August 11, 1973: The Birth of Hip-Hop

August 11, 1973: A party is held in The Bronx. It is considered "the birth of hip-hop."

Clive Campbell was born on April 16, 1955 in Kingston, Jamaica. He was born 2 days before the death of Albert Einstein, meaning the greatest scientific genius the world has ever known and the inventor of hip-hop lived on this Earth at the same time, however briefly.

As a boy, he heard Jamaican "dancehall" music, and was inspired by it. At age 12, in 1967, he moved with his family to New York, to 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in The Bronx. At the time, the 18-story building was brand-new. But the housing project it's in is bounded on 3 sides by University Avenue and the Cross Bronx and Major Deegan Expressways. It is several blocks away from the nearest Subway station, although there is bus service. Life there has never been easy.

Growing up to be big, his strength on the basketball court got him nicknamed "Hercules." By 1973, only 18, he was hosting dance parties in the recreation room of 1520 Sedgwick, as "DJ Kool Herc." Most of the dance clubs in The Bronx had been taken over by street gangs, and Manhattan discotheques were catering to older dancers.

So the market for what Herc wanted to do was begging for someone like him. He would host the parties, playing the hottest records of the time, and his sister Cindy acted as the parties' promoter. For August 11 -- also Cindy's birthday -- they advertised a "Back to School Jam," charging 25 cent admission for "ladies" and 50 cents for "fellas." (In 2022 money, that's $1.65 for girls, $3.30 for guys.)

Herc used records to focus on a short, heavily percussive part in it: The "break." Since this part of the record was the one the dancers liked best, Herc isolated the break, and prolonged it by changing between two record players. As one record reached the end of the break, he cued a second record back to the beginning of the break, which allowed him to extend a relatively short section of music into what he called "a five-minute loop of fury."

This innovation had its roots in what Herc called "The Merry-Go-Round," a technique by which the deejay switched from break to break at the height of the party. This technique is specifically called "The Merry-Go-Round" because according to Herc, it takes one "back and forth with no slack."

The earliest known Merry-Go-Round involved playing James Brown's song "Give It Up or Turnit a Loose," then switching from that record's break into the break from a second record, The Incredible Bongo Band's cover of Preston Epps' blistering 1959 instrumental "Bongo Rock." From that record's break, Herc used a third record to switch to the break on "The Mexican" by the English rock band Babe Ruth. (An appropriate name, given that the party was just a mile and a half from Yankee Stadium, "The House That Ruth Built.")

The Incredible Bongo Band also covered "Apache," the 1960 instrumental by British band The Shadows. Releasing the record 2 months before the Back to School Jam, it became a staple of Herc's parties. In 1981, the Sugarhill Gang, from right across the Hudson River in Englewood, Bergen County, New Jersey, covered the IBB version, and that helped make it, in some minds, "the National Anthem of Hip-Hop."

The terms "hip-hop" and "rap music" (or just "rap") are connected, but not interchangeable. Rapping is talking over a beat, while "hip-hop" has come to mean the entire subculture that developed around rap's section of the music industry. (The hyphen is often used, but not required.)

The term "hippity-hop party" had been used in black neighborhoods since the early days of rock and roll, so Herc didn't coin it. But he did coin the terms "Break-boy" and "Break-girl," which he shortened to "B-boy" and "B-girl." Their "break dancing" led to the moves that became the single word "breakdancing," although it would take until 1983 or so for that to become nationally known.

Other DJs picked up the pace. In 1976, Joseph Saddler, a Bronx kid who was a nephew of boxing champion Sandy Saddler, looked up to the 3-years-older Herc as a hero. So he got some friends together and hosted a party at the Audubon Ballroom in Upper Manhattan, where Malcolm X had been assassinated in 1965. Saddler called himself "Grandmaster Flash," and his friends "The Furious Five." Flash invented "record scratching," and became another legend.

On July 13, 1977, New York City was hit by a blackout, which led to widespread looting. It has been suggested that the looting of music stores that night, including the stealing of records, record players, and other disc jockey equipment, helped to turn hip-hop culture from a minor movement in The Bronx and Upper Manhattan into a Citywide craze, and eventually a worldwide phenomenon. It enabled anybody who could get access to that equipment to become a hip-hop version of what 1960s rock and roll fans called a "garage band."

