Hip Hop turned 44-years-old on August 11. In honor of its birthday, Google orchestrated a “doodle” celebrating the culture with two turntables and a crate of classic break-beat records. The 68-second clip essentially credited DJ Kool Herc for pioneering the break.
In an apparent response to the Google doodle, Grandmaster Flash of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five published a video titled “A Letter to Kool Herc From Grandmaster Flash” on August 14, publicly calling out Herc.
The legendary turntablist (real name Joseph Stadler) claims Herc hasn’t cleared up a part of technical DJ history, including looping — a structure, series or process of which the end is connected to the beginning of a record.
“I’ve been asked, ‘Describe Kool Herc,’ [I say], ‘Wonderful,'” Flash says. “The first DJ to publicly play grooves and breaks … had the most incredible sound system, and this echo chamber gave him like the voice of God. But then there’s a technical aspect in this world of DJs. There’s possibly where I have questions. Godfather, I went online to see if there were any performances of your hands doing what you do. Since I could not find it, this is what I remember — especially going to see you in Cedar Park, west side of the Bronx, Sedgwick. Now there is [the] question: who is the creator of this thing from a layman’s perspective — looping?”
Shortly after, he stakes his claim as the first DJ to use the technique.
“Here’s my definition of what I call ‘looping’: [I am the] first DJ to put his hands on the record and use the record as a controller as well as his sound source,” Flash says. “I was very much hated when I came up with this system. I gotta tell ya, Herc—it was so hard. I was tryin’ to find a job doin’ this. And nobody would hire me.
“I was known for making the record dirty, I was known for rubbing the record back and forth and destroying the record,” he continues. “I was known for disrespecting [the record] by putting a mark on it with the crayon. The only person who truly understood what it was, what I was doin’, was my first prodigy … his name was Grand Wizard Theodore … You see Herc, with this style, it spawned all these techniques behind it, like the cut, and the rub, and the scratch, and the scribble, and the transform, and the orbit, and the [crab-scratch], and the flares. All this done with this technique.”
He adds, “I just to make it clear: the art of this technical thing, Herc, it’s me.”
He also mentions his creation of the slipmat or what he called “a wafer,” a piece of material that goes between the turntable’s platter and vinyl record.
Although three DJs have been considered the Holy Trinity — Herc, Flash and Afrika Bambaataa — Flash skipped over Bam’s contributions and implied the trinity was now comprised of only two (Bam’s name was seemingly left out of the discussion intentionally).
“Thank you so much for starting this [Herc],” he said. “I definitely want to give a big ups to Google, thank you so much for this. Thank you for putting this on such a huge platform … In closing, I want to say to you Herc—we were three at one time. Now we’re two. Eventually, God will call and it’ll be one. And then there’ll be none. I don’t want it to end this way. Let’s break bread, chop it up alone or we can just sit in front of press and talk about the stories, ’cause believe me, the world really wants to know. Goodnight.”
Herc has yet to publicly respond.
Thts so fucked up. Where r we headin to if not even the OGs know where came from?
Sad to see one so publicly toot there own horn so loudly. I don’t think anyone who knows hip-hop has ever questioned Flash’s contributions. Why not let Herc enjoy a lil’ sunshine? I know that he did not conceive and execute the Google Doodle himself but, it was the product of hip-hop fans. It wasn’t a slight to Flash or what he’s contributed. You’re embarrassing yourself with your ego unchecked. You may reduce it to one by your own hubris. Chill out and do your thing. People love and praise you and what you’ve given to the world.
That’s a huge platform for a non mention. So of course it needs to be addressed…Jeremy
Flash has previously gone on record that he got the idea of using the headphones to “audition” the record on the stationary turntable whilst the record on the other turntable was playing from Pete DJ Jones. Jones said he was spinning two copies of the same break and mixing as far back as 1969, so he can claim credit. Herc personally told me in 2000 that he did not invent his “Merry Go Round” of extending two copies of the same break, he got it from Plumber and Maboya amongst others. Grandmaster Flowers needs mentioning too.
Theodore has been attributed as inventing scratching, so is Flash claiming that also?
As for Transformer scratching, I heard that first from Jazzy Jeff from Philadelphia, possibly Code Money was doing it before him in Philly?
And the first DJ I heard beat juggle was Pogo in 1987 in London.
What can make a clear “Start” to Hip Hop is that Herc and Bam and Flash kept the break culture going, and played to a younger teenage crowd in rec rooms and parks. Jones, Maboya and Plummer had DJ techniques but were playing to an older generation and focussed more on disco music.
