The Start of Rap

In the late 1960’s, DJ Kool Herc (Clive Campbell) moved from Kingtson, Jamaica to the West Bronx in New York. DJ Kool Herc was a musician from Jamaica who sang rhymes over instrumental sections (sections of music with no lyrics) of reggae records; people from Jamaica called this toasting. Because the instrumental sections on the reggae records were short, DJ Kool Herc used two record players to cut back and forth between two separate records which allowed him to ‘toast’ as long as he wanted to. DJ Kool Herc would chant things like “Throw your hands in the air and waive ‘em like ya just don’t care!”. This type of crowd pleaser was not known as rap yet, but as MCing. Other common phrases where know as shouts. Shouts were little shouts acknowledging people at a party or popular phrases such as “Yo this is Kool Herc in the join-ski saying my mellow-ski Marky D is in the house”, and “Davey D is in the house, an he’ll turn it out without a doubt”.

About 1970, DJ Kool Herc let his friends, Coke La Rock, and Clark Kent take over the lyrics while DJ Kool Herc was at the turntables DJing. This was rap music’s first band, and they called themselves Kool Herc and the Herculoids.

It didn’t take long before other rap groups to be formed. The Sugar Hill Gang produced one of the first rap albums “Rappers Delight”. It became the best selling 12 inch record, selling over 2 million copies world wide.

It was because of this record that the word “hip hop” was coined; they used beats and base lines from the disco track “Good Times.” Utilizing beats from old gospel, jazz, James Brown/Motown soul, funk, disco, drum machines, then remixing them became the musical core of hip hop; this process became known as sampling.

Rap music quickly became popular for many reasons. One reason was that it allowed urban (inner city) New Yorkers a chance to freely express oneself. Another reason was that this new form of music did not require a lot of resources such as instruments or lessons. Rapping (MCing as it was known) is a verbal skill that can be practiced anywhere. One other reason was that this new form of music had no rules, and one could rap about anything.