anthony: how does the joke begin? three men in a bar? but it s not a bar. imagine the bronx a corner bodega, or maybe a luncheonette, a diner, three men, strictly by coincidence, find themselves in the same place at the same time. sitting at the counter is afrika bambaataa. across the room is melle mel. door opens, and who walks in? dj kool herc. three men who created the musical style that s become the soundtrack to, well, the whole wide world. do they all nod at each other? lament how all of them got screwed over, cut out of the big money? or just laugh at the absurdity of it all? hip-hop it came from nowhere else. it could have come from nowhere else but the bronx. i took a walk through this beautiful world felt the cool rain on my shoulder found something good in this beautiful world i felt the rain getting colder sha, la, la, la, la, la, sha, la, la, la, la, la, sha, la, la, la, la, la, sha, la, la, la, la anthony: this is the br
born and raised here, he s never really left for over seven decades. this is a disappearing aspect of new york, for sure. the real thing jewish deli. liebman s is one of the last. there used to be dozens of places where you could get your brisket, chopped liver, a good pastrami, some pickles, with a black cherry soda or a cel-ray of course to drink. lloyd: the world series is going on. howard cosell is on the air. suddenly you see a tongue of flame licking up into the, uh, up into the sky. and he says, this is the kind of thing that jimmy carter saw, ladies and gentlemen. the bronx is burning. the old image of the bronx as middle class, upwardly mobile, healthy area had survived up until 1977. this shattered it. anthony: right. the bronx was burning like the story, and that stuck.
sells itself. and this was something good. anthony: was there a moment when you realized, whoa, this is big. this is gonna be this is gonna spread. kool herc: i never anthony: way beyond my neighborhood. kool herc: i never i never look at it. i saw the spreading. but no, when i see barney rubble and fred flintstone dressed up like jam master jay, you know, the, the d, the dmc fellas, when i see that, to sell commercial on madison avenue, i know it was, it was going. it was going. it s gonna take a big lift. so let s say i don t have money and all that now. i m rich in other ways. when time magazine said, what music would you credit to the united states? you got, you got louis armstrong for jazz, you got elvis presley for rock and roll, which, that could be between him and chuck berry, and you got kool herc for hip hop. anthony: feel good? kool herc: very good. lloyd: historically, from the last third of the 19th century into about 1920, the second language
i m going to tell you in a short period of time, everything i know about writing. today i m dropping by in my role as substitute teacher. i m from manhattan. and i don t know anything about the bronx, really. i m i m rid ridiculously, shamefully ignorant. do you think people know about the bronx? what it s like to grow up in the bronx? male student: everybody perceives the bronx as the emergence of hip-hop and all that, the culture. but, apart from that, the bronx is actually lively at all times. at night, at in the morning, you hear people screaming from outside your window. female student: i ve grown up with them since i was what, like second female student: like seven. female student: yeah. you know? and it just happened that way. so i feel like the sense of community is like the biggest thing. teacher: i ve been teaching here for eight years. and i think that what people forget is, a lot of times, we ve talked about this in class, they focus on lots of diseases, h
the south bronx sounds familiar, as a bad thing. and the bronx, at one time, was said to be burning, wasn t it? for the most part, the bronx is overlooked, the never visited borough in new york city, which is a shame because the bronx is a magical place with its own energy, its own food, vibe, and rhythm. you ve been to brooklyn. maybe it s time you took a look at the bronx. lloyd: in august of 1973, the sister of dj kool herc was holding a birthday party for herself in the basement of 1520 sedgwick avenue. as kool herc was playing the music on his two-disc turntable, he began to slow the music down, slow the record. people stood up and took notice and then began asking him to do it again. he did it again. they asked him to do it again, and again. he did it again. he attracted more and more people to his performances and people began to imitate him.