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Hip-Hop’s Beginnings: Graffiti and Break Dancing

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Davood Tavakoli
Hip-Hop’s Beginnings: Graffiti and Break Dancing

Scholars cannot pinpoint the precise date of hip-hop’s birth. By 1975, however, the four fundamental elements of the new movement—graffiti, break dancing, deejaying, and rapping—had all made their first appearance in the impoverished and mostly black neighborhoods of the South Bronx, generally considered as the cradle of hip-hop culture.

The first two components of hip-hop culture to emerge were graffiti and break dancing. Graffiti has its roots in the late 1960s, when self-styled “writers” began using permanent markers or paint to make distinctive designs—often their initials or combinations of letters and numbers—on the sides of subway cars, buildings, bridges, and other public and private surfaces in New York City. Graffiti was an especially common sight in the gang-infested slums of the South Bronx, where members of rival gangs used cans of spray paint to “tag” their territories with their gang’s name or colors. Despite its association with street violence, when several leading Manhattan art dealers began displaying graffiti-inspired works in their galleries during the mid-seventies, graffiti seemed to be on its way to becoming a respected art form.

(Its also rap is a part of hip hop, Learn How To Rap)

New York’s graffiti craze would prove short lived, however. Convinced that graffiti was vandalism not art, city authorities launched a determined and largely successful campaign against the practice during the early 1980s, complete with undercover police squads, guard dogs, and paint-dissolving acid baths.

(and also listen to some beats, Beat 019 With, Beat 020 Wood)

Break dancing, a high-energy, acrobatic style of dancing, developed among young black New Yorkers around the same time that graffiti was first taking hold in the city. This second element of hip-hop culture featured eye-catching movements such as locking and popping in which the B-boys and B-girls (Male and female break-dancers) “locked” a leg or other body part into position before abruptly “popping” it out again. Soon break-dance “crews” made up of young ghetto residents began competing in local contests and talent shows. Like graffiti, break dancing was especially popular in the gang-ridden neighborhoods of the South Bronx, where rival B-boy gangs staged dance competitions to gain status and respect or for control of disputed territory. By the early eighties, break dancing, like graffiti, was already on the decline, having been replaced by new dances such as the Freak and the Robot.


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Davood Tavakoli
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