Comment le hip-hop est devenu incontournable ? - Du Bronx à la conquête du monde

In the 1970s, New York graffiti, rapping, and breaking became the prime expressions of a new young people subculture called hip-hop. Graffiti is the written word. There's the spoken word of rap music, and then there's the acrobatic body language of dances like breaking. It's often said that it was in this Bronx building in 1973 that hip-hop was invented. Obviously, it's a little more complicated than that. I'll explain everything to you. Hip-hop is not just rap, it's a real cultural movement that includes music, but also visual arts or dance, and a real philosophy that transformed the poor neighborhoods of New York in the 70s and 80s. 50 years later, hip-hop has become an industry that generates billions of dollars a year, while no one believed it. There are many people who said it won't last. What happened? It lasted. In short, a cultural revolution that has not only transformed the music industry, but that has had a global influence on art, politics, language, and fashion. If today you wear a pair of sneakers while you don't do any sports, you have been influenced by hip-hop. My Adidas walk through concert doors and roam all over Coliseum floors. Today, I'm taking you to New York in the 70s and 80s to understand how the unfavorable youth lifestyle of the Bronx has ended up changing the world. This video is made in collaboration with N26. N26 is a free online bank, without paperwork and without fees abroad, and it will be very useful to you if you plan to travel to the United States. If you know the channel, you know that I don't often do partnerships, but if I accepted this collaboration, it's simply because I've been a customer at their place for 6 years, that I use it every day, and personally, I've always been happy. Whether it's for notifications for each transaction, instant transfers, or the hyper-intuitive interface, I've always thought that's what a bank should look like. And I'm not the only one to think so. N26 has more than 2.5 million customers in France, and a few months ago, they were chosen as the best bank in France by Forbes, after a big investigation based on customer satisfaction, experience, and trust. For me, it's my main account, since I live between France and the United States. It's essential to have a bank that doesn't take commissions abroad. And my only reproach was the German IBAN, because it wasn't accepted everywhere in France. Except that, it's over. N26 now offers a French IBAN, and I think that's the only thing I was missing to get rid of my other French accounts. Thank you to them for supporting my work, it's what allows me to publish more regularly, and you can of course discover them thanks to the links in the description. Greatest unemployment, worst blight, and the world's record for arson. And if the neighborhood is more affected than the others, it's mainly due to the construction of highways in the 60s, which destroyed many buildings, and relocated many African-Americans and Puerto Ricans into social housing, while making whites flee to the suburbs. For young people growing up in this environment, the idea of drugs often seems to be the only way to get out of poverty. By the way, most of the Bronx is controlled by gangs in the 70s, mainly as a means of protection, but also as a way to get out of poverty. And for a whole generation that felt invisible, writing on the walls was going to become the best way to exist, and also one of the rare ways to take care of yourself. But there's never been anything like what's going on in New York now, where graffiti has become a visual epidemic. From subway carriages, at night in depots, to redecorating the whole city's transportation system. And it's in this context that hip-hop was born. On August 11, 1973, young Clive and his sister Cindy Campbell, Jamaicans who emigrated to New York in the 60s, organize a party at their home, at 1521 Sedgwick Avenue, in the Bronx. The party aims to raise funds for Cindy's class return, and Clive acts as a DJ with the blast of Kool Herc. And according to legend, hip-hop was officially born that day. The party is a hit, and he and his sister will organize others, and to welcome everyone, they will this time take place outside, in parks, by illegally connecting their speakers to streetlights. Street parties called Block Parties. Very quickly, these parties attract thousands of young people from the Bronx, and Kool Herc becomes a star in his neighborhood. But he innovates especially with his so-called merry-go-round technique, to warm up the crowd. He used two turntables and made the vinyls spin in a loop, in order to repeat the same sequences. Basically, it looks like this. The sequences he made spin are called breaks, in French, coupures. Basically, they are percussion interludes, without lyrics, like this. The break put the crowd in trance, and made them dance. Hence the interest of playing only these passages, rather than playing the whole song. These dancers were called Breakers, or B-Boys and B-Girls, and it was at these parties that spread what some would call Breakdance, an acrobatic form of dance, mainly improvised, which developed in the 60s. Block Parties made this type of dance explode, new figures developed at each party, and better dancers' battles were organized. So, who won the Rockin' Contest? Block Parties! Block Parties! And to liven up these parties, Kool Herc calls them MCs, Masters of Ceremonies. Basically, he's the one who takes the mic, makes announcements, and sometimes sets the mood, and warms up the crowd. The role of the MC became more and