Early Research – The Pillars of Hip-Hop

To begin my reaserch, I travelled to the local library and saw what I could find on the topic of hip-hop. I quickly came across the book Hip Hop Raised Me by DJ Semtex, which acted as an excellent starting point for my research.

Through this book I learned about the 4 pillars – DJing (aural), MCing (verbal), Graffiti (visual) and Breaking (physcial), all with the exception of knowledge, which I would further research later – some notable figures such as Kool DJ Herc, Grandmaster Flash, Grand Wizard Theodore and Arika Bambaataa. It also gave me insight about the film Wild Style by Charlie Ahearn.

Kool Herc is known as being the originator of the hip-hop movement, responsible for what Sentex put as the “cultural big bang”: on the 11th of August 1973, he played a set at his sister Cindy’s party. In this party, he would