11 August, 2017
To celebrate the 44th anniversary of hip hop, Google has released an interactive doodle that lets you DJ. "The progression of this culture and sound - from Kool Herc spinning James Brown breaks at a block party to Jay-Z, Kanye West and Drake being some of the biggest forces in music 44 years later - is something that few people at that first party could have anticipated".
Today's hip-hop history Google Doodle features a custom logo by graffiti artist Cey Adams, interactive turntables on which users can mix samples from tracks, and the introductory video narrated by Fab 5 Freddy, former host of Yo!
"Hip Hop was accessible".
During a set in the Bronx on August 11 1973, DJ Kool Herc made a decision to play just the instrumentals, or "breaks", - sections where he noticed the crowd went wild.
Friday's "Google Doodle" provides one of those occasions.
His friend Coke La Rock used the breaks to hype up the crowd with a microphone, a role now known the Master of Ceremonies, or MC.
It was here that he created hip hop.
Jamaican American DJ Kool Herc is credited with starting the cultural revolution of hip hop in the New York Bronx, dubbed the Boogie Down Bronx.
To create the graffiti-art aspect of Friday's Doodle, the team traveled to the NY studio of Adams, the star Def Jam creative director responsible for the looks of decades of iconic album covers, logos and ad campaigns.
When you click on the doodle, a video starts with an information piece on Hip Hop. Hip Hop lead to break, EDM and many other forms of music, which are now most relevant even in the remote corners of the globe. Cohen says on Google's blog that hip-hop "shows that people in any situation have the ability to create something powerful and meaningful".
Hip hop culture has spread from urban areas to suburban ares in the United States and across the world. (Picture: Ollie Millington/Redferns) Lauryn Hill considered to be one of the most influential hip-hop artists of all time -see won the Grammy for album of the year in 1999 for The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.
