Hip-hop begins with the burning of The Bronx. This was caused by the migration of affluent, predominantly white families to the outer boroughs of New York. The expressway tore through what was once a multicultural community, and in turn the city became another overpassed ghetto. Soon the city's desperate residents resorted to arson in order to collect insurance money as a means of profit to escape the city. By overlooking what was happening in the Bronx, the government began what is today known as the politics of abandonment. With the rise of crime and tensions surrounding the borough, gangs began to form and drugs polluted the streets.
Although many living in the Bronx became involved with crime, DJ Kool Herc provided his listeners with an alternative, which came through in his music. Hailing from Jamaica, Herc relocated to New York, bringing his turntable, sound-system, and dancehall and funk record collection. With these tools, Herc began to DJ at local block parties throughout The Bronx. At these parties he enforced his strict no-violence philosophy which allowed attendees to be expressive through dance, and later through other forms.
As Kool Herc deejayed more and more events, the people became inspired. One of the people inspired was Afrika Bambaataa, a gang leader and an emerging DJ in the bronx. Afrika Bambaataa left his affluent position in the Black Spades, the largest and most violent Bronx gang, but kept his respect within the community. With his background in leadership, Bambaataa led a posse of party people across gang lines to the block parties where he would DJ.
While DJ Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa were busy starting a movement and an early sketch for a musical genre, Grandmaster Flash was in his small Bronx apartment toying around with the technology that would eventually shape the musical landscape of what would come to be called hip hop. Grandmaster Flash developed the cross fader, the backspin, and perfected scratching. These techniques revolutionized the way records were manipulated to make a seamless loop and therefore a seamless party. But Grandmaster Flash realized that technical finesse was not enough to move the people, so he enlisted a group of MC's to rhyme and interact with the crowd while he kept the music going. With Grandmaster Flash's polishing of Hip-Hop music and the MC's role affirmed as the face of the music, independent record executives were now seeing the potential market for the emerging genre. With the commercial success of hip hop begins the rise of the Hip-Hop generation.by Leo Murphy, Alexia Vincent, Emily Bristow, Samson Stilwell, Fritz Pfaff
So the place you could take your post farther is to think about the hip hop generation not just as emerging out of the popularization of hip hop, but as also a generation that created early hip hop and itself embodied particular characteristics and came of age at a particular historic moment that shaped its understanding of the world. For instance, how would you integrate the quote you have at the top with your analysis. Why is that the hip hop generation's response? What forces help produce that attitude and how did hip hop refine it? So to break that down one way Hip hop generation is by definition I think a post civil rights generation, coming of age in an era that promises equal opportunity, creates a sense of entitlement but doesn't deliver to many.
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