(Courtesy of Black Panther Party Alumni Legacy Network) The Black Panthers lay hip-hop’s ideological foundation A 1971 flyer for a Black Panther Party rally calling for Bobby Seale, Ericka Huggins, Angela Davis and Ruchell Magee to be freed from prison. A key reason the Bay Area became an early adopter of hip-hop was because its culture not only anticipated its arrival, but contributed to its essence during its developmental stages. The Bay Area’s Filipino American mobile DJ scene dates back to garage parties in the 1970s in South San Francisco and Daly City.Ĭonsider also that the iconography of hip-hop was shaped by Bay Area activists, as well as street-level archetypes of badmen and tricksters whose legend became urban folklore. The community mural movement, which parallels the modern graffiti movement, took root in the Bay before wildstyle frescoes appeared on New York subway trains. (There’s even evidence of breakdancing crews at local talent shows prior to nationwide releases of Breakin’ and Beat Street.) When it came to dance, the Bay Area had boogaloo, robotting and strutting, whose innovative moves preceded b-boying by almost 10 years. (Illustrations by Shomari Smith)Ĭonsider this: Before he became a funk superstar, Sly Stone was a fast-talking radio personality whose on-air patter, laden with hep phrases, took the form of rapping before rap music. In the Bay Area, both Huey Newton and Sly Stone (L–R) helped sow the seeds of what would later be referred to as hip-hop. A thorough exploration of the Bay’s cultural and political movements of the 1960s and ’70s strongly suggests the Bay was hip-hop before there was hip-hop. But the impact the Bay Area had on hip-hop’s early sound, aesthetic and ideology is less widely recognized. No one would dispute that hip-hop emerged from the Bronx, or that James Brown was one of its godfathers. In other words, two of the three cultural influences cited in one of the earliest known print references to hip-hop are from the Bay Area. Before Bambaataa joined the Black Spades street gang as a teenager, he hung out at the local Black Panther Information Center, and “his political leanings were encouraged by the appearance of songs like ‘Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud’ by James Brown and ‘Stand!’ by Sly and the Family Stone,” Steven Hager wrote. In fact, it didn’t have an official name until 1982, the year the Village Voice published a profile of Zulu Nation founder Afrika Bambaataa. And it especially rings true here in the Bay Area. That statement rings truer than ever as we approach the 50th anniversary of Kool Herc’s first party in the Bronx, where the globally influential music and culture were born. Grandmaster Caz, the Bronx pioneer who ghostwrote the Sugarhill Gang’s groundbreaking 1979 single “ Rapper’s Delight,” once said, “Hip-hop didn’t invent anything. “People in the house, this is just for you/ A little rap to make you boogaloo” Clockwise from upper left: Women of the Black Panther Party (BAMPFA/Pirkl Jones Foundation) the Black Resurgents (artist photo) Ntozake Shange (John Kisch Archive/Getty Images) Sun Ra in 'Space is the Place' (Harte Recordings) Sly Stone (CBS Records).Įditor’s note: This story is part of That’s My Word, KQED’s year-long exploration of Bay Area hip-hop history, with new content dropping all throughout 2023.
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