It's Bigger Than Hip Hop: The Rise of the Post-Hip-Hop Generation by M.K. Asante Jr Page B
Authors: M.K. Asante Jr
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founds the Universal Zulu Nation, an organization of racially and politically conscious rappers, B-boys, graffiti artists, and other people involved in hip-hop culture. The name “Zulu Nation” was inspired by the images of Zulu warriors attacking British colonizers in the Michael Caine film
Zulu
.
1974
President Richard Nixon , who once complained to Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs John Erlichman that Great Society programs were a waste “because Blacks were genetically inferior to whites,” resigns on August 9 due to the firestorm surrounding the Watergate scandal. He becomes the first president to resign from office. His vice president, Gerald Ford, assumes the presidency and pardons Nixon on September 8.
Everybody’s a rapper but few flow fatal
It’s fucked up, it all started from two turntables
.
— NAS, “CARRY ON TRADITION ,”
HIP-HOP IS DEAD
Kool DJ Herc, a year after DJing his first gig at his older sister’s birthday party, garners a reputation for his legendary, high-decibel, high-quality mobile sound system and establishes himself as the first hip-hop DJ. Considered the originator of breakbeat DJing, Herc was initially exposed to similar sounds while growing up in Kingston, Jamaica, at dance hall parties.
1975
Self-esteem, yo we forgot the dream
On our Jeffersons y’all but we forgot the theme
.
— COMMON, “IT’S YOUR WORLD ,”
BE
The Jeffersons
, one of the first sitcoms about an African-American family, premieres on CBS. The show centers around George and Louise Jefferson (played by Sherman Hemsley and Isabel Sanford)and increases ratings for CBS, climbing the Nielsen Rating’s top ten in its first season, and is in the top ten again for three consecutive seasons from 1979 through 1982. During its eighth season,
The Jeffersons
becomes the number-three show on network television, behind only
Dallas
and
60 Minutes
.
North Vietnamese forces take Saigon on April 30, reuniting the country. In total, seven million tons of bombs were dropped on Vietnam, more than twice the number dropped in Europe and Asia during World War II. Additionally, the CIA’s Operation Phoenix, a covert intelligence operation and assassination program, kills over twenty thousand civilians.
1976
The first three-dimensional graffiti pieces , pioneered by KING 2, show up on subway cars in New York City.
Afrika Bambaataa, considered the founding father of hip hop, plays his first gig at the Bronx River Community Center and is dubbed “Master of Records” by those in attendance. He soon becomes the center’s official DJ, spinning records on a sound system given to him by his mother as a graduation present the previous year.
Hundreds of students and protesters in the Black township of Soweto lead a rally against the imposition of the Dutch language Afrikaans in their schools and are killed by the South African apartheid government. African-American rap artists including Melle Mel, RUN-D.M.C., and Kurtis Blow would later condemn the racist system of apartheid in their music.
1977
I’m black like Steve Biko, raised in the ghetto by the people
Fuck the police, you know how we do
.
— DEAD PREZ, “I’M A AFRICAN ,”
LET’S GET FREE
Steve Biko, a nonviolent , antiapartheid activist famous for proclaiming that “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed,” and “Black is beautiful,” is brutally beaten to death by South African police. His death sparks international awareness about the brutal regime of apartheid.
Grandmaster Flash and Grand Wizard Theodore create scratching, a turntable-based technique and instrumental advancement in DJing where scratches are produced by moving a vinyl record back and forth while it plays on the turntable. Flash describes scratching as “nothing but the back-cueing that you hear in your ear before you push it [the recorded sound] out to the crowd.”
On February 3, ABC airs the
Zulu
.
1974
President Richard Nixon , who once complained to Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs John Erlichman that Great Society programs were a waste “because Blacks were genetically inferior to whites,” resigns on August 9 due to the firestorm surrounding the Watergate scandal. He becomes the first president to resign from office. His vice president, Gerald Ford, assumes the presidency and pardons Nixon on September 8.
Everybody’s a rapper but few flow fatal
It’s fucked up, it all started from two turntables
.
— NAS, “CARRY ON TRADITION ,”
HIP-HOP IS DEAD
Kool DJ Herc, a year after DJing his first gig at his older sister’s birthday party, garners a reputation for his legendary, high-decibel, high-quality mobile sound system and establishes himself as the first hip-hop DJ. Considered the originator of breakbeat DJing, Herc was initially exposed to similar sounds while growing up in Kingston, Jamaica, at dance hall parties.
1975
Self-esteem, yo we forgot the dream
On our Jeffersons y’all but we forgot the theme
.
— COMMON, “IT’S YOUR WORLD ,”
BE
The Jeffersons
, one of the first sitcoms about an African-American family, premieres on CBS. The show centers around George and Louise Jefferson (played by Sherman Hemsley and Isabel Sanford)and increases ratings for CBS, climbing the Nielsen Rating’s top ten in its first season, and is in the top ten again for three consecutive seasons from 1979 through 1982. During its eighth season,
The Jeffersons
becomes the number-three show on network television, behind only
Dallas
and
60 Minutes
.
North Vietnamese forces take Saigon on April 30, reuniting the country. In total, seven million tons of bombs were dropped on Vietnam, more than twice the number dropped in Europe and Asia during World War II. Additionally, the CIA’s Operation Phoenix, a covert intelligence operation and assassination program, kills over twenty thousand civilians.
1976
The first three-dimensional graffiti pieces , pioneered by KING 2, show up on subway cars in New York City.
Afrika Bambaataa, considered the founding father of hip hop, plays his first gig at the Bronx River Community Center and is dubbed “Master of Records” by those in attendance. He soon becomes the center’s official DJ, spinning records on a sound system given to him by his mother as a graduation present the previous year.
Hundreds of students and protesters in the Black township of Soweto lead a rally against the imposition of the Dutch language Afrikaans in their schools and are killed by the South African apartheid government. African-American rap artists including Melle Mel, RUN-D.M.C., and Kurtis Blow would later condemn the racist system of apartheid in their music.
1977
I’m black like Steve Biko, raised in the ghetto by the people
Fuck the police, you know how we do
.
— DEAD PREZ, “I’M A AFRICAN ,”
LET’S GET FREE
Steve Biko, a nonviolent , antiapartheid activist famous for proclaiming that “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed,” and “Black is beautiful,” is brutally beaten to death by South African police. His death sparks international awareness about the brutal regime of apartheid.
Grandmaster Flash and Grand Wizard Theodore create scratching, a turntable-based technique and instrumental advancement in DJing where scratches are produced by moving a vinyl record back and forth while it plays on the turntable. Flash describes scratching as “nothing but the back-cueing that you hear in your ear before you push it [the recorded sound] out to the crowd.”
On February 3, ABC airs the
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