TeachRock

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DJ Kool Herc

(b. 1955) A Jamaican native who moved to New York City’s Bronx borough at the age of 12, Kool Herc is widely credited as the originator of Hip Hop. Herc (given name Clive Campbell) came to prominence in the early 1970s, when he began throwing dance parties in the rec room at his family’s apartment complex in the South Bronx – at the time a blighted, crime-ridden neighborhood. Noting a spike in crowd energy during the instrumental breaks on the Funk and Soul records he spun, Herc came up with the technique of extending the break by playing two copies of...