KOOL HERC > HONOR THE FATHERS

About Phase 2

AL 45 April 2000

Last September 11, the significance and achievements of Hip Hop music were practically stuffed by force inside Cleveland's Museum of Rock & Roll in the form of an exhibit that would play the role of acknowledging its past and present existence. An exhibit built specifically in her honor. There were snippets of information, artifacts and seminars that, as usual, were conceived by someone who could not be counted as a person of some authority. Rather than a tribute to a culture that started more or less two decades ago (as well as other important things and achievements related to Alkebulan people) it was a look at its roots and those who are directly connected to it; all of which must be seen as an incredible level to which Hip Hop has come. It is true that no one needs to tell us hoppers how powerful, proven, and wonderful this art form is, but still it has yet to be understood why ’others‘ choose to show their total appreciation when they finally come into contact with it.

Not to mention that thus, Hip Hop and its history (or at least a part of it), has thus been formalized in the same facility that is home to Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield and even the Beatles and both Stone families (Sly and Rolling) and this is an accomplishment of gigantic magnitude. It is certainly not what the founding fathers, the innovators of its substance and the bearers of its torch set out to do when they were in the cramped corners of the North, South, West and East Bronx, and what was not thought possible was eventually done in a titanic way as the whole Culture demonstrated its disruptive ‘snowball effect’ not only in the musical world but in the global one. You had better realize this, you fools! Here is what makes Clive Campbell (a young man who came to America via Jamaica) a very special person. In the early 1970s, under the pseudonym Kool Herc (a name they gave him not only because of his mighty physique but also because the name could be seen all over the walls of the Bronx in those early days of the growth of aerosol domination), it was he who changed forever the script of the deejays in the city's nightclubs by creating a new system that would later be adopted by many aspiring deejays and hundreds of party fixers.

Sound systems, deejay jams and club parties were certainly not an unknown thing in New York City: in the upper Bronx, in the middle and around the section of its main thoroughfare, the Concourse, were clubs such as the Puzzle and the Plaza Tunnel... In the latter, for example, the resident deejay often shouted over the din ‘Turnout time at the P.T.! Turnout time at the P.T.!’ which was in fact nothing more than an explicit invitation to those who were already getting busy in the dance square to spur them on to give even more, with a more aggressive edge. Meanwhile, songs like Rare Earth's “Get Ready,” Redbone's “Maggie,” Chicago's “I'm A Man,” or the live version of James Brown's “Give It Up Turn It Lose” were smashing the eardrums of the able-bodied sickos who were doing their thing as best they could on the dance floor. Those weekend nights were a prelude and a tentative technical sketch to what was to be ‘B-Boy,’ a name thrown into the scene and coined by none other than the same totally special guy who was staying in the West Bronx at the time -- the guy who was going to make ‘it all’ happen. In the early days of what should be called a career (which was inspired as he puts it by the days he spent at home years earlier listening to the sounds of Jamaican deejays), Herc was touring with another deejay named Gregory Disco Wiz (Gregory the Disco Wizard, ed.): Greg was also a wizard at choosing the music to which partygoers would most willingly stick. Ironically it was he who pushed Herc toward pieces like “The Mexican,” and in fact it was Herc who really put that record into action. It was precisely odd, misunderstood songs like this, added to much better-known ones, that set the pace for what would later become a consistent formula, for what would be the basis of the foundation of Hip Hop music...

Herc says that from the moment he was first exposed to the first concept of deejaying, the whole thing inoculated itself under his skin and he already knew that he would be able to take it in and grow it soon after touching it. It was obvious that party people, as well as dance fans, would go a little bit more off whenever a certain atmosphere changed as the record changed, and it was even more obvious that the point of maximum emphasis of the musical base (the break of the beat) was the particular one that produced that devastating effect on the dancers, pushing all the movements to the maximum. Thanks to a truly unknown record, “Apache” by the Incredible Bongo Band, the music was never the same again. Sensing strength from the vibes of the party people, moreover an essential function of the deejay, Herc procured two copies of “Apache” and brought them to a party one night: when the break hit, instead of letting the record fade out, Herc used the second copy to extend it. History. No one had ever done such a thing in that way before him; it was clear that at that point what would later be called Hip Hop was effectively born. Fortunately for us, Herc carried this idea of his forward and enhanced it with a truckload of other records. Thus he became the deejay of deejays for the youth of that era. It was his style and music selection that became the benchmark for anyone who intended to become part of that world. And let's not forget the sound system, the sound system. Ultra absurd. Incontestable highs, lows and mids. His sound system and the crew (crew) that operated it were the ultimate strength and the princely group to compare with; initially, but not always, the group consisted of Herc, The Original DJ Clark Kent (because of the glasses), Coke La Rock and Timmy Tim... In reality, the comparison was just not possible, as there were no comparisons.

