At the party, a rapper gets up
and he just starts rhyming over the
beat just for like hours and
hours. And she goes, it's great.
I could record it and
make it a hit.
Part of people in the place to be.
My name is Quest Love and I'm
here to tell you about the birth
of hip hop culture.
Now, it's 1973, so Clive
Campbell, a.k.a.
Kool Herc, born in Jamaica,
has come to New York to find a
better opportunity.
And he's like, Yo, I'm going to be a
big deejay.
So he's playing soul music.
And there is always a part
in that song where they
would literally give the drummer
stuff. And that's called The
Breakdown Breakdown.
So soon as James Brown
warns you and we've got to give the
Jumma some, suddenly the place
will go out their mind, like you
got to get to
get into that.
And then core goods via the
turntable, like, yo, I got
it. I'm going to play only the best
part of the song. Only the break
and the move on.
And then move on and then move on.
And then his sister, Simone
Campbell, is like, Hey, heard.
No.
She was saying, hey, Clive, I want
you to deejay my back
to school jam and Kool Herc is
like, yo.
So August 11th, 1973,
at this particular party, Kool
Herc invented the merry go round
theory. First of all, he was using
two turntables, which was unheard
of. Beck is a watch.
And he played those eleven seconds,
the break.
And then when that part was over,
he'd fade it and then go to the next
song using this other turntable.
And the part of spinning
on their heads, spinning on their
knees, spinning on their backs,
spinning on their noses.
And Kool Herc is like,
sorry, let's go like them.
Michael Jackson's smooth criminal in
everything.
Anyway, so here's his claim to
fame was inventing hip hop.
Pretty good invention.
And then in 1976,
Joseph Saddler, a.k.a.
Grandmaster Flash, would take a
crack and mark the point
where the great starts.
And then one day he was just tired
of doing it.
How can I take the merry go round
theory and make it better?
And so he goes to radio set
and says, I want
a queuing system that will allow
me to hear a record before the
audience hears it.
How can I do it?
They said, Are you out of your mind?
There's no way that you can do it.
So he's basically taking a
razor and slicing
the cords and inserting
the cords into the back of the
mixer. And, you know, everyone's
like, no, you're going to destroy
the system. You're going to destroy
the system.
Is I. No, I got this.
And with his science scientific
trickery, he invented the queuing
system.
Now, Flash is like
I'm able to take
a four part drum break.
Good, good, good, good, good.
One, two, three.
And extend. It
is two copies of the same
song.
Goo Goo, Goo, goo goo.
Dan, I'm so busy
right now, you just don't know.
Yeah.
Anyway, so Flash had
an apprentice. They mean Gene and
mean Gene and a little brother named
Theodore Livingston.
So I mean Gene Theodore
and Mama Livingston all live in this
apartment complex.
Now, there was one rule for young
Theodore Livingston, and that rule
was, don't touch our equipment
when we're born.
All right.
Five, four
to wash us.
Three.
Now he's like, I'm 12 years old.
But if it kills me, I'm going to be
bigger than her.
And Grandmaster Flash.
But Mama Livingston, Jesus
told him, yo, just keep it down.
And he's like, all right.
But he started making
a mix tape and he was loud.
Good. Get it. Got M.C.
Bustan again.
Turn it down.
He puts his hand on the turntable
and he's like, Oh, man,
I'm going to get it now.
But here's the thing.
His mix tape that he was recording
was still recorded, but she's
startled him so much
that he started shaking.
And then he decides to stop
the tape.
And he wanted to hear the progress.
He did. So the point where she's
yelling at him.
He had an epiphany.
He said, wait a minute.
You mean to tell me when I put my
three fingers on this record
and I do this?
It makes this weird noise.
He's like, maybe it's a fluke.
So he gets another record.
Yo, Sanscrit, sorry,
I can't go. Tick, tick, tick, tick,
tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.
Oh, snap.
I think I just am Vinit scratching.
So he had a bad man.
Wait. Get a load of me moving.
So he waits this perfect
block party because he knew
that he had lightning in
a bottle and
flash hurt every
D.J.
is there. I mean, he's he has to
stand on a crate in order to reach
the turntable.
That's how much of a kid he is.
And he is just a moment full
of tension. He just looks
looks at the stylus and he
goes.
Xie xie xie xie
xie.
Kissy, kissy, kissy, kissy, kissy.
In the audience goes
apeshit.
He doesn't just extend it like flash
does like an extended loop.
He is a good
kid. Tick, tick, tick, tick,
tick, tick, tick.
And people stop dancing and they
just watch him.
Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick,
tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick,
tick, tick.
And they never.
That's the first time they ever
heard scratching.
And Grandmaster Flash is looking
like, what the hell
was Kool Herc
is like?
