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Hip Hip

The Introduction

Hip hop as a ding an sich is marked by some confusion. Consider the name; is it "hip hop," "hip-hop" or "hiphop"? You will see all three used in titles in this bibliography. Hip hop is, at the same time, a cultural phenomenon that developed in the late 70's in the projects in Brooklyn and the Bronx, and a musical style from that phenomenon. Nevertheless, hip hop has become a pervasive element of popular culture, as witnessed by this bibliography. There are hip hop exercise videos, children's books as well as books, magazines, magazine articles and theses about it.

Before we get to the bibliography, a brief hip hop history is in order. Hip hop began in the mid- to late 70's, but its roots are much older (indeed, hip hop's use of music from other genres is reflected in Renaissance parody masses). According to one source, the roots of this phenomenon are in Jamaica in the 40's. By the 60's, it was common to find "sounds", or a truck fitted with sound equipment parked at a street corner, playing American rhythm & blues records for the people in the neighborhood. Some of these DJs included Coxson Dodd, Prince Buster, and Duke Reid. By the 1970's this phenomenon was to be found in the US, particularly in the Farragut Projects in Brooklyn, NY. Some of these early DJs were Maboya, Plummer and Kool DJ D, who played mostly disco music. Another of these early figures, Kool Herc, emigrated to the States from Jamaica and settled in the Bronx with his sound system he called "the Herculords." In contrast to some of the other figures, Kool Herc focused on rhythm & blues and funk records. Another of Kool Herc's innovations was to play only the "break," or the musical material between the verses of a song, repeating that break again and again. He did this using two turntables mounted with the same record. This came to be called "break-beat deejaying." People began to perform "strange, acrobatic twisting dance routines" to these episodes that came to be called...