I think as long as there are egos between these (mostly African-American) men who are upper-middle aged now, there’s going to be disputes about who “invented” this or what events were taking place in a specific neighborhood at a specific time. Mind you, this is inner-city America circa 1965 – 1975, so there were no documentarians going around with cameras or video equipment back then, conducting exhaustive interviews and cataloguing all of the printed materials relevant to the culture at the time (e.g., concert/party fliers). There’s just so much that is relatively unquantifiable now. How do you really measure the first person to say “Yes, Yes, Yall!” at somebody’s get-together? So much of what was happening in the culture was going on concurrently, and without any agenda other than hustling or having fun. (DJ-ing, graf, b-boying, MC-ing). As a sidebar, as much as Afrika Bambaata can be scolded and critiqued for his (apparent) transgressions that have been revealed in recent years (which I do not condone or endorse in any way), it would be intellectually dishonest to a great degree to try and now deliberately say he contributed nothing to the culture. So many people now who are self-described “insiders” and “experts” to whatever degree (especially if they’re hailing from NYC/Philadelpha/Jersey) try and downplay what his parties and get-togethers contributed to hip-hop, especially from the very odd angle that he was somehow just an “electro beats” (kraftwerk) guy and wasn’t doing “real” breakbeats consistently (e.g., James Brown, 70s jazz records, etc.). The internal conflicts with people who are considered stakeholders in the culture contribute a lot to the misrepresentation out there.
– says the guy >50
Both contributed to US term Hip Hop but what US Hip Hop fails to remember is that DJ’s in Jamaica had been ‘rewinding’, ‘jacking’ up and ‘wheeling’ 7’s before Flash discovered that he could touch records. Herc bought to New York what was default in the Jamaican culture. The MCing was also default in the Jamaican culture long before rapping was connected to the Hip Hop culture. Although I love Hip Hop and Rap, America has the tendency to claim it started on their land. The elements America put together and named something they like or could relate to may have been collectively organised or grouped as a term called Hip Hop etc, but the elements used i.e. the Deejaying and Rapping styles (Toasting) came from and was originally derived from Jamaica. Herc knows this and so does Flash. Flash is stuck on the continuation of an invention, which morphed into something he dwelled upon called scratching, but this was default in Jamaica long before he so called put his hands on records. I’m not surprised that Flash would say the latter and come from Trinidad, W.I. as he knows the truth but Jamaicans and Trinidadians have never liked each other from the get go so I can understand why Flash would want to take the shine from Jamaica. This has nothing to do with Hip Hop and everything to do with an all-time grudge against Jamaicans and America wanting claim to something stolen and borrowed. I love Hip hop/rap but it is not and original invented genre as Jazz or Funk as it borrows and steals from other cultures to form its own so all you old school Hip Hoppers who claim to be pioneers please be specific of what you are pioneers of, something that derived from other cultures, something borrowed, or something sampled and stolen?
hip-hop/rap did not come from Jamaica (which actually has influence from the music created by Blacks in America). It derives from Africa and evolves in America in the 1800s, 20s and 30s etc. It comes from Jazz, R&B, Soul, Talking Blues, Toasting from Blacks in America (not Jamaican which is actually different prior to the 80s), funk, field hollers, chants, the dozens/signifyin, african griot etc Breakdancing, breakbeats, graffiti, scratching ( began in 1940s) etc was also started in America by native born Blacks (kool herc did not start breakbeats). What you’ll find is that there are shared musical continuities between our cultures because we come from the same areas.
Over time, you’ll find there’s been some cross pollination between the two and that’s fine, but in terms of the foundation of hip-hop/rap, it’s not Jamaican. The sound systems of Jamaica (big bass emphasis was also influenced by music from America being broadcasted on the airwaves in the Caribbean, in addition to growing up in or traveling to America & being exposed to the technology and music of the time and then taking all that back to Jamaica), the sound systems were influential in providing the maximization of r&b bass lines (aka dub music); they then moved into their own local music. It’s important we don’t engage in hyperbole, but instead, the truth.
I’ll give you 12 reasons why Hip-Hop is a Black American art form/creation and not Jamaican. 1. Lovebug starski and Keith Cowboy from the furious five conied the term “hip-hop.”
2. Breakbeats originated from Jazz music and swing bands.
3. Pete DJ Jones and other disco DJs used 2 copies of the same record and extended the break before DJ Kool Herc.
4. Jamaican toasting is influenced by Black American radio disc jockeys.
5. Rapping or rhyming over a beat already existed in the United States before the arrival of Jamaicans.
6. The earliest hip-hop or rap records incorporated
Disco, Funk, and Soul music.
7. Mixing, cutting, Scratching, breakbeats, graffiti, breakdancing, and rapping originated in the U.S.
8. Black Americans created the first hip-hop song and first hip-hop recording label.
9. Rapping in the U.S can be traced back to talking blues, scat-singing, toasts, spoken word, poetry, and the dozens.
10. James Brown’s “funky drummer” is the most sampled song in Hip-hop history.
11. Black Americans created freestyle rap and battle rap.
12. The Last Poets are considered to be the godfathers of hip-hop.