The end of Black Music month and I have yet to do one diary in celebration of the explosion of genres and sounds that make up "black music."
Must remedy that egregious lapse. :)
In a recent study, scientists concluded that hip-hop has been the most important musical force of the last half a century.
The study's authors found that the hip-hop moment marked an explosion of new sounds, styles and tonalities that caused it to become most dominant and influential genre in the years that followed. The results were so astounding it led the study's authors to conclude: "The rise of rap and related genres appears, then, to be the single most important event that has shaped the musical structure of the American charts in the period that we studied."I contend that hip-hop's influence has not been limited to the musical landscape but has impacted almost every sphere of our existence, but that's a topic for another diary.
Among musicologists, the consensus is that DJ Kool Herc was/is the premiere founding father of hip-hop.
Born and raised to the age of 10 in Kingston, Jamaica, DJ Kool Herc began spinning records at parties and between sets his father’s band played while he was a teenager in the Bronx in the early 1970s. Herc often emulated the style of Jamaican “selectors” (DJs) by “toasting” (i.e., talking) over the records he spun, but his historical significance has nothing to do with rapping. Kool Herc’s contribution to hip hop was even more fundamental.My mission tonight is to remember and honor the real fathers of hip-hop. The movers and shakers who taught young Clive Campbell and his fellow creators about "toasting" or "D-jaying."
Toasting is a style of lyrical chanting which in Dancehall music involves a deejay talking over a riddim. Though the art of chanting over a beat is quite ancient, and found in many African-based musical traditions, Toasting became quite popular in Jamaica in the late 1960s and early 1970s. With the use of "sound systems" (traveling deejays and producers with large speakers and a library of beats and riddims) Toasting became a part of the musical entertainment.O, we know that there is so much more to the history of hip-hop; so much more to toasting and deejaying. We haven't touched on the rich history of the African traditions - the griots, the call and response, the art of scatting. This diary is not intended to be an exhaustive history lesson, just an excuse to introduce the pioneers who will appear below the dancing thingamajiggy.