Herc said he retreated from the scene after being stabbed at the Executive Playhouse while trying to intercede in a fight, and the burning down of one of his venues. In 1980, Herc had stopped DJing and was working in a record shop in South Bronx. In 1984, he played himself in the film Beat Street. Then his father died, and he got hooked on crack cocaine, later saying, "I couldn't cope, so I started medicating."

By the dawn of the 21st Century, Herc had gotten clean, and hip-hop had been around long enough to have a history that could be told. In 2005, wrote the forward to Jeff Chang's book Can't Stop Won't Stop. He and Cindy, who remains his manager (and is known as the First Lady of Hip-Hop), began working with the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development to prevent the sale of 1520 Sedgwick and its conversion into the kind of housing that working-class people could no longer afford. In 2011, it was sold to a company that pledged to restore it to its original purpose, which it has done. It is now recognized as the Birthplace of Hip-Hop.

Interviewed in 2013, for an article on the 40th Anniversary of the Back to School Jam, Jeff Chang said, "Without DJ Kool Herc, we wouldn't be talking about it now, all around the world."

Herc and Cindy, with an original flyer for the party

UPDATE: In 2023, DJ Kool Herc, at age 68, was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. There is a Hip Hop Hall of Fame that was founded in 1992, but while it has a board of directors that holds elections for membership, it has no physical site to visit, unlike the Rock Hall in Cleveland.

And it took me until 2024 to think of this, but the 1970s were Schrödinger's Decade. There was too much overwrought music, and, at the same time, not enough of it.

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August 11, 1973 was a Saturday. This was also the day that the film American Graffiti premiered. I have a separate entry for that event.

Kind of a strange combination of events: It's like the past, the present and the future all collided.

These Major League Baseball games were played on that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Oakland Athletics, 7-3 at Yankee Stadium. Vida Blue outpitched Mel Stottlemyre. Gene Tenace hit a home run. Reggie Jackson went 3-for-4 with a walk and an RBI for the A's. He would, of course, later star for the Yankees. It was Old-Timers Day, and 46,293 fans came out. I don't know how many were at Herc's party a few hours later.

* The New York Mets lost to the San Francisco Giants, 8-7 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Bobby Bonds singled home Garry Maddox, off Tug McGraw, with the winning run in the bottom of the 13th inning. Bonds had also hit a home run. Don Hahn and John Milner hit home runs for the Mets.

Running out the string for the Mets, Willie Mays doubled to lead off the 9th in a pinch-hitting appearance for his former team. It was the 3,286th hit of his career. There would be only 7 more, plus 3 more in the 1973 postseason.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the California Angels, 2-1 at Fenway Park in Boston. Roger Moret outpitched Nolan Ryan. Carl Yastrzemski went 2-for-3 with a walk and an RBI. Frank Robinson went 1-for-3 with an RBI.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 9-3 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Dusty Baker hit 2 home runs, Darrell Evans 1. Hank Aaron went 1-for-4, but it was a single, not a home run. Willie Stargell went 2-for-3 with a walk.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Baltimore Orioles, 9-4 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City. Brooks Robinson went 1-for-2 before being replaced by a pinch-runner. George Brett had made his major league debut for the Royals 9 days earlier, but did not play in this game.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Chicago White Sox, 4-2 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Al Kaline went 3-for-3 with a home run, a walk, and 2 RBIs.

* The Houston Astros beat the Chicago Cubs, 6-4 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Minnesota Twins, 7-6 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Tony Oliva went 2-for-4 with a home run, a walk and 3 RBIs. Rod Carew went 1-for-5 with an RBI. Harmon Killebrew did not play.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 7-5 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. The Reds led 4-1 going into the bottom of the 9th, but Lou Brock's 3-run home run sent the game to extra innings. The Reds scored 3 in the top of the 10th, including an RBI triple by Johnny Bench. The Cards were only able to respond with 1 run, on a home run by Ted Simmons. Pete Rose went 3-for-5 with an RBI.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Texas Rangers, 5-2 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 3-1 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

* And the Montreal Expos and the San Diego Padres were not scheduled.