The Holy Trinity of Hip-Hop Culture
DJ Kool Herc
Three figures, DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, and Grandmaster Flash, are regularly referenced as the founders and forbears of the culture. Collectively they are known as the "holy trinity" of hip-hop culture.
DJ Kool Herc (born Clive Campbell on April 16, 1955), who immigrated to the United States from Kingston/Trenchtown, Jamaica, in 1967, is the acknowledged founder of hip-hop culture. He borrowed various elements from Jamaican culture and implemented them in the earliest outdoor parties that constituted hip-hop culture in the late 1970s. Herc was one of the first DJs to isolate and loop breakbeats at parties. This extraordinary intersection of technique and technological mastery reinforced the nonviolent ethos expressed by hip-hop's trinity. He provided the foundation upon which hip-hop musical aesthetics rest. Taking his cues from women, especially his sister, who organized and promoted his first party, "A DJ Kool Herc Party: Back to School Jam," on her birthday on August 13, 1973 (the first documented hip-hop jam/party), Herc isolated the breakbeats.
Rather than play a record in its entirety, followed by a fade to the next record, using two turntables so that he could seamlessly move from one break to the next, Herc blended musical fragments or beats from one record to the next using a crossfaderA device that allows a person to fade in or out a given sound source. For the practice of DJing, there are two cross-faders often between two turntables. One fader is used to fade "out" the current audio of one turntable while the other fader is used to fade "in" the upcoming audio from the second turntable. lever between the two turntables. He also added electronic sound effects-"echoing and reverbing back and forth between the vocal and instrumental track; [while manipulating] the treble and bass knobs"-a trademark of Jamaican sound engineer King Tubby (Hebdige 1987, 83). Soon he began to develop techniques for looping and extending them. One such approach appropriately termed the "merry-go-round" featured an endless string of breakbeats, often the percussion section of a song, from a wide variety of records. This became a trademark in early hip-hop recordings and at live events. The following video highlights all these points.
Kool Herc "Merry-Go-Round" technique [ 00:00-00:00 ]
DJ Kool Herc's first DJ party handwritten on a postcard
The merry-go-round technique still employed by DJs today created a kinesthetic frenzy on the dance floor. It generated the musical space and time for breakers (b-boys and b-girls) to demonstrate the full range of their skills, and it also served as a platform for the very first MCs to give shout-outs and make announcements over the microphone.