Street dance is an umbrella term for a large number of social dance styles such as: breakdancing, popping, locking, house dance, waacking, voguing, etc. Social dance styles have many accompanying steps and foundations, created organically from a culture, a moment in time, a way of life, influenced by natural social interaction. A street dance is a vernacular dance in an urban context. Vernacular dances are often improvisational and social in nature, encouraging interaction and contact with spectators and other dancers. These dances are a part of the vernacular culture of the geographical area that they come from.
Beat Street is a 1984 American dance drama film featuring New York City hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Set in the South Bronx, the film follows the lives of a pair of brothers and their group of friends, all of whom are devoted to various elements of early hip hop culture, including breakdancing, DJing and graffiti.
Coke La Rock is an American rapper from New York City who is sometimes credited as being the first MC in the history of hip-hop. In 2010, he was inducted into the High Times Counterculture Hall of Fame at the annual ceremonies at the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam.
In popular music, a break is an instrumental or percussion section during a song derived from or related to stop-time – being a "break" from the main parts of the song or piece. A break is usually interpolated between sections of a song, to provide a sense of anticipation, signal the start of a new section, or create variety in the arrangement.
Hip hop or hip-hop is a culture and art movement that was created by African Americans, starting in the Bronx, New York City. Pioneered from Black American street culture, that had been around for years prior to its more mainstream discovery, it later reached other groups such as Latino Americans and Caribbean Americans. Hip-hop culture has historically been shaped and dominated by African American men, though female hip hop artists have contributed to the art form and culture as well. Hip hop culture is characterized by the key elements of rapping, DJing and turntablism, and breakdancing; other elements include graffiti, beatboxing, street entrepreneurship, hip hop language, and hip hop fashion. From hip hop culture emerged a new genre of popular music, hip hop music.
The Black Spades were a mostly African-American street gang which started in the Bronx during the late 1960s and gained popularity in the 1970s. The gang began to spread from the Bronx to Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, New Rochelle, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Connecticut by the late 1980s. During this period Latino and white members were more common. The Black Spades have made a comeback in 2019 with more members joining. They are now TBS New Direction, a community service group championing anti-violence initiatives and providing food distribution for the food insecure.
A house concert or home concert is a musical concert or performance art that is presented in someone's home or apartment, or a nearby small private space such as a barn, apartment rec room, lawn, or backyard.
Sandro Orrù, known as DJ Gruff, Gruffetti or Lowdy N.C.N., is a pioneer of the Italian hip hop scene. Known for his original take on rapping and scratching techniques since 1982. He has been active as a turntablist, DJ, beatmaker, rapper and producer.
Morris Heights is a residential neighborhood located in the West Bronx. Its boundaries, starting from the north and moving clockwise are: West Burnside Avenue to the north, Jerome Avenue to the east, the Cross-Bronx Expressway to the south, and the Harlem River to the west. University Avenue is the primary thoroughfare through Morris Heights.
University Woods, also known as Cedar Park, is a small woodland park in the University Heights neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City. Overlooking the Harlem River, the park sits between Sedgwick and Cedar Avenues. After having been named "the city's worst park" by the New Yorkers for Parks in the years 2003–2006, a restoration project was begun in 2008 by the Friends of the Woods organization, with a $500,000 grant from Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Bronx River Houses is a low-income public housing project in the Soundview section of the Bronx, New York City. It consists of nine buildings with 1,260 apartments. Completed February 28, 1951, the 13.94-acre (5.64 ha) Bronx development is bordered by East 174th Street, Harrod, and Bronx River Avenues. Bronx River Houses is home to 3,025 residents. The project is patrolled by P.S.A. 8 located at 2794 Randall Avenue in the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx.
Super Bad is the second solo album by DJ Terminator X. The album was released on June 21, 1994, on Def Jam Recordings sub-label RAL and was produced by Terminator X, Kool DJ Herc, Grandmaster Flash, and Russell Simmons. The album was only a minor success, making it to #189 on the Billboard 200 and #38 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. Two singles were released, "Under the Sun" and "It All Comes Down to the Money," the latter of which made it to #26 on the Hot Rap Singles. "It All Comes Down to the Money" was released in 1993.
