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Electro RapIn 1973, ex-gang member Afrika Bambaataa (b. 1960) founded the 'Zulu Nation', a community group which promotes 'freedom, justice, equality, knowledge, wisdom and understanding' [1] .Initially its members were mostly young blacks of the inner city New York area, but currently this organization has hundreds of chapters throughout the world. Bambaataa was instrumental in turning the street gangs of the late 1970s into the hip hop crews of the early 1980s, organizing breakdance competitions and musical events, and promoting peace and racial tolerance, and he became the pre-eminent hip hop New York DJ [2]. The music that he used drew from a very broad range of musical genres, as he searched for a new sound that could be used as a 'trade mark' for the Zulu Nation [3]. After hearing Kraftwerk's song 'Trans Europe Express' he believed he had found the sound he was looking for and, drawing from the new technology of drum machines and synthesisers, he released the pivotal hip hop recording 'Planet Rock', establishing the sound of 'electro' rap that would dominate this genre of music until the mid 1980s [4].Hip hop's three components graffiti, break dancing and music (the latter divided into two sections, DJing and MCing) have always been fiercely competitive as different 'crews' battle for territory. Street competitions were not uncommon between rival crews of break dancers or MCs. DJs would also circulate live performance tapes to help establish their style in their respective territories. These tapes were traded and copied, and played on large portable cassette players ('Ghetto Blasters') by youths of the inner city area. The tapes spread the street sound of hip hop to different racial and economic groups, and circulated globally as young black and Hispanic military recruits traded and played them in bases around the world [5]. [1]No Author attributed, 'HipHopCity.com:Universal Zulu Nation', [Online] http://hiphopcity.com/zulu/history.htm [1999, August 28] [2]Larkin, 1995, p.80 [3]Africa Bambaataa cited in Dancing in the Street, 'Planet Rock Episode' 1996, BBC Television [4]Larkin, 1995, p.80 [5]Rosa, 1994, p.53 |
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