People often fail to understand that Hip Hop is ‘the soup of all musics.’.

Partially due to the deejay's desire for notoriety (and also due to wanting to be in an all-exclusive class and having a good ear for good music in general), the killer beats and melodies entered the patterns and structure of the business with overwhelming overpowering force. What deejays then regarded as a drug, once it was tested and approved by an overdose of people, then became Hip Hop. Black, white, red and even yellow music. As for the last three, they took the form of Rare Earth, Redbone and Sakamoto. This was the situation then, in the days of the Plaza Tunnel. Good music was good music, and people who attended parties and partied knew that. If you don't understand that--well--deejays are normal people too, so it makes sense that they share the same vibes with everyone they come in contact with.

I have already repeated several times that there was nothing that even vaguely resembled a Herc party. To describe those atmospheres is virtually impossible. The man and the music coincided precisely with that man, his music and his style. He created a situation where familiar faces gathered and slogans shouted into the microphone, such as ‘Rock well... Wallace D is in the house, Wallace D is in the house’ or ‘This is the serious of the serious of the serious of the serious... joint-ski yaw'll’ (when something was really good it was called ‘the joint’ and ‘ski’ was part of a slang, some claim of Eastern European origin, so it became ‘joint-ski,’ as other names were ‘norm-ski’ or ‘soul-ski,’ perhaps with a connection to marijuana, who knows??? ). Herc's parties were like a drug, no doubt. And that was why you kept seeing the same faces hundreds of times. By coining the term ‘B-Boy,’ Herc gave a label to an army, which today we can call ‘breakers,’ boys and girls who came to the jams to get busy dancing: this was due to the fact that those of us who danced like crazy people called this dance a stuff that was ‘out of the ordinary’ or a thing that went ‘beyond the Richter scale,’ that is, that ‘broke’ ... Breaking, in short. Many of them were doing what Timbo Rock and I were putting into practice. Amazing Bo Bo, El Dorado Mike Mike, James Bond, Trixie -- just to name a few. The number one b-boy at that time was Sa Sa and whenever he would come into a jam, Herc would have all the people move back to make room for him... And he would bring the back flips and all the rest of the paraphernalia with him. Of course, there were also the Nigga Twins Keith and Kevin: at that time no one realized that they were the ones who brought the moves from the kung-fu movies and the patented ‘N-Twin spin’ rotary motion, (one of Frosty Freeze's favorite things) into the breaking, and so it was that the two of them were, and still are, the godfathers of the ‘floor moves,’ the floor evolutions... Rock Steady eat your heart out. Most of the things that happened at a Herc party set the stage for what we now call the Elements and it is amazing to think back on it. Immersed in that strange climate and energetic atmosphere we (whether we were deejays, mc's or dancefloor freaks) finally had a new arena in which to live and be constantly motivated to keep creating and innovating, to keep aspiring to be an integral part of those elements. ‘Battle droppin’, putting on a battle, (that's what we called uprock at the time) has its controversial origin right then. The B-Boy, the Beat, the Breaker. The deejays chatting on the microphone were operating at full capacity in certain venues, and there were even radio jockeys like Frankie Crocker and Jerry B... But the words and style of dress that were seen at places like the Chuck or the Claremont Center when the Herculords were at their stations still gave another flavor to the Kurtis Blow and the Cowboys who, in their baritone radio deejay tone, would tell you to ’move until the dawn comes‘ or, as Herc put it, ’until the A.M.‘ or ’to the very last stop.‘.