more important as the parties went on. The few words became sentences, then paragraphs. And one day, in 1975, his friend Coq Laroc began to sing in rhythm on the bass of the music, with rhymes. Some say it was the first rap in history. Well, of course, it's always a little more complex than that. Rap, basically, is rhythmic poetry on the sound of a DJ. But even before the existence of DJs, what we call rap today, is actually a fairly common oral art in Afro-American culture. In the gospel of the 1930s, artists already did what sounds like rap today. Others will also say that Muhammad Ali was a rapper. And besides, Kool Herc was not the first DJ, and he didn't invent block parties either. What he created was thanks to the work of many DJs before him, like Pete DJ Jones, who was one of the first to mix with two records in discos, or Grandmaster Flowers, who organized block parties in Brooklyn and played funk in the 60s. In fact, hip-hop is the logical continuity of the great Afro-American artistic movements, taking its roots in blues, jazz, gospel, disco, Harlem's renaissance in the 1920s. Many also quote Jamaican sound systems, these kind of street parties that have taken place since the 50s. But Kool Herc says he was never influenced by Jamaican music, and that even when he lived in Jamaica, he listened to Afro-American music. What Kool Herc or Coke La Rock launched is therefore a combination of all this to create a new sound, but above all, it is a cultural movement, led by a new generation. A street movement, taking the music of clubs and the techniques of great DJs to play them here, in the Bronx. And it brought up a lot of other young DJs who will organize their own parties. These street parties are therefore federative and allow young and teenagers to have fun during an evening. Some will say it was the disco of the ghetto. One of the biggest figures of hip-hop is called Afrika Bambaataa, member of the Black Spades, one of the most violent gangs in the Bronx. A gang he left after the death of a very close friend, killed by the police. It is a shocking event, after which he will seek to use music and dance to promote union and peace, inspired by the Zulu people in Africa. He will then create the Universal Zulu Nation, a collective mainly composed of former gangsters who want to end violence. By giving you hip-hop, by getting brothers and sisters to start rapping, to start breakdancing, to start believing in themselves. The Zulu Nation allowed many young people in the Bronx to get out of the violent life of the neighborhood and made hip-hop a real movement, by bringing together the four pillars of the genre. The DJs, the MCs, the graffiti artists and the breakers. The Zulu Nation and its philosophy dominated certain parts of the Bronx, replacing the gangs present until then. And in just a few years, hip-hop, initially a simple hobby, has become a culture, a way of life. As a DJ, Afrika Bambaataa is distinguished by its musical culture. Its neighborhood parties were rhythmed with very varied genres, ranging from rock to classical music, through reggae. And like many DJs at the time, the artists' names were written on the vinyls, so even if it wasn't really their music, it gave the impression that some sounds could only be listened to at their parties. These block parties quickly left the Bronx, and DJs organized similar parties in Harlem, Queens or Brooklyn. And the creativity of the time seemed to be limitless. Each party was an opportunity to create new sounds and new techniques. Grandmaster Flash, for example, another pioneer of the genre, innovated by inventing the so-called quick-mix technique, which allowed a fluid transition between songs. Grandwizard Theodore, still a teenager, invented the scratch by accident, another technique used by all the DJs after him. And everything accelerated on July 13, 1977, during the famous blackout. For 25 hours, New York City was in chaos. New York was deprived of electricity due to a storm in the middle of a heat wave. A night of chaos, where the dark streets left room for riot scenes, with looting in all stores. Many took the opportunity to turn to electronic stores and steal audio equipment, which allowed them to get all the equipment necessary to become a DJ or to improve their system. Enough to create a new generation of DJs with brand new professional equipment and to propel the hip-hop movement. Some consider that the blackout of 1977 was a pivotal moment, and that from the next day, the whole neighborhood became a DJ, and young people were dancing to their music. The 70s in the Bronx were a turning point. In a few years, this violent and hopeless neighborhood turned into a festive neighborhood, where gang wars almost disappeared to give way to dance battles. In buildings that look more like cages, they are throwing down cardboard on cold cement and dancing as fast as they can. Maybe we can, you know, get famous, we'll be great dancers or something. Then we'll have people looking up to us instead of us always looking up to them. Hip-hop gave hope to young people in poor neighborhoods by showing them that there was another option than crime to survive. I don't think about nothing, no problems, and nothing, I just feel like dancing. As the popularity of breakdance explodes, teenagers will spend their afternoons training and inventing new moves. Right now he's doing the footwork with the original breaking came out. He's doing the baby and the turtle. The back bridge. The headspin. And then just went up. MCs also became more and more popular, whereas before, DJs have always been the stars. During parties, MCs are