What the hell was that?
And Graham was Theodore
and felt elated and
justified.
So he takes cool Herc's
merry go round theory and he
takes flashes peekaboo
system of here records ahead of time
and puts the perfect cherry
on top precise cutting
and scratching.
And that completes the final
word of hip hop.
Deejay
v.
Art of Turntablism
is a beautiful
invention.
I mean, the best babysitter
I ever had in my life was my
dad's turntable.
Want to keep
going
strong?
Let's send in the beat.
One, two, three, four.
Well, that was your quas lesson.
I love that. This is math and
science.
It also reminds me of this.
I may see a one on one
school year, but school
me you
know, my time to teach us
rest.
Just move my English.
Hello, my name's Colton, and
tonight I'm I'll tell you about
Rapper's Delight.
Drink up.
All right. So we're talking about
late 70s.
Disco was everywhere.
But Sylvia Robinson,
who was A RDBMS, B,
R and B singer, she
went to a party one night
with her son in New York.
And at the party, a rapper gets
up and he just starts rhyming over
the beat just for like hours
and hours. And she goes, it's great.
I could record it and
make it a hit. So she went up to the
M C's at the party.
She went up to Herk and she
goes, I want to make a rap
album. I think hip hop could be
cool. You want to do it.
But Herc is like,
no.
I don't want to do it.
Hip hop's you can't put it
on an album.
And so she goes to the other
rappers. They all say no to her.
But she's tenacious
about it. And she goes, you know
what? This is going to happen.
I'm going to make a hip hop album.
No matter what.
Where's my son?
She gets her son, she goes.
Take me to anybody
who can rap in rhyme
over music.
Take me to them.
And he's like,
well, I know. Rapping Pizza
guy.
And her son takes her to the crispy
crust pizza shop where
they have the rapping pizza guy.
Hey, this is big
bank, Hank, the rap and
pizza guy.
She goes, hey, I hear
you can rap.
Oh, yeah. I hear rap
duo Big Bucks.
Go on.
It's like F like
the letter F.
They go down making a beat.
Sometimes I'll wear a vest.
And I'll never stop riding because
I'll never stop.
Time of day.
I keep reminding all
my friends of
that, look,
I'm going to make a rap album.
You should be on it.
Who else do you want to bring in?
Big bank Hank is like, I'll try to,
you know, let me think of some guys.
He thinks in a couple of guys who
are like in the neighborhood.
He brought in Wonder Mike
and Master G, but he
himself didn't have
any rap. So he went to a guy named
Grandmaster Caz.
He goes, Hey, Grandmaster Cast, can
you hook me up with some rhymes?
Cause I'm about to do an album.
Hey, of course. Yeah.
You do a rap album and makes
everything great. Here's some raps
like old that I did.
Big bank. Hank is like, oh, these
are great. These are great rhymes.
So Sylvia Robinson
brings big bank Hank
Masterji and wonder
my to her man Chin.
But then she gets into it, you know,
like Dead Poets Society, like trying
to be inspirational.
She's like, OK.
Do you rap about the motel's
like mouth tell
tale? Great.
Do you rap about Superman?
Like orchestrating it.
But she's like, hold up.
Let me put it in the order of a
song.
You know, verse,
chorus, verse, chorus,
bridge, chorus,
verse, chorus,
which hadn't happened in hip
hop.
But I don't know if that makes any
sense what I said, because some
drunks I don't care, but I
understand.
They wanted to name the band
the Sugarhill Gang after
this artistic community
in Harlem.
I'm a genius.
So when they actually sat down to
record it for the album,
she was like, we have to get it down
in one take.
And so they brought in a band.
They go, hey, man, we just want you
to play these 16 measures
of the song over and over
and over again.
Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop,
boop, boop, boop, boop, boop,
boop.
And up and up on.
You know, the song that
you hear behind them while they're
rapping is Good Times
by Chic Board.
They were able to pull off was
a 40 minute song.
And yet at the end of the day,
they they recorded it in one
take.
I have to pee.
Put it in there.
Yes, sir.
Put it in there.
Yes, sir. That's me drinking a
bottle of Jameson tonight.
But, Colton, look at that
f why I'm a
monster man.
You can't stop me because here's the
deal.
They put it out.
It's a hit.
And the song just took off
all over the world.
But also at the time when it came
out, people like Hurk
and Grandmaster
Cars, these people
are live it because
this is not hip hop.
And once that song came out
and Sheek heard it, they were like,
Hey, that's our song.
They sued.
She's like, it sucks.
But regardless
of whether or not is made
up of stolen raps
or ridiculous
speed that was stolen from another
band, it created a genre
of music and
blazed the path
for all other hip hop.