DJ Kool Herc “Merry-Go-Round” Technique video

Jamaican-American DJ Kool Herc has been credited with originating hip hop in The Bronx on August 11, 1973. In a 2010 interview with Kool Herc’s sister, Cindy Campbell, she revealed that there was a plan to have a party in the rec room at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue. Herc borrowed their father’s sound system to provide the music for the party, which was planned so that Campbell could afford some new school clothes.

What happened next was history. Kool Herc took hard funk records and records from Jamaican DJ culture and isolated the instrumental portion of the record to emphasize the drum beat, and then he switched between records using a two-turntable set-up. He also used two copies of the same record in order to elongate the break, aka breakbeat, which formed the basis of hip hop drum and bass.

Davey D interview with Cindy Campbell Here.