DJing
By the mid-1970s, DJ Kool Herc's parties were becoming well-known in New York City. Hip-hop jams were the affordable alternatives to overpriced disco clubs. As early hip-hop DJs began to hone the various techniques of early DJing, the potential of the culture emerged in young b-boys and b-girls. The early hip-hop DJs invented scratching or skillfully manipulating vinyl records to sonically rupture recorded music and play fragments of it back at will. Even before they developed scratching, DJs isolated and looped breakbeatsA term referring to the gathering of two or more musicians who spontaneously perform. from popular records (such as the song " The Breaks ," 1980 by Kurtis Blow-the break times occur at 01:59-02:16, 02:28-02:56, 03:02-03:36, 03:49-05:19, 06:14-until the end).
MCing and Rapping
In addition to DJs and breakdancers, MCs also participated in early hip-hop jams. As mentioned previously, all MCs rap. While a rapper is an entertainer, an MC is committed to the crafts of lyrical mastery and call-and-response audience interaction. MCs were not initially (as they are now) the front men and women of hip-hop culture. KRS-One, a well-known MC, once remarked that he was happy to carry his DJs crates as an MC. These days, hip-hop culture and rap music especially tend to marginalize most of the foundational elements of the culture and overemphasize the role of the MC. These days, hip-hop culture and rap music especially tend to marginalize most of the foundational elements of the culture and overemphasize the role of the MC. According to Rakim, an MC known as "the god," MC means "move the crowd" or "mic control." MCs improve their skills through freestyling and battling as well. Freestyle rhyming is when an MC raps without the aid of previous rhymes committed to paper or memory. Much like their jazz-improvising counterparts, a freestyling MC performs lyrical rifts and cadences from an ever-evolving repertoire to deliver extemporaneous rhymes that reflect their immediate environment or address the present opponent.
Conversely, battling is when MCs engage in lyrical combat in a series of discursive, alternating turns. Verbal battles between MCs have become legendary and notoriously violent on and off the record at times. Here is an example of a verbal battle (Warning: Explicit Language):
In addition to the four foundational elements of hip-hop culture, several secondary factors also frame the culture. These include fashion/modes of dress, entrepreneurship, and complex systems of knowledge (particularly elaborate language and other linguistic phenomena). Fashion has always been an integral component of hip-hop culture. The DJs, b-boys, b-girls, and MCs had serious dress codes. Some of the earliest (and most notable) brands of choice were Adidas, Puma, Lee Jeans, Cazal (eyeglasses), and Kangol (hats). True to their artistry, some early graf artists sprayed paint names and designs onto sweatshirts, jackets, sneakers, and hats. Thus, a distinct sense of fashion was established early on in hip-hop's cultural development. As the culture grew in popularity, fashion became an overt sign of hip-hop's entrepreneurial sensibility. Hip-hop clothing brands such as Karl Kani (owned by Carl Williams, who is sometimes assumed to be Black as he has dark skin but was born in Costa Rica to a Panamanian father and Costa Rican mother), Cross Colors (Black owners Carl Jones and TJ Walker), FUBU (owned by four Blacks Daymond John, Carlton E. Browm, J. Alexander Martin, and Keith C. Perrin), and Rocawear (Black co-founders Damon Dash and Shawn Carter, a.k.a. Jay-Z) signified that youth influenced by and living through hip-hop culture were deeply invested in economic empowerment, most readily manifest in owning one's own business.
