Context

The Years 1950 and 1960 dig the gap between the American white majority which benefits from the American dream and the minorities (in particular black and Hispanic) whose living conditions are degraded. The identity movements are formed and are repressed (in particular the Black Panthers) and their leaders disappear (Martin Luther King, Malcolm X). The communities of the big cities, in particular New York, fold up themselves on themselves in Ghetto S where the gangs take an increasingly marked social importance. The insecurity, the delinquency and drug form part of the daily newspaper then.

In same time, the American negro music affirms its identity and the Funk and the Soul become modes of expression and of claim privileged. The pioneers of this culture pose the foundations on which the hip-hop will be built: James Brown, The Last Poets, Sly and the Family Stone, Gil Scott Heron or Stevie Wonder.

The culture hip-hop is born from this underprivileged environment and the social strains, racial and policies of the time. The extreme economy of the means to implement, the use of the street like scene or place of exposure, the spontaneousness of the improvisation contributes to the development and the propagation of a cultural movement which will dominate the end of the 20th century.

The first tags

As of the medium of the Years 1960, the first signatures appear on the walls of Philadelphia. Cornbread and Cool Earl register their name followed by the number of their street. The phenomenon spreads and the interior of the subway trains of New York is touched as of 1973. The graffiti receives in 1971 a considerable publicity thanks to an article in the NewYork Times : Taki 183 becomes the first celebrity of the graffiti. The phenomenon develops then considerably and, to have a name, the taggeurs start to cover the outside of the coaches in order to lay out of more than space and to be visible by more world. The signatures become then Calligraphie S elaborate.

One of the permiers taggers and not of least, is not other than Jean-Michel Basquiat which in the Seventies tagguait SAMO (for same old shit) surmounted of a crown (traditional topic hip-hop if it is).

Cleave Campbell and the first block left

Young immigrant of the Jamaica where he was disc jockey, Clive Campbell settles in New York in 1967. Impassioned funk, it organizes evenings in the street where it uses the sound of two platinums in order to connect the pieces and to prolong the instrumental passages during which the dancers can leave free course to their creativity. Taking as a starting point the style rate/rhythm and sometimes lifting of James Brown, the dancers launch out challenges and create a style increasingly more impressive, innovating with new figures, introducing components of the Capoeira or dances African. The instrumental passages (or station-wagons ) lending itself particularly to this new style of dance, the dancers are called B-servant boys (for station-wagon-servant boys ) and gather in Crews of which most famous is the Rock Steady Crew.

These block left gains quickly in popularity and Clive Campbell, which one calls from now on Kool DJ Herc (in reference to its impressive physique) invites in turn a representative of each district to animate the evening. The interventions become rimées, rythmées and an emulation is born and of true verbal tournaments organize themselves. In 1973, the phenomenon exceeds the borders of West Bronx to reach South Bronx, where Afrika Bambaataa installs its enclosures with the window of its apartment to make dance its district. After the Bronx they are Harlem, Brooklyn and the Queens which yield to the fever block left .

Grandmaster Flash creates the first Table of mixing making it possible to connect the discs without interruption. Grand Wizard Theodore invents accidentally as for him the Scratch by posing the fingers on the disc which it was playing; it improves its discovery to make of it a genuine rhythmic instrument from which the control makes it possible the DJ' S to be distinguished. The scratch will become one of the distinctive features of the music hip-hop.

Afrika Bambataa and Zulu Nation

Aka Kahyan Aasim, leader of Bronx River Projects (a faction of the gang Black Spades) founds the Bronx River Organization , a movement seeking to help the children of the ghettos to leave the spiral of violence and the delinquency. Its influence of former chief of gang enables him to dialog with the young people of its district, Bronx River, and to channel their aggressiveness in a positive step of artistic creation. November 12th 1974, the Bronx River Organization becomes Zulu Nation , Aka Kahyan Aasim takes the pseudonym of Afrika Bambataa and registers its action in a step of return to the African culture. It adopts the currency or.

Dedication

As of 1978, the music hip hop makes its appearance in the clubs of Manhattan. The first disc rap leaves in 1979 on the face B a maximum 45T the group funk Fatback: King Tim 3 (Personnality Jock) . In 1979, Sugarhill Gang takes again best the raps block left and Rapper' S delight is a planetary tube. In parallel, the practice of the urban graffiti was propagated in the United States then in Europe. The culture hip-hop spreads and gains of visibility during the Années 1980 and 90.