Joseph Saddler (L), also known as “Grandmaster Flash,” and Melle Mel perform during the 22nd annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New
York March 12, 2007. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson (UNITED STATES)
A history of hip hop in the Boogie Down Bronx
SIRECI
BY ALEX MITCHELL
In the summer of 1973 there was a
back to school party in the basement
of a south Bronx apartment building
Family Dental
which changed the world.
It was there at Highbridge’s 1520
Your Neighborhood Dentist Since 1983
Sedgwick Avenue that an 18-year-old
Jamaican immigrant by the name
of Clive “DJ Kool Herc” Campbell invented
a new genre of music when he
looped the break of James Brown’s
“Give It Up or Turnit Loose” inside of
the packed rec-room.
That new born, funk inspired sound
was the fi rst ever beat of the now global
phenomenon known as hip hop – and
without the so aptly nicknamed Boogie
Down Bronx, that music may have
not become the titan it now is.
Kool Herc’s summer of ’73 genesis
was only the tip of the iceberg for hip
hop in the Bronx and later all of New
York City.
Herc was soon joined by Grandmaster
Flash, who at the time was still Joseph
Sadler, a fellow DJ from Hunts
Point who literally dumpster dove to
put together working turntables to mix
at parks throughout the south Bronx.
Flash idolized what Herc could do
behind a deck and took inspiration
from him to create his own sampling
and looping techniques as hip hop’s
popularity rose.
As Herc, Flash, and fellow acts who
pioneered hip hop like Grand Wizard
Theodore and Grandmaster Caz literally
brought the pillars of DJing, rapping,
breakdancing, and graffi tti to
public spaces and playgrounds across
the borough, they also created a chance
for local youth to escape the tumultuous
condition that was the “Burning
Bronx” of the 1970s and 1980s.
That’s what inspired Grandmaster
Flash along with fellow Bronx originated
rappers known as The Furious
Five to record “The Message,” a seven
minute long rap which chronicled
what living through Bronx’s economic
and social hardships was actually like;
it was incepted into the library of congress
for it’s signifi cant political commentary
years later.
While throughout the 1970s hip hop
was a local phenom, it took until the
decade’s end for the genre’s fi rst true
commercial success.
That happened when “The Sugar
Hill Gang,” a rap trio across the Hudson
River in Englewood, NJ produced
hip hop’s fi rst “Rapper’s Delight” in
1979, sampling and looping “Good
Times” by the funk group “Chic.”
Though technically not from the
Bronx, the origin of rap’s fi rst top 40
charting track has connection to the
borough – plus a little controversy.
At the time, Big Bank Hank of the
Sugar Hill Gang, who was a champion
wrestler at Bronx Community College
was working as a doorman for a Bronx
hip hop club where he befriended and
managed Grandmaster Caz and the
Cold Crush Brothers for some time.
It has been alleged that Hank’s
verse in Rapper’s Delight was plagiarized
from Grandmaster Caz, a passionate
debate which is still discussed
to this day.
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BRONX TIMES REPORTER, F 8 EB. 26-MAR. 4, 2021
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