WELCOME TO THE YEAR 2000

It's not easy to get a glimpse of an era that is now abundantly past at least 30 years (but never forgotten), however, Kool Herc and the spirit of his sound system “Herculord” continued to persevere and shake the house from the ground up. Hip Hop was mass stuff only for the neglected and remote corner of the ghetto and if you didn't live in or very close to it you could never get your fix. But today we are part of the 2000s and ‘everyone is doing it,’ from Tokyo to Botswana to Australia. It's not even imaginable. But there is no doubt that this thing in coming of age, in coming to white America, has consequently gotten worldwide (over)exposure. Something like this was not expected. So did rock & roll. But it did happen. You could probably still go see a Chuck Berry show today. America (which reviled it as ‘Negro music’ designed to corrupt and poison the minds of its white youth) had to brutally realize that this thing is here to stay, even if it is no longer black, at least on the outside. Kool Herc in London ???? In Germany ??? We give you Hip Hop in its rawest form ???? (the music... silly!!! The music!!!). That's why any real b-boy should have been around when the Father of Hip Hop came to play here in Italy last February. Not just to bow before the man who made ‘Italian’ and European Hip Hop possible, but to bow before the man who also made Hip Hop possible in your car or even the figure of the die-hard fan willing to do anything, the accolades, the gear, and all the other crap fueled by the people who picked it up and carried it on, from the days of its birth. An experience like this doesn't come along every day, and any individual who claims to be truly hardcore or so in love with this art form, should not have missed the opportunity to meet their roots and support the Hip Hop they say they are so devoted to. Take all your gadgets, posters, souvenirs, Zulu beads and membership cards and burn them. Only an excuse like a date in a distant region, extreme illness or death would have been valid.

Herc is the kind of man who, after a lifetime totally immersed in music, receives his greatest peace and tranquility precisely from listening to it and playing it. His enormous record collection does not exist as a devotee of sampling: it is a collection deeply connected to the lived experience of Rock, Soul, Rhythm & Blues, and Reggae, an existence that fulfills its life cycle by drawing inspiration from the rhythms of the other musical genres around it. When things get really too stressful, all Herc is looking for is his cymbals and mixer and all is good again. This is the music that can heal the beast-just like a party can. It's a way of coming together that is understood and manifested by standing behind the wheels of steel with a mission to shake the boys down under and their sweethearts. 

That's what ‘party’ should mean -- celebrating!!! Not just showing off. Even the original b-boys and b-girls were showing off, but as soon as they had the chance they instinctively threw themselves into filling the dance floor. At that time, shoes had to meet a certain code, but it didn't stop anyone from getting busy. A typical move was to wear socks over sneakers (something Sweet Duke had thought of) to gain entry to places like the Hevelo, one of the clubs that often hosted Herc, as well as the Twilight Zone or Sparkle. Things like the sock thing, or like toothpaste that mimicked the phosphorescent stamps of nightclubs, were more than just a party scheme; they were the extremes to which one went in order to get into one of Herc's parties, where the dough didn't even exist. Looking like a moron was a risk, but we were willing to take it at all costs because we were like freaks. Okay, I admit we were crazy about these parties, but as I said, there is nothing that equals a Herc jam. If there had been seven other jams at the same time, no one would have even considered them. So if you didn't know the Kool Herc Review was in your town or you were too wrapped up in yourself to ‘represent,’ at least know that you deprived yourself of a unique experience and missed the chance to see History as it unfolded before your eyes. Unfortunate people. Or? Fools!!!

I have known Herc for three-quarters of my life and every time I see him I swoon. Meeting him in person was like stepping into the past once again. It is one of the few situations where I still feel like a happy child. Even though Herc was performing in Bologna on a Friday, I had to go there a few days earlier to give him a preliminary welcome. When it comes to love, people from the Bronx and the neighborhood never exchange handshakes. It is simply a matter of hugging each other like bears. Immediately afterwards, we got into a chat about the bullshit surrounding the politics of Culture, inside and out. Herc is known as an angry man and why shouldn't he be... The organizing committee of the Cleveland Hip Hop Seminar did not do an adequate job at all and took very little care of him and in the recent past other absurd incidents were poured over him; Herc was also asked to work alongside Funkmaster ’lots of money‘ Flex... for free. And here I ask you: why do you think someone like Funkmaster Flex exists? It's certainly not Flex's fault, but these stories suck, and speaking practically, it should be those who have the ability to do a lot and are in certain privileged positions who take care of people like Kool Herc and make sure they don't get screwed over or insulted.

