Interview of DJ Kool Herc

¶ … Interview of DJ Kool Herc by Best Friend: "DJ Ear Peace"

DJ Ear Peace (hereon referred to as DJ EP): So I'm here with my man, the respected DJ Kool Herc, father of hip-hop. Can you set the record straight for us? What is your real name?

DJ Kool Herc (hereon referred to as DJ KH): You know I don't give that information out to just anyone, but since you're asking… My real name is Clive Campbell.

DJ EP: That sounds like a normal enough name. Why didn't you choose to incorporate your real name into your DJ persona, somehow?

DJ KH: Well that's just it Ear Peace, "Clive Campbell" is plain. As a DJ you want to be able to strike, even excite people just by the sound and ring of your name. "Clive Campbell" didn't really cut it for me. I mean "Ear Peace," that's pretty clever. I have an idea, but what exactly do you want to strike in people with that name?

DJ EP: Oh, I see, turning the tables (haha! no pun intended) on me with this interviewing business. All right. I guess I owe you an answer to at least one question. Well, I figured, earpiece, like I'm in your ear and you can't escape my message along with my deejaying. My message is peace through music.

DJ KH: Clever, like I said before.

DJ EP: So how did you finally determine what your DJ name would be?

DJ KH: Well, my friends used to call me "Hercules" based on my height and the fact that I would lift weights a lot in high school. I exemplified Hercules in hip-hop form. But now that I really think about it, "Kool Herc" also refers to the level of achievement I've had as being a DJ.

DJ EP: Oh, no doubt! It definitely does. Man, where are you originally from? Tell us about your roots.

DJ KH: I was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1955. I left Kingston to live in the U.S., specifically the Bronx, NYC, when I was about 12 years old. So the Bronx is where I got my start as a DJ. It was 1520 Sedgwick Avenue where I spun my first turntables and where I still continue to share the sound of hip-hop with my neighbors in the Bronx. These people want something else other than violence in their lives. They crave an escape; my deejaying gives that to them.

DJ EP: I hear you. There are loads of young people involved with gangs, especially in the Bronx. On another note, Kool Herc parties are off the hook. Describe the hip-hop scene and why you love it.

DJ KH: Well, you know how it goes man. From one DJ to another, the most intriguing part about deejaying has to be that it is an art form, which inspires and motivates you to play. Deejaying seeks your creative side and pulls it out of you. And to think that you are entertaining people while doing it is absolutely amazing! it's like a high, you know?

DJ EP: Yo, I definitely agree with that. You connect with others through a variety of techniques while deejaying. Like "toasting" for example.

DJ KH: Oh I love to toast, who doesn't? "Toasting" is vital to deejaying because it gives recognition to the producers of the songs and it allows the DJ to add his own vocals or commentaries in addition or on top of the melodic track. But just to clarify, "toasting" is not singing, it's more like chanting, rhyming or rhythmic storytelling -- kind of like what rappers do, minus the deejaying part. So that's one aspect of the party hip-hop scene.

DJ EP: Kool Herc, tell us about your unique deejaying style.

DJ KH: I guess you could say I introduced the blueprint for hip-hop. I focus on something called "the break," which is basically a short, heavily percussive part of a song. I use two records of the same song (on two different turntables) in order to achieve an extended version of the break. When "the break" ends on one record, I trigger the second record immediately following the first one. This is the manual way of "looping," a term that refers to a part of a song or "sample" which is repeated. The reason I do this is because it's the hottest part of the song that the dancers love and go absolutely nuts over. This ignited a cultural revolution and is how the term "break dancing" formed.

DJ EP: As I understand it, "breaking" has another meaning.

DJ KH: Oh yeah. My "b-boys" (break-boys) and "b-girls" (break-girls) are dancers who "breakdance" while I'm deejaying. But the term, "breaking" also refers to the slang word for "getting excited," "acting energetically," and/or "causing a disturbance." Double entendre.

DJ EP: I love breaking in the clubs or on the streets. I don't know, tell me if you agree, but there's something so amazing and intense about the energy of deejaying street and park parties as opposed to clubs like Twilight Zone, Havelo, or the Executive Playhouse.

DJ KH: There's no doubt about it. They're absolutely electrifying, probably because park and street parties are spontaneous. A b-boy or b-girl sandwiched in the middle of a huge crowd executing their own dance. it's like a musician to his solo; the b-boy or b-girl gets his or her own time, even if it's only for thirty seconds, to metaphorically solo their instrument -- themselves!

DJ EP: Ditto. So Kool Herc, have you impacted fellow artists?

DJ KH: Of course I have! Or so I'd like to think that I've not only impacted but have paved the way for my successors. Namely two DJs come to mind: Grandmaster Flash (awesome name by the way) and Afrika Bambaataa. Grandmaster Flash is part of a group called the Furious Five. Their music is socially conscious and informs people about the hardships that inner city life unfortunately brings.

But before Grandmaster Flash was part of the Furious Five, he experimented with his deejaying style and perfected the following: backspin technique, punch phrasing, and scratching. He definitely got backspin technique from me. It emulates my "breaking" method of having duplicate copies of a record on different turntables, isolating the percussive part of a song from one record, then playing the same part on the other record, thereby extending the time break-dancers have to dance to the sick beats. Punch phrasing is exactly what it sounds like. A song sometimes has extra add-ons, like horns or screams. In punch phrasing, these sounds are isolated and are rhythmically "punched" over the established beat by utilizing a mixer. And scratching is basically the addition of a DJ's own unique touch to the record. The DJ "scratches" the record to actively give the song a different and unique sound.