Supplies needed for the war effort. So they started to figure out where else they could find people to hold the jobs. For the first time ever, positions for africanamericans in northern industry began to become available. So there is now a reason to move to the north, moved to the cities, because of the jobs. Announcer American History tv, all we can, every weekend, only on cspan3. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. In 1979, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies. And is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. On lectures in history, Fordham University professor mark nathan teaches a class on the history of hiphop and why it originated in the bronx. He discusses the music of the 1970s and how it was spread through parties left alone due to budget cuts. He talks about how the culture of hiphop included graffiti, breakdancing and fashion, not djing. Ping and his classes about one hour. Professor naison this lecture is entitled why hiphop began in the bronx. What i am about to describe to you is probably one of the most improbable and Inspiring Stories youll ever hear. It is about how young people in a section of new york widely regarded as the site of unspeakable violence and a tragedy, created an art form that would sweep the world. It is a story filled with ironies, unexplored connections, and lessons for today. And i am proud to share it not only with my rock and roll to hiphop class, but to cspans global audience in its lectures on American History series. The information in this lecture has come from two major sources. First of all, the oral histories of the bronx africanAmerican History project, which has taken place over the last 14 years. We have done over 300 interviews with people who grew up in the bronx from the 1930s up to the present. And in the process documented several generations of bronx music history. That research informs what im about to tell you. But this also reflects my experience lecturing in europe about hiphop and creating something called the bronx muse exchange, and interchange between social workers and youth workers in berwyn and new york city that use hiphop to motivate and reach disfranchised youth. I have been to berlin six times and i have been to barcelona twice, and in the course of this, and so i have had a chance to experience firsthand how hiphop culture has spread into sections of europe. Where it was enthusiastically adopted. It has also spread to many other portions of the world. So before going into the substance of my lecture, which explores features of bronx history, which many people might not be familiar with, i want to explain one definition of hiphop that i will be using in this talk. Some people think of hiphop as exclusively rap music, and art form taken to its highest level by people like to berkshire elliott,tupac, missy other mastersand of the verbal and musical art. But i am describing hiphop as a multilayered art movement of which rapping is only one component. What you evolved in the bronx in the early and mid 70s, and would spread to the communities around the world in the 1980s, and is still spreading to this day, consisted of four connected components. First of all, djing and beat making, which was the original artform that spurned the revolution. When people talk about the start of hiphop they talk about the three djs that helped spread it through the bronx, grandmaster. Lash, and africa bum botta boying, a form was b. Form of acrobatic dance that had a few commonalities with martial arts, but also drew upon traditions in latin music and rhythm and blues and funk, epitomized by people like james brown. The third is graffiti art, a public art and selfexpression which found its flyers as well as on buildings and a Transportation Systems in new york, especially buses and subways. And last but not least, rapping. Rhyming over beats in a style that could vary from the boastful to the reflective, to the assertively political. All of these art forms, which emerged in the bronx in the middle and late 1970s spread around the world together, disseminated by film and music video. And can be found today in almost every city of the world in one form or another. Let me give an example. When i was first brought to berlin to lecture on bronx hiphop culture in 2005 my host took me to an abandoned school in a section of the city which had been turned into a Community Center. I was stoned by the visual image is projected. Almost every surface inside and outside the building was covered by elaborate, multicolored graffiti murals in the style that covered subway trains in new york in the 1970s and 80s. Clearly in this section of berlin what was seen as vandalism by many new yorkers, was prized as an Expressive Art form to be encouraged among young people in the poor immigrant neighborhoods. Secondly, i was taken to a break dance class where young women, some of them wearing he jobs, while learning dance moves perfected 40 years before in the bronx. Finally, i was shown a stateoftheart music studio where the beat makers and rapp ers were producing original music where the language of choice varied between turkish, english and german. Turkish because immigrants from turkey were the largest Minority Group in berlin and in germany generally. This was not the only place where i saw the art forms of hiphop. I saw the same glorification of the four elements of hiphop in three other Community Centers in berlin, most of them serving immigrants from turkey, the middle east and Eastern Europe, as well as other Community Centers in barcelona, spain. In all these places, as well as their counterparts in paris, havana, rio de janeiro, rome, tokyo, and even hanoi, the art forms are cultivated with love and respect and transmitted to new generations of youth, along with the understanding that they started in the box. I will bronx. I will pass around a book of french hiphop. Exhibition int