Evolution Of Hip-Hop
MID to LATE 1970'S
Hip-Hip
In the earliest days of hip-hop music and culture, when skills were developing on the streets of the South Bronx, the DJ was the center of all entertainment. Legend has it that a Jamaican expatriate and reggae fan named DJ Kool started it all when he took the concept of the booming mobile sound system to uptown streets and recreation centers. He gave the partygoers what they wanted, hard funk beats, manually spliced together to play for hours at a time. The breakers went wild, the heads of aspiring future DJ's in the audience began to spin, and hip-hop was born.
Scratching
"Through a fortuitous accident, scratching was born. Grandwizard Theodore was practicing in his bedroom, backspinning something, when his mom said turn the record down. When he did this to hear what she was saying, in his headphones he heard himself rubbing the record. When she left, he kept doing it because he wanted to keep the beat that he was on. He was like I've got something here, and a week later he sprung it on everyone." John Carluccio, producer of "Battle Sounds" - WIRE
EARLY 1980'S
Turntablism
Grandmixer D.St, (now called DXT,) a member of Afrika Bambaataa's Zulu Nation, most clearly articulated the idea of the turntablist as instrumentalist with his orchestrated scratch solo on the most influential DJ track of them all, Bill Laswell's 1983 production of Herbie Hancock's "Rockit". - WIRE
"I remember listening to DJ's like him take the turntable and coax all these sounds from it that you couldn't get if you just let the record play. I started thinking that this is an art that I could really get into because I already liked the music and being able to make my own music off the records that I'm using is something that I could see myself doing." Rob Swift of The X-ecutioners -WIRE
1990'S
Rap
Rappers came in along the way, first used as props to point the crowd's attention to the DJ. And we all know what happened from there.
Rap music during this decade has for the most part relegated boundary pushing to a secondary role, but being the best deck manipulator with the newest tricks is the only thing that matters in DJ culture. This is because with DJs like 15-year kid Canadian whiz kid A-Trak breathing down your neck, time at the top may be short. Or even in the middle. For DJ Kid Koala and many others, the highest goal of DJ music is, simply, to do something than no-one has heard before.
CURRENT SITUATION
Gangsta Rap Predominates - Many Rap Groups have Replaced Live DJ's with Mix Tapes
"I think the fact that hip-hop has gotten so commercialized has forced people to step outside of it and say, Wait a minute let's get some focus. What is hip-hop really about? They realized that it started with DJs and that rapping started because somebody was talking about their DJ on the mic. Without DJing, there is no hip-hop." Chris Manak, DJ performer and producer -WIRE
"There used to be tons of garage parties up and down this block. Instead of fighting you'd just breakdance or DJ against each other. Then the gangsta thing took over. Gangsta killed hip-hop." DJ Disk - former Invisibl Skratch Piklz -OPTION
"Hip-hop music isn't experimental anymore; it's violent and materialistic. All the so-called rap videos on MTV are about holding cash in your hand, wearing Versace, and looking like a so-called playa. I never knew that as hip-hop. To me, hip-hop was partying and showing your skills, not calling somebody out and shooting them. But that's changing. Gangsta is giving way to a new wave of old school hip-hop." Shortkut of The Invisibl Skratch Piklz -OPTION