“Hip Hop is not music, it is not dance, it is not art … it’s culture. Hip Hop is a culture based on music. Not that the music is the nucleus, but it is the pulse. You take the music out of Hip Hop and you lose such an importance piece, the driving force.” – Mysnikol, Comedian
Hip-hop originated in the 1970s in the crime-ridden neighborhoods of the South Bronx by Kool Herc who was a Jamaican DJ. Prior to its name now it, hip hop as we know it was started with no vocals and was purely of an electronic nature. A product of a cross-cultural mixtures, rap is deeply rooted within an ancient African culture and oral tradition. Performances of (spoken-word) poetry and music by artists like The Last Poets and Jalal Mansur Nuriddin had epoch-making impact on the post civil rights era culture, with this influence came the birth of hip-hop. Hip-hop, as it was then known, was a product of pure streetwise adroitness; extracting rhythms and melodies from existing records and mixing them up with searing poetry narrating life in the ‘hood’, hip-hop spilled out of the ghetto. The hip hop period is divided into two eras - the old school hip hop (1970-1985) and the golden age hip hop (1985-1993).
Old school hip hop is noted for its rather simple rapping techniques compared to later hip-hop music. Much of the attention and feeling of old school hip hop focuses on partying and having a good time, that was the feel of the 70s and 80s. One notable exception is the song, “Play that Beat Mr DJ” which was written by Mc Globe and Wiz kid. Immortal Technique explains how party content played a big part in old school hip hop, in the book How to Rap “hip-hop was born in an era of social turmoil... in the same way that slaves used to sing songs on a plantation... that's the party songs that we used to have.” Along with this quote from one of the most known hip hop groups KRS One, “Rap is something you do, hip hop is something you