Some historians say hip-hop culture all started at a party one hot August night in the South Bronx in 1973. DJ Kool Herc plugged his parents’ record gear into a street lamp and began creating what is known as breaks — longer instrumentals in records created by replaying the musical interludes over and over.
In 1980, the first commercial rap record, Rapper’s Delight, was recorded. With its large distribution network and popularity, this song reached the Billboard Top 40.
