Kurtis Walker, professionally known by his stage name Kurtis Blow, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record/film producer, b-boy, DJ, public speaker and minister. He is the first commercially successful rapper and the first to sign with a major record label. "The Breaks", a single from his 1980 self-titled debut album, is the first certified gold record rap song. Throughout his career he has released 15 albums and is currently an ordained minister.
The Universal Zulu Nation is an international hip hop awareness group formed by and formerly led by hip hop artist Afrika Bambaataa.
Style Wars is an American 1983 documentary film on hip hop culture, directed by Tony Silver and produced in collaboration with Henry Chalfant. The film has an emphasis on graffiti, although bboying and rapping are covered to a lesser extent. The film was originally aired on PBS television on January 18, 1984, and was subsequently shown in several film festivals to much acclaim, including the Vancouver Film Festival. It also won the Grand Jury Prize: Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival.
Wild Style is a 1983 American hip hop film directed and produced by Charlie Ahearn. Regarded as the first hip hop motion picture, it includes appearances by seminal figures such as Fab Five Freddy, Lee Quiñones, Lady Pink, The Rock Steady Crew, The Cold Crush Brothers, Queen Lisa Lee of Zulu Nation, Grandmaster Flash and ZEPHYR.
Peter O. Phillips, better known by his stage name Pete Rock, is an American record producer, DJ and rapper. He is widely recognized as one of the greatest hip hop producers of all time, and is often mentioned alongside DJ Premier, RZA, Q-Tip and J Dilla as one of the mainstays of 1990s East Coast hip hop production. He rose to prominence in the early 1990s as one half of the critically acclaimed group Pete Rock & CL Smooth. Early on in his career, he was also famed for his remix work.
Henry Chalfant is an American photographer and videographer most notable for his work on graffiti, breakdance, and hip hop culture.
Hip hop dance is a range of street dance styles primarily performed to hip hop music or that have evolved as part of hip hop culture. It is influenced by a wide range of styles that were created in the 1970s and made popular by dance crews in the United States. The television show Soul Train and the 1980s films Breakin', Beat Street, and Wild Style showcased these crews and dance styles in their early stages; therefore, giving hip-hop dance mainstream exposure.
Breaking, also called breakdancing or b-boying/b-girling, is an athletic style of street dance originating from the Foundational Black American communities of the Bronx, New York City. While diverse in the amount of variation available in the dance, breakdancing mainly consists of four kinds of movement: toprock, downrock, power moves and freezes. Breakdancing is typically set to songs containing drum breaks, especially in hip-hop, funk, soul music and breakbeat music, although modern trends allow for much wider varieties of music along certain ranges of tempo and beat patterns.
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.
The Hoe Avenue peace meeting was an important gathering of New York City gangs on December 8, 1971, in the Bronx. It was called to propose a general truce and an unprecedented inter-gang alliance. The impetus for the meeting was the murder of "Black Benjie", a peace keeper of the Ghetto Brothers. While no lasting peace was ever established, a subsequent negotiation established a procedure for dealing with conflicts to avoid street warfare. The meeting is notable as one of the first attempts by street organizations to broker a truce between groups of different ethnic backgrounds.
John Bayas, also known as The Original Jazzy Jay or DJ Jazzy Jay, is an American hip hop DJ and producer.
Luis Cedeño, also known as DJ Disco Wiz is an American DJ. He is noted as being the first Latino DJ in Hip-Hop.
Lance Taylor, also known as Afrika Bambaataa, is an American DJ, rapper, and producer from the South Bronx, New York. He is notable for releasing a series of genre-defining electro tracks in the 1980s that influenced the development of hip hop culture. Afrika Bambaataa is one of the originators of breakbeat DJing.
Gary Weis is an American filmmaker.
Curtis Brown, better known by the stage name Grandmaster Caz or Casanova Fly, is an American rapper, songwriter, and DJ. He was a member of the hip hop group The Cold Crush Brothers from 1979 to the mid-1980s. He is best known as the (uncredited) main writer of Big Bank Hank's raps on the seminal 1979 hip hop single by The Sugarhill Gang, "Rapper's Delight".
Big Fun in the Big Town is a Dutch music documentary made by the VPRO in 1986. It was directed by Bram van Splunteren and presented by Belgian TV presenter Marcel Vanthilt. The documentary was shot on location in New York City and consisted of two parts, one about rock singer Iggy Pop and the Stooges, the other about the American hip hop scene. The latter turned out to have a much bigger impact on the Dutch music scene and enjoys a cult classic status among hip-hop fans.
The Savage Skulls are a mostly Puerto Rican and African American street gang started in the Hunts Point area of the Bronx during the late 1960s, gaining popularity in the 1970s. The gang declared war on the drug dealers operating in the Hunts Point area in the early 1970s, and was also involved in a number of running battles with rival gangs, including the Seven Immortals, Savage Nomads, and Dirty Dozen.
Hip-Hop Evolution is a Canadian music documentary 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 Savage Nomads were a mostly Puerto Rican and African American street gang started in the South Bronx area of The Bronx, New York during the late 1960s, gaining popularity in the 1970s. The gang was involved in a number of running battles with rival gangs Seven Immortals, Savage Skulls, and the Dirty Dozen. The Savage Nomads were alleged to be involved in numerous small crime activities in the New York City area.
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.
