Though the official 50th anniversary of Hip-Hop has passed, the world is continuing to honor the culture’s recognized progenitor. DJ Kool Herc, whose infamous Back to School Jam sparked Hip-Hop as a movement, will also be honored by his native land, Jamaica.
Also known as the “Big Island,” authorities within the country are set to bestow the nation’s most esteemed awards upon Herc and 125 other Jamaicans during the observance of National Heroes Day in October 2023. These recipients have all excelled in diverse arenas such as education, music, medicine, philanthropy, politics and more, according to Jamaicans.com.
DJ Herc co-hosted the Back To School Jam in 1973 party with his sister Cindy Campbell in the Bronx. What Herc did was ingeniously employed two turntables to manipulate an instrumental beat from James Brown’s “Sex Machine” album.
Herc would play the break on one side of the turntable and subsequently duplicate the same segment on the opposite side. Initially dubbed the “merry-go-round,” this approach eventually evolved into “breakbeat” deejaying. Following this breakthrough, he meticulously sifted through numerous crates to unearth the ideal breakbeats for the jams. Herc and the Herculoids, including Coke La Rock, the culture’s accredited first rapper, forever changed the worth by laying the foundation of Hip-Hop culture and rap culture.