Kool DJ Herc

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Kool DJ Herc (2009)

Kool DJ Herc (born April 16, 1955 in Kingston , Jamaica ; also DJ Kool Herc , real name Clive Campbell ) is an American - Jamaican DJ and producer. He is considered one of the pioneers of hip hop in the 1970s . In 1973 he derived his stage name from his nickname " Hercules ", an allusion to his tall and powerful stature. As a graffiti sprayer, he shortened the name to 'Herc' and later added the word 'Kool'.

biography

The invention of hip hop

Kool DJ Herc is from Kingston , Jamaica and moved to New York in 1967 when he was 12 . He took reggae there with him, which was already on the streets of his homeland in the 1960s . His DJ career began in 1973 as a party DJ on his sister's birthday and other private parties. At the end of the same year he had his first professional appearance as Kool DJ Herc in the club "Twilight Zone".

Kool Herc's role models were disco DJs from the Bronx such as Grandmaster Flowers , Pete Jones , Amazing Birth and John Brown . However, he also saw the development of dub in his homeland. However, since reggae was unpopular in New York, he began early to talk about the instrumental parts of pieces that were popular at the time, which is how rap was born. He also devoted himself to the emerging funk , the elements of which he incorporated into his creations. Since the microphone units were relatively short, he began to lengthen them by using two identical records on two turntables, thus lengthening the instrumental intervals. By no longer playing songs as a whole, but only repeating the most danceable parts, the so-called " breaks ", he created the prototype of what is known today as hip-hop music. It is controversial whether he invented the word “hip-hop”. She is also often attributed to DJ Hollywood and Lovebug Starski .

His first breakbeats - the first ever known - came from the pieces It's Just Begun by Jimmy Castor Bunch and Apache by the Incredible Bongo Band . Apache became its signature tune, followed by rap-like announcements and announcements.

The Herculoids

He was particularly famous for his block parties , whose face he shaped in the Bronx. According to the listeners at the time, its sound system was by far the most impressive and best in the district. The low admission price of 25 cents, the sound system and his then unique DJ style meant that his parties were one of the few occasions that residents of the whole of the Bronx, then torn by internal conflicts and gang disputes, came to.

At his block parties, he soon worked with MC Coke La Rock and rapper Clark Kent as well as the members Pebelee-Poo, Sweet N 'Sour, Timmy Tim, Tony D, Imperial Jay Cee and Smiley, who were the first woman, to join shortly thereafter appears as MC. This crew named themselves after Herc as The Herculoids.

Career high point

In 1975 he started as a DJ in the legendary club "Hevalo". He continued to play a mixture of music from his home country, soul , funk and disco music . Together with Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash , for whom he was a role model, Herc was also one of the first important block party DJs of the Bronx hip-hop nucleus. Above all, the volume of his sound system became legendary and could not be drowned out by Grandmaster Flash and Bambaata.

In the mid-70s, a dance style emerged at his parties, which, as breakdance, is also an essential part of hip-hop culture to this day. He liked to refer to himself as the oldest b-boy in New York. Herc played “The Puzzle” in the discotheque and installed his own sound system there. This consisted of two Garrard turntables, a preamplifier and, for that time, huge bass boxes. Afrika Bambaata described the music of Herc as follows:

" He just kept that beat going. He took the music of like Mandrill, like "Fencewalk", certain disco records that had funky percussion breaks like The Incredible Bongo Rockers when they came out with 'Apache' and he just kept this beat going. It might be that certain part of the record that everybody waits for - they just let their inner self go and get wild. The next thing you know, the singer comes back in and you'd be mad. "(From Poschardt : DJ Culture )

retreat

In 1978 DJ Kool Herc retired from the music business due to a hand injury that he sustained in the Executive Playhouse club. His withdrawal was very sudden and surprising. He had his last public appearance in 1984 and was seen in the film Beat Street himself that same year . In the years that followed, he made headlines over drug problems and made his living as a truck driver and shipyard worker. It was not until the beginning of the 1990s that he reappeared, including during an interview with The Source magazine in November 1993, where he and Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaata asked about the real inventor of hip-hop and the first rap DJ should clarify. In 1994, he appeared together with the Public Enemy -DJ Terminator X on its Terminator X and the Godfathers of Threatt / Super Bad and 1997 on the album Dig Your Own Hole of the Chemical Brothers on. In 2011 Kool was DJ Herc in the video of Yelawolf feat. Kid Rock Let's Roll to see where it was recognized by the two artists.

illness

At the end of January 2011, DJ Kool Herc was hospitalized with kidney stones . Since DJ Kool Herc did not have health insurance, the hospital only wanted to carry out the necessary operation against payment in advance. However, since DJ Kool Herc was initially unable to pay this, DJ Premier called for a fundraising campaign on his blog .

Discography

Guest appearances

Videos and DVDs

  • Hip Hop - A Street History

literature

  • Laban Carrick Hill (Author), Theodore Taylor (Illustration): When the Beat Was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop. Coretta Scott King, August 2013, ISBN 978-1596435407 .
  • David Dufresne: Rap Revolution. History, groups, movement (= series music. 8360). Atlantis-Musikbuch-Verlag, Zurich et al. 1997, ISBN 3-254-8360-1 .
  • Ulf Poschardt : DJ Culture. Disc jockeys and pop culture (= Rororo 60277 non-fiction book ). Revised and expanded new edition. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1997, ISBN 3-499-60227-X (also: Berlin, Humboldt University, dissertation, 1995).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wayne Marshall: Kool Herc . In: Mickey Hess (Ed.): Icons of Hip Hop: An Encyclopedia of the Movement, Music, and Culture . Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007, ISBN 978-0-313-33902-8 , p. 23.
  2. ^ Ian Wade: The Chemical Brothers - Dig Your Own Hole - Review . In: BBC . 2011. Retrieved July 16, 2015.
  3. ^ Roman Cooper: Substantial - Sacrifice . In: HipHopDX . January 30, 2008. Retrieved July 16, 2015.