by Questlove of The Roots. It’s being reported that it will include many artists, including modern rap artists and also some legends like Run D.M.C. whose popularity in the mid-1980s helped solidify the long-term mainstream appeal of rap music. It’s rumored that Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel will also be there.
Here in the Bronx, rap music is celebrated in everyday life. Although the borough is still home to turmoil and destitution, it’s also the home to the birth of hip-hop.
The 2023 Grammys will be in Los Angeles on Sunday, and broadcast live on CBS at 8pm EST.