Hip Hop is a music genre and culture. It involves rapping, beat boxing, DJing, and dancing. Influences of hip hop include African American and Latino music, street dancing, spoken word poetry, and DJ block parties.
Clive Campbell is often called the “Father of Hip Hop”. He was born in Jamaica and moved to the US at the age of 11. His school friends called him Hercules because of his size. Clive Campbell grew up listening to Jamaican DJ battles. When he became a DJ in the 70’s, Clive Campbell named himself Kool Herc.
Kool Herc’s special technique of mixing records became very popular. DJs learned to buy two copies of an album. They remixed the tracks to prolong the drum solos or “breakbeats” . Rhyming, scratching, break dancing and emcee battling became part of the new hip-hop culture. Hip hop dancers were called b-boys or b- girls. The “b” stood for break, breaker, or break dancer.
