When the Beat Was Born

When the Beat Was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop
TitleWhen the Beat Was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop
Publication TypeBook
Year of Publication2013
AuthorHill, Laban Carrick
Number of Pages32
PublisherRoaring Brook Press
CityNew York, NY
Publication LanguageEnglish
ISBN or ASIN Number1596435402
Copies at the Archive1

Before there was hip hop, there was DJ Kool Herc.

On a hot day at the end of summer in 1973 Cindy Campbell threw a back-to-school party at a park in the South Bronx. Her brother, Clive Campbell, spun the records. He had a new way of playing the music to make the breaks—the musical interludes between verses—longer for dancing. He called himself DJ Kool Herc and this is When the Beat Was Born. From his childhood in Jamaica to his youth in the Bronx, Laban Carrick Hill's book tells how Kool Herc came to be a DJ, how kids in gangs stopped fighting in order to breakdance, and how the music he invented went on to define a culture and transform the world.