BACK TO HOMEby Sam Draisin
Introduction: What is Hip Hop?
In researching this project, I have learned that hip hop is more than just music and dance, more than just a way of wearing your clothes and speaking. Hip hop is the culture where the style of music, dance, and clothing resides, but limiting hip hop to that is like limiting theater to Shakespeare. Hip hop is more than just a way of living, it is living. It is how you do your daily business. It is how you carry yourself. It is not just the music that you listen to, but metaphorically, it is the rhythm and lyrics that you make with your life.
At the time that I started this project, I thought that I knew what hip hop was. I saw it as a cultural phenomenon led by rap, and included an art form known as graffiti and various dance styles. I liked it. However, after months of research, I realize hip hop is more than that; and now, more than just liking it, I thoroughly enjoy it. It isn't just a way of life, it is a life of it's own. Hip hop is big. It brings people together. It teaches about life. It gives meaning to an everyday life that may otherwise seem monotonous. It gives a reason for living. To some people this may be hyperbole, but to others, this is true.
Misconceptions about Hip Hop
I have also learned that hip hop is still a mystery to many; even people who are "fans." It is commonly misconceived as only "gangsta" culture. It is often confused with rap. I even heard someone go so far as to say that it was started by one person in particular. Contrary to what some may think, it is not a fad. It is not something that today's youth use to annoy their parents. I hate to sound anthropomorphic, but hip hop feels. It does what those around it do. Wherever we go, it goes. I think that this has been put best by one of my favorite MC's, Mos Def;
"You know what's gonna happen with Hip-Hop? Whatever's happening with us. If we smoked out, Hip-Hop is gonna be smoked out. If we doin [sic] alright, Hip-Hop is gonna be doin alright...We are Hip-Hop... So Hip-Hop is goin where we goin."
(Lyrics to "Fear Not Man" from the CD, Black on Both Sides)
Enter Turntablism
Turntablism is the art of manipulating and making music using, most commonly, but not limited to, two turntables and a mixer. It is the foundation of hip hop.This is in part my own personal opinion, but it is also a widely held belief. You see, way back in the early '70s, a sort of blueprint for modern hip hop was being formed. Graffiti and tagging were growing in popularity, as were various new styles of dance, such as "popping" and "locking" here on the West Coast, or "uprock" back East, and DJ's were coming up with inventive ways to perform. It was from these cultures that turntablists emerged.
Let me clarify the difference between a "tuntablist" and a "DJ." A disc jockey plays music that other people have made for people to listen to. A turntablist is a type of DJ; however instead of playing other peoples songs, they merely use it so that they can enhance their own.
DJ's had been around decades before turntablists emerged. But with the growing popularity of these "break-beat" dancers, especially in the Bronx, people started to complain that the DJ didn't let the song play out long enough. Given that the break (instrumental portion of a song) was usually only a few seconds long, the dancers didn't have much time to do what they wanted. It was from this problem that several breakdancers decided to try DJing themselves. One of them was a Jamaican kid by the name of Clive Campbell, a.k.a. Kool Herc. He decided to innovate on a concept already popular in his native Kingston. He took the "dub" (beat) of a record and, using two copies of the same record and an audio mixer, repeated it so that the relatively short beat could be lengthened, making it more practical to the dancers. This technique which is now called "beat juggling" was adapted and improved on by other early turntablists of the time, such as Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa.
The term turntablism is a recent label for this style of music. It was coined in the mid-nineties by Beat Junkie and Dilated Peoples DJ, Babu. "My definition of a Turntablist," he said in a 1996 interview, "is a person who uses the turntables not to play music, but to manipulate sound and create music."
Turntablism is evolving from underground to mainstream culture. Turntablist DJs are growing in numbers almost daily. What used to be maybe dozens of turntablists scattered around NYC has grown to thousands worldwide. It is fast becoming one of the most popular styles of music. In recent years, turntables have outsold guitars, and they show no signs of slowing.