The History of Hip Hop for Malawi (Part 1)
By Masauko G. Chipembere
June 16, 2009
There are many people claiming hip hop these days because hip hop pays. Over the last 20 years, hip hop created more Black millionaires on planet Earth than any other culture out there. But hip hop was not created by businessmen. It was created by poor Black and Latino youth in the Bronx, New York. They were trying to create a sense of umuntu in their communities and put an end to the self-destruction that gangs (or tribalism) were causing. Here are two hip hop names that all heads in Malawi should know: DJ Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa.
“If you don’t know, now you know.” Notorious Big
DJ Kool Herc
The first hip hop party in 1973 was put on by DJ Kool Herc at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, Bronx, New York. This place is known in America and throughout the world as, “the birthplace of hip hop.” Herc was born on the Caribbean island of Jamaica in 1955 and migrated to the United States in 1967. Many of the concepts that went into a hip hop party came from the street culture that Herc had experienced in Jamaica as a kid. When speaking about his contributions to development of hip hop in New York, DJ Kool Herc says, “I did a lot of things from Jamaica, and I brought it here and turned it into my own little style.” He brought the idea of the Jamaican “sound system” to the USA and added the “break beat” to the party.
The sound system was developed in the 1950s in Jamaica as a way for people from rural areas, who migrated to Kingston (the capital), to hear the latest sounds from the USA. Jamaican selectors (DJ’s) would go the U.S. to pick up all the black R&B music and play it to poor people in Kingston who couldn’t afford radios. They would have a big speakers and powerful amplifiers that they placed in trucks and set up in open areas called “lawns” where people could dance. Since most people in Kingston could not afford radios, this was the best way to hear new music. They even played songs the radio was afraid to play.
DJ Kool Herc did the same thing in the 1970s in the Bronx. He began playing all sorts of music that no one had heard at his parties (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhisX4mVoDI). Then he took it one step further and began playing only the parts of funk records where the melodic instruments dropped out, leaving the drums and percussion playing solo. This part of the song became “the break” which is short for “break down.” Herc would use two turntables playing the same part of the record, one after the other, over and over and create a loop. He was the first to create a loop by using two records and this was the inspiration that later opened the door for the sampling we all do today.
DJ Herc was providing a great service in his community. He saw that music was a way to bring people together peacefully. There were many gangs in the Bronx in the early ‘70s but music became a way for young people to let off some steam and avoid violence. When asked what he wanted to see hip hop become he said, “I wanted rap to always be a positive, beautiful music. I wanted it to be political. I want it to stay that way.” So, according to “the father of hip hop” the art form was created to promote positivity not the violence and the gangster images we see today.
(Also check: http://www.1520sedgwick.com )
Afrika Bambaataa
Afrika Bambaataa is another living ancestor to all hip hop heads in Malawi. He is our hip hop John Chilembwe. He was the first one to connect the hip hop movement by Blacks and Latinos in the early 1970s to the long history of Blacks struggling for self determination in Africa. He is responsible for starting the Zulu Nation in New York. The Zulu Nation is the home of hip hop culture worldwide. According to Afrika Bambaataa, hip hop is about, “peace, unity, love and having fun.” He is not just an innovative DJ, he is a cultural historian.
Afrika Bambaataa’s birth name was Kevin Donovan. He was born in the USA with roots in the Caribbean. As a young man, he took a life altering trip to Africa (like Chilembwe going to America). Very little information can be found about this journey but it changed his life and he became inspired by the Zulu people’s struggle for freedom from European domination. When he returned to the USA, he changed his name to Afrika Bambaataa in order to show his solidarity with Black freedom fighters all over the world. He renamed himself after a Zulu chief named Bhambatha. Chief Bhambatha had led a major strike against the British, who were attempting to collect taxes in Zululand in 1905. This battle known as the Bhambatha Rebellion was a precursor to the freedom struggle in South Africa.
