Editing New York City Music Scene (section)

===Hip-Hop and the South Bronx (1973–1990s)===

The most globally consequential musical movement to emerge from New York in the twentieth century began not in Manhattan but in the deteriorating housing projects and community centers of the '''South Bronx'''. In the early 1970s, the South Bronx was one of the most economically devastated urban areas in the United States, its neighborhoods hollowed out by poverty, arson, and municipal neglect. It was in this environment that '''hip-hop''' was born.

DJ Kool Herc — a Jamaican-born DJ living in the West Bronx — is widely credited with the foundational innovation: at a party at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue on August 11, 1973, he used two copies of the same record to isolate and extend the percussive break section, creating the '''breakbeat''' that would become hip-hop's rhythmic foundation. Grandmaster Flash refined and extended Herc's innovations, developing techniques including precise cueing, punch phrasing, and scratching. Afrika Bambaataa, drawing on electronic sounds and his Zulu Nation collective, broadened hip-hop's sonic vocabulary and its philosophy of peace and community.

By the early 1980s, hip-hop had developed its four foundational elements — DJing, MCing (rapping), breakdancing, and graffiti art — and was beginning to be captured on record. The Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" (1979) introduced rap to a mainstream audience, while Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's "The Message" (1982) established hip-hop's capacity for serious social commentary. [[Run-DMC]], from Hollis, Queens, brought a harder, rock-influenced sound and crossed over to white rock audiences in a way no rap act had previously achieved. The founding of [[Def Jam Recordings]] in 1984 by Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons gave New York hip-hop its defining label. [[Public Enemy]] and the [[Beastie Boys]] both emerged from the Def Jam roster to become globally significant artists by the late 1980s.