paris, which explains visually how hiphop, which started in the bronx, spread to paris and its suburbs. Then became an integral part of the movement known as the arab spring, where the art of hiphop was part of the social movement in many different countries. So what started in the bronx has gone global. Whybig question here is, the bronx . Multidimensional artform starts in the bronx and why did it spread . And in answering this question i will be looking at three different variables. One, the unique Cultural Capital of the bronx and its people, which derived from immigration and the mixing of cultures. Wo, the tragedies which befell the bronx in the 1960s and 70s, once regarded as unique, which would hit other cities and communities and subsequent years, not only in the u. S. But in many other places. Third, the easy accessibility of the bronx because of Public Transportation. Harlem, midtown manhattan, the village in the lower east side, where culture makers and entrepreneurs, when they saw what was going on in the bronx, where in a position to market what they saw nationally and globally. So, before going into these three underlying factors, the Cultural Capital the bronx, the tragedies that struck the bronx, and the proximity of the bronx to culture making centers in new york, i want to give you a brief hiphop timeline. Most scholars think the big bang, which launched hiphop, took place at the parties held by Cindy Campbell and her cool at the, dj Community Center of a housing complex at 1520 sedgwick avenue in 1973. There, the dancers of the party would go crazy if they used turned him bills two turntables and sections of popular records, which they called break beats, into 10 minutes of percussion pure percussion bid after several successful parties at the youth center, he decided to take his sound system into a public park cap blocks north of his house, cedar park, using electricity from the bottom of a lamp post. Thousands of young people came to the outdoor jams, which were not broken up by police, even though they were done without a permit. And other talented djs in the bronx decided to follow the example. Among these were former gang leaders from the bronx, one of them who called himself africa bum botta, and a young man who had trained in electronics at a Vocational High School who called himself grandmaster flash. By 1976, parties where the djs competed with one another to create the most danceable beats using breaks from records were taking place all over the bronx in parks and Community Centers, in school yards and abandoned buildings. At these parties, dance competitions between the cruise stepsws, using innovative taken from martial arts movies, latin dancing, and a james brown moves, became common occurrences almost to the point where they were as much a part of the event as the djs. Soon the djs, that were competitive with one another, started to try to distinguish themselves by commandeering street poets to rhyme over there beats. And by the late 1970s, the artistry of the rappers was starting to gain as much attention as the djs and the dancers. By now, the parties were starting to spread into private clubs and dance halls, as well as parks and Community Centers, places like the stardust and disco fever, and the people from other parts of the city and region were starting to take notice. Then in 1979, a record entrepreneur from englewood, new jersey named sylvia robertson, who had once been a senior in singer in the bronx, decided to try to record the music. There were new Business Opportunities to be found in the bronxbased art form. Within five years, scores of rap records were being produced. Some which have their own music videos. And massmarket films were produced which highlighted the bronx setting for hiphop, as well as the djs, the breakdancing, the graffiti and wrapping, which were all integral parts of the scene. As a result, hiphop in all forms of spread around the city, the nation and the world, almost always in places where there were large numbers of people who felt this franchise and marginalized. So essentially the marketing of hiphop, which spread outside of the bronx around the country and the world, really began in the late 1970s. Andfor the first six years, there was little outside attention given to what was later hailed as a musical revolution. So that is the broad story. Why the bronx . Lets look first at the population of the bronx and the sonic universe that they lived in prior to hiphop. The concept of a sonic universe is to me very important, because a lot of you know when we were talking about rock and roll that the sonic universe of many workingclass communities was receptive to harmonic music. In the 1970s, those same communities are becoming responsive to a much more percussive and inyourface kind of music. So what are some of the features of the bronx culturally that led the bronx to have more receptivity to the percussive elements of this music than many other places . Here you have to understand something about the unique history of the bronx. Well before the emergence of hiphop, several neighborhoods in the south bronx had a mixture of cultures and traditions that made them unique in new york city. Enforced creativity. In the 1940s, 50s and 60s, too large workingclass neighborhoods in the south bronx, where peacefully integrated were peacefully integrated by different population streams coming from harlem. Africanamericans originally from the u. S. South, west indians from caribbean countries like jamaica and barbados, and spanishspeaking people coming from puerto rico, cuba and panama. Each of these peoples brought their own musical traditions to the neighborhood schools and housing projects that they lived they fused inime the most remarkable ways. By the 1950s, the clubs, theaters and churches and schools in these neighborhoods where places where you could hear afrocuban music, doowop and rhythm and blues, deep up