DJ Kool Herc, Godfather of Hip Hop
All great movements have a beginning but not necessarily an end. The official “Godfather of Hip Hop,” Kool Herc has been around since the very beginning and is still around today, putting on a killer show last night at Chinatown’s Next Door.
Herc is widely regarded as the originator of “hip hop” as we know it today, because he was one of the first dudes to have the idea of putting together two turntables to play a continuous mix of music. He is also the originator of mixing the “break,” which is an instrumental segment of a song which is mixed into itself on another turntable and extended in order to keep a danceable groove of music going for long periods of time.
The crazy and dextrous dancers who inhabited the middle of the dancefloor, frequently circled by everybody else (as they were last night), were coined “B-Boys” (for “Break-Boys”) by Herc himself, and boy were they out in full-force last night (along with some talented “B-Girls” as well). The “poppers” and “lockers” really do put on an entertaining display of flurried physical motion which is quite amazing when taking into consideration the fact that I couldn’t physically do some of those things no matter how much I practiced…
When Herc took to the stage I could immediately feel the overwhelming power of his presence and experience radiate through the club. He was invisibly projecting the energy of a master-craftsman who had handled a thousand parties and a hundred thousand attendees, and last night they were all behind his gaze, balled into one. Herc started the set by dropping one of the funkiest latin breaks I’d ever heard, announcing he was first going to “take care of all the b-boys first,” and for a couple of blissful, sweat-laden hours he transformed downtown Honolulu 2010 into Brooklyn 1975.
You can still see Herc at Next Door on Friday (Feb. 5th) I’m told, so c’mon out and witness a true living legend in action while the opportunity presents itself. Peace & aloha from the 808 State.
Capt. Fx-Or, over and out..
From the Archives - a Moving Shadow d&b set
Put together for the first time digitally in its entirety, this is one of my favorites that I couldn’t let pass by. I picked up this CD from a department store in Ireland in 1999… I think it came with an issue of Mixmag as a promo for Grand Theft Auto II, a franchise which was already earning a reputation as having some killer & age-defining soundtracks.
This mix has always been big to me because it combined hard hitting sounds with some of the funkiest beats I’d ever heard, taking you on a crazy journey from tranquility to the depths of hell..
U.K. drum n bass staple Timecode (aka Rob Playford) mixes together tracks from the budding Moving Shadow label as well as the Audio Couture label, starting off with downtempo and working its way toward dark tech-step.
A serious must-listen for the classic dnb fanatic. Click the link below to download (hey, they originally sold this for $2, so c’mon now, this is in the name of the preservation of history):
Timecode - Moving Shadow 99.1 (1999)
1. Flytronix - Smokeringz
2. Guardians of Dalliance - Turn to Gold
3. Omni Trio - Sound System
4. Mastermind - In Session
5. Kudos - Do It Fluid
6. Guardians of Dalliance - Twice Round
7. Fellowship - Interchange
8. Aquasky - Motor City
9. Omni Trio - Byte Size Life
10. Calyx - Acid Blues
11. Basic Unit - Blown Angle
12. DJ TeeBee - Instant Irradification
13. Technical Itch - Reborn
14. Known Unknown - Chaos Edit
15. Known Unknown - Rollers Edit
16. Technical Itch - LED
17. Dom + Roland - Killa Bullet
18. AK1200 & Danny Breaks - Deep Porn