Nora Quintanilla
New York – The Bronx, the New York neighborhood weighed down for decades by its reputation for being dangerous, this Saturday became the destination for thousands of people who joined a street party to celebrate the 50th anniversary of hiphop culture together to their proud neighbors.
The epicenter of this party “block party” was 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, where stands a social housing building that would not be distinguished from numerous other “projects” in the city were it not for its historical heritage status: inside, on August 11, 1973, hiphop was born.
It was there that a young Jamaican immigrant, Clive Campbell, known as DJ Kool Herc and today considered the “father of hiphop”, threw a “back to school” party with his sister Cindy, and he tried a technique by playing with two decks in which he lengthened the rhythmic part of the songs, what would be called “breaks”.
DJ Kool Herc and his friends, as claimed by New York, gave rise to hiphop culture, in which the DJ is not the only protagonist: also the people who dance to it, the “b-boys” or “break-boys”. ; the MCs or masters of ceremonies at the microphones; and the artists who paint «graffiti», in total four pillars.
PIONEERS AND ‘NOVICES’
The party this Saturday, convened by the Mayor’s Office, was dedicated to them, in which the visitors communed with the bronxites during a concert led by pioneers such as KRS-One and Grandmaster Caz, and which also welcomed new talents, such as a prodigious rapper 8-year-old who took the stage with her father.
This is about my brothers and sisters. What a walk. Very few can say that they have been here since day one. So this party is dedicated to the entire hiphop culture, and the 50th birthday is for those who were here, like DJ Kool Herc, who made this block famous,” Grandmaster said.
In front of the building that crowns the block, many attendees stopped to pay tribute by taking photos and talking with some figures of the genre who came out to share the celebration, including two legends: Douglas J. Colón, aka “Dancing Doug”, and “Trixie” , who were two of the first “b-boys”.
They both reminded EFE of the beginnings of hip hop: “We did everything for fun, we didn’t want to make money, be on television, publicity or videos,” said the first, to which the second added: “It was something that kept us busy , out of trouble and creating something for us.”
Facing each other in dance battles in the 1970s led them to develop a friendship that lives on, and now they claim their part in a culture that “isn’t just rap,” they say, for which they have created a “Hall of Fame for Rappers.” B-Boys” that puts the spotlight on this pillar of hiphop.
‘WE CAN TALK WITH THIS MUSIC’
Another pillar, “graffiti”, was the one that most influenced one of the attendees, the artist LeRone Wilson, a sculptor who grew up in Brooklyn after the birth of hiphop and assured that at that time “everyone was trying to get out there , create and be creative in whatever you do.”
«This new music that came from the Bronx… wow!, we could dance to it and enjoy it in a group in the street (…) We said: wow, we can put our hands on fire for this, we can talk to this type of music!» added Wilson, who in recent days has been “marathoning” going to other street parties.
The event encouraged many neighbors to show off at the party, such as Mr. MC Mellow D, with a purple shirt and pants and a “graffiti” speaker that emitted a rhythmic base for his phrases: “Hip hop is 50 years old and I 49, since 1974…hip hop is my whole life,” he commented, rapping.
Others took advantage of the unusual crowd to look for a career boost, like rapper Punchline Q, who handed out cards and promised, “You’ll like my rap if you like Nas, but nothing like Tupak Shakur or West Coast rap. Give it a try, you’ll see my lyrical prowess, you’ll love it.”
FROM THE ‘PROJECTS’ TO THE STAR
Many attendees showed off with their shirts that they had attended the mega-concert last night at Yankee Stadium, not far away, which brought together legendary rappers like Run DMC, Snoop Dogg and Fat Joe, “queens of hip hop” like Eve and Lil Kim or the DJ Kool Herc himself and his sister Cindy Campbell.
But today’s party focused on the beginning of that path to stardom: the humble area of The Bronx, at a time marked by high crime, “disease, hatred, ignorance and poverty”, in which a group of young people inadvertently created a future for the neighborhood, according to a sign at the foot of the building.
«Instead of sinking into that hopeless situation, we became the solutions we were looking for (…). They did not give us the answers, we became the answers,” adds the text, which many stopped to read during a day in which they highlighted the coexistence of a diverse crowd, supervised by groups of police officers. EFE
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