and dixieland jazz, and calypso. Now these forms began to evolve as the americanborn youth began to transform them, giving rise to salsa, funk and latin soul. The whitele, population of those neighborhoods largely moved out, leaving only a few people left behind. But what you had in the bronx was a mixture of more people from different parts of the african than existed anywhere in new york city. And having people from these different traditions living in the same Apartment Buildings and housing projects produced the unique, sonic universe where melodies and his songs in different languages took place in a backdrop of powerful percussion. And i want to give you a few quotes which describe what it was like. Cityere else in new york did people who came from the american south, or from the anglophone caribbean, live in proximity with spanishspeaking people from the caribbean. And as a result, everyone in the bronx danced to latin music and had an experience of hearing latin percussion. It may read a couple of quotes that will bring this to life, because it helps prepare the way for hiphop. This comes from a book by alan jones. The Patterson Houses, which opened in the 1950s, at night where a live with activity and sound. Music is everywhere, coming out of peoples apartments and out of park benches. On one side of the street you would have people bring out turntables with speakers. On the other side you could hear brothers singing a Frankie Lyman song, why do. And love . But the one concept constant every night without fail was the sound of Puerto Ricans playing their bongos in local parks and playgrounds. The steady beat of those drums boom, withom, bam, background music to my living reality. Now a quote from african bilbao to, who grew up in the bronx river houses. I will say this, wherever we were the Puerto Ricans was there. I do not like to get into it when we call them Puerto Ricans, they are africans like us. We got to remember that are puerto rican brothers are the ones that kept africa alive. They are the africans that kept the drums, they kept the gods of santeria alive. In the 60s, blacks and Puerto Ricans were always playing the conga. Always had it the rhythms. This is from the next, this is from ray manea, who became a prominent musician in the latin music genre, but also play jazz. After i got to play the conga drums, i had a bunch of friends that were all interested in playing the conga. The puerto rican kids in my area, we started to jam on the roof. It was every saturday and every sunday, everybody would go to the roof with their drums and we would play all kinds of rhythms. It was like a big party with the drums. Meanwhile, down in the bottom, down on the street, we had black people and they were injured to on. Wop. Tto doo the black folk, they took their drums away, so they had to invent something and they invented doo wop. We were rhythm. African rhythm. We were playing and thank god they never took our drum away. This is one of the things that his unique, the constant sounds of german in these multiple fast sounds of drumming in these projects. That was the progressive sound. They in the bronx, whether had families that had come from the caribbean from the south, from puerto rico, and doris, the drum sounds where part of their sonic universe. Because that is what the bronx was like. Hearhe people did not only the sounds, they danced. The bronx was a dancing community. People danced in their homes, in their clubs, in schools, and in the streets. And people shared their dance traditions. If you grew up in the south bronx, whether you are black, latino or white, you dance the latin. If you were latino you probably slow danced to the drifters and fast danced to james brown. A social worker that grew up in the Patterson Houses in the 1950s and 60s, describes how latin music became a powerful force in the life of black friends and neighbors. Frankie lyman was one of my favorites, but i loved all kinds of music, including latin music. It was in the sixth grade when i was introduced to latin music. Before then, and heard it i heard it, but i do not really dance to it. As i got older, i noticed more black people dancing to latin music and they were good. They used to dance for my professionally in places and we watched these places. Also lived in patterson, who are maybe high school age, and we fell in love with the music. And as my doctoral student lisa reminds us, many of the people from the spanish caribbean were also black. They were also of african descent. See you had this diverse, Multicultural Community tuned in to this percussive music and to dancing. Placess was, there were like that in other parts of the city, but nowhere where the percussive traditions as a strong and as public as in the bronx. In the south bronx, music and dancing were everywhere. Nothing was more prized than music that forced you to dance, because of the powerful beats. For the 30 years before the hiphop jam, the bronx was swaying to the rhythms of the indoors andpora outdoors, in parks and a schoolyard, Community Centers and clubs, and in the streets where people took record players out in the summer for block parties and outdoor jams. Well before djs started hooking up sound systems, the panels at the bottom of light poles, small puerto rican bands called tiki rikis, in imitation of the sound of roosters, where doing the same thing with amplifiers when they played in the parks. Something that was recalled for us in an interview by a great percussionist named angel rodriguez. Not only Puerto Ricans brought amplified music to the streets. From the early 1960s on, it was common for africanamerican as well as latino bronx residents to bring their portable record players outside and dance on the sidewalks on hot summer nights. Teresa roberts, a schoolteacher his father was africanamerican and his mother was puerto rican, talked about how people entertained themselves outside of her