Clive Campbell, better known by his stage name DJ Kool Herc, is a Jamaican American DJ who is credited with being one of the founders of hip hop music in the Bronx, New York City, in 1973. Nicknamed the Father of Hip-Hop, Campbell began playing hard funk records of the sort typified by James Brown. Campbell began to isolate the instrumental portion of the record which emphasized the drum beat—the "break"—and switch from one break to another. Using the same two-turntable set-up of disco DJs, he used two copies of the same record to elongate the break. This breakbeat DJing, using funky drum solos, formed the basis of hip hop music. Campbell's announcements and exhortations to dancers helped lead to the syncopated, rhythmically spoken accompaniment now known as rapping.
Hip-hop or hip hop, formerly known as disco rap, is a genre of popular music,that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s primarily from African American, Afro-Latin, and Afro-Caribbean musical aesthetics practiced by youth in the South Bronx. Hip-hop music originated as an anti-drug and anti-violence social movement led by the Afrika Bambaataa and the Universal Zulu Nation. The genre is characterized by stylized rhythmic sounds—often built around disco grooves, electronic drum beats, and rapping, a percussive vocal delivery of rhymed poetic speech as consciousness-raising expression. The music developed as part of the broader hip-hop culture, a subculture defined by four key stylistic elements: MCing/rapping, DJing/scratching with turntables, breakdancing, and graffiti art or writing. Knowledge is sometimes described as a fifth element, underscoring its role in shaping the values and promoting empowerment and consciousness-raising through music. In 1999, emcee KRS-One, often referred to as "The Teacher," elaborated on this framework in a Harvard lecture, identifying additional elements that extend beyond the basic four. These include self-expression, street fashion, street language, street knowledge, and street entrepreneurialism, which remain integral to hip-hop's musical expression, entertainment business, and sound production. Girls’ double-dutch was also recognized as a key stylistic component of breakdancing, according to KRS. While often used to refer solely to rapping and rap music, "hip-hop" more properly denotes the practice(s) of the entire subculture. The term hip-hop music is sometimes used synonymously with the term rap music, though rapping may not be the focus of hip-hop music. The genre also centers DJing, turntablism, scratching, beatboxing, and instrumental tracks.
Rebel Diaz is a political hip hop duo out of New York City and Chicago consisting of the Chilean brothers Rodrigo Venegas and Gonzalo Venegas. Rebel Diaz uses their music as an organizing tool and to spread knowledge about injustice. Hip hop website AllHipHop.com named Rebel Diaz one of the top fifty emerging/underground hip hop artists of 2013.
Sedgwick Avenue is a major street in the Bronx, New York City. It runs roughly parallel to Jerome Avenue, the Major Deegan Expressway, and University Avenue. Sedgwick Avenue is one of the longest streets in the western part of the Bronx, running from Mosholu Parkway at the north to Macombs Dam Bridge at its southern end, about 800 feet west of Yankee Stadium.
Hip Hop Family Tree is a series of educational and historical comic books by Ed Piskor that documents the early history of hip hop culture. Originating online with Boing Boing, the series was published in print form by Fantagraphics. The first collection was a 2014 New York Times Graphic Books Best Seller (#7) and was listed in The Washington Post Top 10 graphic novels of 2013. The second collection won the Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work in 2015.
Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation is a 2005 book by Jeff Chang chronicling the early hip hop scene.
Hip-Hop Evolution is a Canadian music documentary television series that originally aired on HBO Canada in 2016. Hosted by Juno Award-winning artist Shad, the series profiles the history of hip-hop music through interviews with many of the genre's leading cultural figures. The series is produced by Darby Wheeler, Rodrigo Bascuñán, Russell Peters, Scot McFadyen, Sam Dunn and Nelson George. It won the 2016 Peabody Award, and the 2017 International Emmy Award for Best Arts Programming.
The South Bronx is an area of the New York City borough of the Bronx. The area comprises neighborhoods in the southern part of the Bronx, such as Concourse, Mott Haven, Melrose, and Port Morris.
