Born Clive Campbell, on April 17, 1955, in Kingston, Jamaica, DJ Kool Herc moved to the Bronx when he was 12 years old and took on his new moniker (Kool Herc) when he became a member of the ‘Ex-Vandals’ graffiti crew.
The name is short for ‘Hercules’ because of his 6′ 4″ stature. And he soon began DJing parties that he and his sister Cindy threw in their building, which was on 1520 Sedgewick Avenue (Sedgewick & Cedar) in the South Bronx.
Herc pioneered extending the breakbeat on records by playing the same record on two turntables and cueing the “break” in the record, which he noticed had the most significant effect on the dancers at the parties. This was emulated all over the NYC area during the 1970s, thus spawning the culture of Hip Hop.
He coined the terms “B-Boys” and “B-Girls” for the dancers who were “breaking,” which Herc says was street slang for “acting energetically” or “causing a disturbance” and has influenced other founding pioneers of the Hip Hop culture, including Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash, and the Sugarhill Gang.
Happy 68th Birthday to DJ Kool Herc - the ‘founding father of Hip-Hop’.