Selfishness plays a major role in preventing the right accolades, and the same old story about everyone having to pull straight ahead unites older and younger people alike-this has meant that Herc often finds himself struggling to get the respect he deserves. These days even he manages to be sponsored by big clothing firms and invited to any significant event that evokes Hip Hop. But as always the bullshit never stops. Still, Herc remains a living testament to his legacy-as well as always being a pretty big dude. A day or two in his company can turn us into two little kids playing and two hard-headed adult types discussing specific historical events. Our conversations would shift from basketball to b-boying: Herc wanted to slap me for not physically teaching the b-boys what I call ‘finessin’ feet,’ a kind of up top rocking, a dance form native to the original b-boys. Herc was a little upset to see the b-boys here, who, after two minutes of standing up dancing, would throw themselves hard on the floor. His favorite b-boy in the Bologna party was the one he called ’my friend 55‘. Herc claims that there are two styles of breaking: Puerto Rican and black. He is probably right and could therefore prove those instances of favoritism that happen at certain seminars or events around the United States. Around 1977 the black boys abandoned breaking a bit and the Latino boys totally embraced it. In the early part of the b-boys era, the most extreme part of the dance took shape with each break of the beat but by the late 1970s and into the 1980s the hardest beat was enough to completely please the b-boys who began less and less often to create style-rich moves or at least moves involving the upper body.

By the time we got to the 1990s, with the fact that the original or new wave b-boys (Timbo Rock, Infinity D, Robby Rob, Ty Fly, Legs, Kenny Swift and others) had taken years off or were totally out of the game, we were left with a generation of people capable only of making ‘power moves.‘ Ironically, if Herc had never given the initiation to emphasizing the beat (which over time became almost a priority), things probably would have been a little different--or very different. A lot of things I love in life come directly from Herc. The music. The dancing. Basketball. I still remember the first time I walked into the park and saw him playing basketball. It was unreal. And I swear to you that I had great moments too... But to see someone with great moments like that (!!) was unbelievable. Every time he jumped high, he would dunk the ball down in the basket. And so we went beyond words! We started talking about basketball and good Herc started showing me how I would not be able to stop him... They don't call him Hercules for nothing! Playing basketball with him today feels more like a sumo match. It's strange how people regard celebrities in a whole way--without realizing that 10 times out of 10 they do exactly the same things as all the other normal people. Not only that... Like everyone else they also have to deal with daily crap and the most extreme stuff that can contaminate anyone's life, because life always presents you with strange accounts. This brother and I move at exactly the same time, and at least my connection with him allows me to connect everyone who wants to know the first creation of Hip Hop, in the form of Clive Campbell. At the moment, Herc comes in his 1970s afro and is the exact image of the natives of his home country. Bearded, dreadlocked hair, and proud to be Jamaican, proud to be black and strong, proud to be Kool Dj Herc. Truly! Even when he's itching to get his hands on some fried chicken and chips in the middle of Rome!!!? Dorothy put it plainly and sweetly ’There's no other place like home’.

Kool Herc still comes from the Bronx as Benny Blanco. He triggered a scenario that goes far beyond the confines of life and continues to represent a portion of the lives of many of us and even those who have never been in close contact with him, thanks to the extraordinary fact that he built for us a stage on which we can exist. Even though we South Bronx breakers made some great noise in the places he hung out and never managed to become the city's favorite or be treated fairly in some battles (hmmm...maybe he still owes me something for certain flyers I had made???), it is the magic of the man, the vibe, the timing, the jams and the love that matter; knowing that there are credits owed to us for being respected to the fullest is something that goes far beyond the internal politics of any situation. I make sure that the world knows about this man because he definitely earned his stripes and, without looking into the specifics, what came next (whether it's a backflip, a scratch or a turntable party) is the unity and the concept of synchronization of breaks that gave birth to everything we know today as Hip Hop. If it is Hip Hop that made you who you are today, it should be a joy to witness its timeless foundation, and that happens when you listen to the essence of its music and honor the father in return.

Respect goes to all who lived it and made it happen... Sisco Kid... The incomparable Scotty Bop... R.I.P.... Ready Russ Rock On...Cocaine Smitty...R.I.P.... Norm Ski & Russ G’ Rock On! At Electrified Movement... showing the way without being seen. B-Girls... Jazzy Janice... Burn baby burn! Says 198 R.I.P. Stitch, Snake, Gato, Coke, Those boys who filled us with inspiration, The Casablanca Kids... The story will be told !!!