Hip-hop was born on August 11, 1973 in the Bronx—the night a Jamaican immigrant called DJ Kool Herc set his turntables spinning in a “Back to School Jam.” He intuitively understood the “breaks,” that part of a record heaviest on danceable percussion and set the stage for the sonic manipulation of sampling. But as Nate Patrin also relates in his highly informed history of a key facet that informed the transformative genre of hip-hop, many antecedents can be discerned, including Steve Reich’s ‘60s tape manipulations. By repurposing and curating found music, sampling “has a way of warping time and space,” a truly postmodern endeavor that creates conversations between music originating in many eras and genres. Patrin focuses on four distinctive hip-hop artists: Grandmaster Flash, Prince Paul, Dr. Dre and Madlib.
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