This hip hop hero was not always conscious. He went through a process of evolution like Malcolm X. Bambaataa transformed himself from being a menace in his community to being a leader. Before becoming the creative mind behind the Zulu Nation in the early ‘70s Bambaataa had been the leader of a gang called “the Spades” in Bronx, New York. Bambaataa says, “[The Universal Zulu Nation] came out of the Black Spades, and two of the other major gangs that were happening in the city at the time.” Like Malcolm X, he was inspired by the Nation of Islam and says, “The teachings of the Nation of Islam and many other organizations tried to change the ways of many… gang-bangers into a more positive direction.” These teachings stress knowledge, wisdom and understanding as methods of freeing the mind from mental slavery.
Hip hop was never intended to be a way for gangsters and thugs to hold their communities hostage through fear and abusive words. Bambaataa says, “When we made Hip Hop, we made it hoping it would be about peace, love, unity and having fun so that people could get away from the negativity that was plaguing our streets (gang violence, drug abuse, self hate, violence among those of African and Latino descent). Even though this negativity still happens here and there, as the culture progresses, we play a big role in conflict resolution and enforcing positivity.” The Zulu Nation holds annual hip hop events in New York to remind people about the roots of hip hop and its power to transform. They also have a website where information about everything from proper diet to life on other planets can be explored (www.zulunation.com ). They make it cool to be clever instead of mean.
However, Bambaataa is not only responsible for the Zulu Nation whose roster includes: Tribe Called Quest, Brand Nubian, Queen Latifah, Krs-1, Public Enemy, Jungle Brothers, De La Soul and Rakim (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxyYP_bS_6s). He may actually be the person who coined the phrase “hip hop.” As a DJ in the early 1970s inspired by his friend DJ Kool Herc, he began throwing parties in the Bronx and playing his own break beats. He would call the parties “hip hop teeny bop” because most of the fans of the culture were teenagers at the time. One of the early emcees on the mic, Starski would use the term “hip hop” on stage at the parties and the term became popular that way. So, many say that Bambaataa was the first to coin the phrase hip hop and Love Bug Starksi made the phrase popular (others claim it came from the mouth of Cowboy with the Furious 5).
Afrika Bambaataa’s cultural contributions to hip hop often overshadow his musical contributions. He had one of the very first hip hop hits on the radio in the USA and Europe in 1982. The song was called Planet Rock and is still considered one of the most important hip hop songs ever made ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_vLzsG2TCU). It was a blend of European electronic sounds with funky African rhythms we all call break beats. Everyone from Timberland to Pharrell and Common (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo7FpI8MmmE ) has taken ideas from Planet Rock. The song was the first hip hop song where a drum machine was used. When asked about the possibilities of hip hop music Bambaataa says:
You can take music from any type of field like soul, funk, heavy metal, jazz, calypso and reggae. As long as it's funky and has that heavy beat and groove. You can take any part of it to make hip hop. Hip hop can deal with the past, the present and it can deal with the future. Now it's what a rapper puts on top of it that will make it a black thing or a white thing or a human thing or a universal thing.... The music itself comes from all types of sound. When people are digging for that beat or groove they take from all fields of music. People will say hip hop just comes from soul or rock. It comes from all types of music.
The Zulu Nation and Afrika Bambaataa continue to be a force in hip hop today although they tend to be more respected in the underground. The Zulu Nation is about hip hop as a culture and not just about the music. Hip hop culture includes rap, DJ’ing, break dancing, up-rocking, popping, locking, vocal percussion, beat boxing, graffiti and knowledge of self. According to Bambaataa, hip hop is actually an infinitely creative and open space that youth can use to expand their creativity in any direction. The one thing to remember is that at the root hip hop is about, “Peace, Unity, Love and having fun.” Bambaataa should be an inspiration to all hip hop heads in Africa because he used hip hop culture to lift his consciousness to a global African mindset. Hip hop connected him to all other poor blacks suffering around the world. Just like our old Malawian hero John Chilembwe, Bambaataa uses hip hop to “strike a blow” against anyone who would shackle his mind and hold down his people.
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