Hip Hop Music

During the early 1970s, it came to the attention of DJs that the percussion parts of music; the break-beat; were most popular for dancing. DJ Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash both independently isolated and repeated these parts of the music for the purpose of all-night dance parties. The favorite types of music were traditionally the breaks from funk songs, often featuring percussion. This was later developed and refined and included cutting.

Rapping then developed as MCs would talk over the music to promote their DJ, other dance parties, or take light-harted jabs at other lyricists. This soon developed into the rapping that appears on earlier basic hip-hop singles, with MCs talking about problems in their areas and issues facing the community as a whole. Melle Mel, a rapper/lyricist with The Furious Five is often credited with being the first rap lyricist to call himself an "MC."

By the late 1970s a myriad DJs were releasing 12" cuts where MCs would rap to the beat. Popular tunes included Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five's "Supperrappin'," Kurtis Blow's "The Breaks," and The Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight". In 1982, Melle Mel & Duke Bootee recorded "The Message" (officially credited to Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five), a song that foreshadowed socially conscious hip hop.

Hip hop as a culture was further defined in 1983, when former Black Spades gang member Afika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force released a track called "Planet Rock". Instead of simply rapping over disco beats, Bambaataa created an innovative electronic sound, taking advantage of the rapidly improving drum machine and synthesizer technology. Many credit the sensation caused by the track as another defining moment in hip hop music and culture. The mainstream media began to focus on one of the greatest impacts of hip hop; instead of fighting with guns and knives, former gangmembers had a new way of battling — though break dancing, rapping, turntable mixing, and graffitti.By 1985, youth worldwide were laying down scrap linoleum or cardboard, setting down portable stereo and spinning on their backs in tracksuits and sneakers to music by Run DMC, LL Cool J, the Fat boys, Herbie Hancock, Soulsonic Force, Jazz Jay, Eghyptian Lover, Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, and Stetsasonic, to name a few.