In the early days of hip hop there was crossover between graffiti artists, DJs, and break dancers as someone interested in dance could also decorate a stage with graffiti for a DJ (Rose, “Black Noise” 35). In some cases where graffiti artists were also b-boys, a way to lay claim to a move you invented was to spray paint it as graffiti, thereby estab- lishing it as yours both while dancing as well as via text in a public space. The combination of these activities resulted in a vibrant social street culture in contrast to the economically impoverished surround- ings of the South Bronx in the 1970s and 1980s. The rise of hip hop culture coincided with one of the most economi- cally and socially depressed periods for the Bronx was well as the entire city. The signs of urban decay surrounded the youth of the day: the median household income in the Bronx was $5,200, the sale of heroin was rampant, police brutality was a documented fact of life, and the city of New York itself faced bankruptcy with a deficit of $7.3 million (Fricke and Ahearn vii). The advantages of such a loose social structure probably contributed to the atmosphere in which street parties were held with competitive speaker systems and block parties and gatherings in subway stations and outdoor parks were held on a regular basis. The DJs would often illegally plug into the streetlamps and reroute other city-run electrical sources in order to power their sound systems. It was no accident that many of the early DJs were of West Indian descent their powerful speakers and promotion of outdoor parties were reminiscent of Jamaican block parties with reggae music and the practice of “toasting” and “boasting” by the DJ over the music. In the Bronx, these young men, mostly in their 20s, created music by stitching together sounds from the songs of others, hosting parties out- doors or in gyms and community centers. As the instances of these parties grew, so did the promotion of them and the accompanying door charges. The money made by the fixers was the earliest instance of the ability of hip hop culture to generate revenue streams: the teen- age organizers would often use the previous night’s earnings to buy sneakers, new clothes, or better equipment for the next party. The youth engaged in these activities were from African American, Latino, or Caribbean origins. Tagging, breaking, spinning, and MCing from 1965 to 1984, they became the original creators of the “Hip Hop generation.” This era was generally acknowledged as the time when graffiti, breaking, spinning, and rapping originated in Introduction xix
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