Hip Hop Chapter Summary

In his first chapter, Cobb explained that at its core, hip hop’s foundation contains three elements: the beats, the lyrics, and the flow. The beats refer to the type of music one will be emceeing over. The beat of hip hop usually contains rhythm that one may be able to dance with. Lyrics refer to the content of what the artist is saying over the beat. Flow refers to the specific way in which beats and lyrics are combined. Cobb also explained that, “The heart of the art of hip hop is how MC does what he does, and thus his only resort in creating something new is in the uniqueness of his flow and lyrical specific catalog of the trade trickery he uses to get his people open.”1 Cobb also believes that the MC is at the center of hip hop and African American culture, along with …show more content…
The South Bronx was dealing with the aftermath of violence from gangs as well as fires. However, the youth still wanted to party. DJs started interacting with and manipulating the vinyl records they played. At first, it became popular to play and replay the breaks in funk music, simply because crowds loved to dance to these parts. Kool DJ Herc is credited with originating this practice, and others, like DJ Grandmaster Flash, helped perfect the techniques, such as changing turntable speeds and turning the records manually.5 DJ Kool Herc, a.k.a. Clive Campbell, laid the first building block of hip-hop down in 1973. According to Abbie Fentress Swanson, “That was when he reportedly hosted a party in his building at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue with a sound system, or sound equipment used to DJ a party. DJ Herc 's sound system was a guitar amp and two turntables.”6 Exploring the music technology available during the emergence of Hip Hop, it is obvious that the new equipment played a large role in developing the conventions of this genre. The DJ helps authenticate the relationship between hip hop musical standards and