"A Journey Into Sound" - LESSON 2: DJ HISTORY

 
“This is a journey into sound... which along the way will bring to you new colour, new dimension, new value”
— Erik B. & Rakim (Intro to 1987's, Paid in Full"
 

HISTORY

You can say it all began when Thomas Edison dropped the first record player aka the phonograph in 1877 by taking advantage of an earlier technology by Leon Scott called the “autophonograph” (the first device to record sound).

Fast forward to 1909 when a sixteen year old started to play records on a small transmitter making the then college student Ray Newby the first ever “disc jockey”. Although, it wasn’t until the 1930s when trend and the term Disc Jockey was used. Jimmy Saville is actually credited with being the first DJ party though, by using two record players he was able to give a Paris crowd the first party w/continuous music play by keeping em moving to jazz back in 1943.

 

SOUND SYSTEMS & DISCOTEQUES

The next iteration of DJing found itself all the way in Kingston, Jamaica. DJs, promoters and engineers teamed up to create crews called “Sound Systems” playing R&B and ska. During the 1950s tech-loving do-it-yourself audio engineers devised stacks of speakers for party goers to enjoy for hours on end. This even turned into competitions called, “Sound Clashes” that took place in the streets of Kingston and later sparked a culture carried by West Indie emigrants to the U.K. and around the world.

FUN FACT: DJs and selectors (those who chose songs) had access to unreleased songs that weren’t even commercially available due to their relationships w/local artists. These exclusives played for crowds are referred to as “specials”.

It was also during these early years that mixers were introduced to make transitions from track to track smoother for DJs. These were crafted for use in Discoteques; nightclubs for dancing in the 60s and 70s. Francis Grasso, hailing from New York is credited with beatmatching by using a mixer to connect each song together in order to keep music playing consistently throughout the night.

 
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LOOKING FOR THE PERFECT BEAT…

Kool Herc, a Jamiacan native born Clive Cambell is often referred to as the “Father of Hip-Hop”. He started throwing parties in the rec room of a his Bronx apartment complex in the early 1970s and gained notoriety for playing the drum break of two identical funk/jazz records in a continuous loop later crowned as the “breakbeat”. From there came the break boys and break girls, whom we now know as b-boys and b-girls who went wild on the dance floor.

Other pioneers of the hip-hop movement began to manipulate records to create new compositions by taking and blending the best parts. The use of the breakbeat laid the ground work for hip hop production that emcees would rap over.

Grandmaster Flash is known for introducing a series of techniques like backspinning and further developing scratching.

 

Worth a Watch…

“The Get Down” on Netflix

 
Dj WayGOOD