POETRY

ORIGIN: NEW YORK----SOUTH N WEST BRONX

Rap music has stampeded through America like no other form of music since the creation of rock music in the 1960s. Like other popular styles, it has a history that is closely aligned with the rebellious attitude of its young creators; youth who rejected the contemporary music prevalent during the late 1970s (disco). Rap music is not a novelty, as many music professionals thought, but has a beginning as equal to blues, jazz, r&b, rock & roll, or any form of popular music.

It began in 1976 or ‘77 when disco was real popular. The first disc jockeys (DJs) would grab the mike while people were ‘partying’ and say something like, ‘clap your hands,’ or ‘you all ready to party?’ The crowd would respond to that. Then it evolved. The DJ wouldn’t have to do that because the DJ would bring a guy with him to do that - to motivate the crowd while the DJ deejayed. That got into a lot of the disco clubs and a lot of people weren’t going for it. The MC blabbing and running his mouth all night; the DJ scratching and cutting. Most of the people going into the disco wanted to dance and have a party. They didn’t really want to raise no hell.

The DJs and MCs took that away from the discos, and that’s when the hip hop culture came. They took it to the parks, the street, house parties and to little neighborhood centers and like that. So it really evolved out of disco when people didn’t want to hear the MC and DJ doing their thing. So the DJ and MC took it somewhere else.