no longer just warming up the crowd, but offering real poetry. Block Parties put forward MCs competitions, the first rap battles, but also the first rivalry between the most famous rappers in the Bronx. Lots of lyrics that we will never be able to listen to, since at the time, rap was still an oral and improvised art. So inevitably, these sounds have never left the parties and have never been recorded. Hip-hop is a street art, DJs play in the parks for hours, but almost no one outside of New York had heard this music. The next personality that will change everything is Sylvia Robinson, often called the mother of hip-hop. She has been working in music since the 50s, and her husband held nightclubs in Harlem. And hearing a DJ play in one of his clubs, it's a revelation, and she sees the commercial potential of this kind of music. She is looking for talent, and composes a band, The Sugarhill Gang, a name based on the Harlem neighborhood where nightclubs were located, even if the members all came from New Jersey. One of his future MCs was auditioned in a car, he had been spotted rapping while he was preparing a pizza in the restaurant where he worked. And that's how The Sugarhill Gang started. Now what you hear is not a test, I'm rappin' to the beat. We did it two days, day and night in the studio, and she released the record, no short version, and it was unheard of. For the rest of the world, it was the discovery of a new genre. Indeed, it's not the very first rap song sold, nor the most innovative, and even less the most interesting musically. But for those who had never listened to rap, it was revolutionary, and the title is a worldwide commercial success. The release of Rapper's Delight is a key event, the one that will open the door of hip-hop as an industry, and create a real phenomenon. In the 80s, hip-hop culture was inevitable in New York. Starting with graffiti, it became impossible to see a subway without a tag. It's not just about writing your name, but about making real frescoes on the wagons, with lots of stylistic innovations. The graffiti artists called it art. The users called it vandalism. It gives a terrible impression of the city. And if you think the outside is bad, I've been riding them, like I said, for 40 years. The inside is just unbelievable. It should be that way. It should be clean, and the ones that are caught should be cleaned. They should clean the ones that they catch. I'm doing that. And as you can imagine, it ruined the New York Transport Company, which didn't have enough money to maintain their train. Is that an art form? I don't know, I'm not an art critic. But I can sure as hell tell you that that's a crime. That's my money that's being diverted from providing me with good, safe, secure, rapid transit. The goal for the graffiti artists is multiple. Some of them see it as a way to express themselves, and seeing their art circulate in the streets of New York could be a real source of pride. Here we go, here we go! Others see it as an act of rebellion, that many parents struggled to understand. How long do you think you'll do it? Till I'm finished. Now that you've heard that, I don't understand what I'm saying to you when I say that I don't understand him. He's out there to bomb, destroy all lines. What have the lines ever done to him? When do you pay 75 cents? Never, but... Well, so I don't even know what you're talking about. But the result is that these young people from the Bronx, Harlem, or Brooklyn, often invisible, are being talked about in the whole city, sometimes even beyond. As long as there's something to be said in the ghetto, there'll be graffiti. On the train, wherever something has to be said, you know, in New York City, that's the way we express ourselves. In France, for example, graffiti was part of what attracted us to New York. I think that graffiti on the subway cars were a symbol of New York for foreign people, especially French people. In 1983, graffiti artists even found themselves in the cinema thanks to the film Wild Style, which made hip-hop culture discovered in the whole country. In the early 80s, DJs would go to the biggest nightclubs in downtown Manhattan, frequented by the biggest names of the New Wave. It's Fab Five Freddy, a graffiti artist, who made the bridge between the hip-hop of the hood and the young cool of Manhattan. We can find him in the video clip of Blondie, Rapture. With Blondie, rap mixes with pop music, reaches the top of the hit parade, and is broadcast on MTV. And for many people, especially in white America, it was probably the first time they heard someone rap. And immediately, hip-hop became loved by young punks from the Lower East Side or artists from Soho. Even graffiti ends up being exposed in art galleries with a real commercial potential. And that's how some graffiti artists emerged to become real respected artists like Jean-Michel Bastiat. In New York, we even saw many whites joining the graffiti community. They were a bit of the hipsters of their time. And in the meantime, Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Clash made the punks of Southern Manhattan dance. And that's how Planet Rock was born, with a much more electronic sound than funk. Needless to say, this track will influence the whole music industry for years. The first years, hip-hop music is quite festive. We still don't see rap as a way to denounce anything, but rather to get out of the violence and get together. Everything changed in 1982 when Grandmaster Clash and the Furious Five released The Message, still produced by the label of Sylvia Robinson. The title denounced their miserable living conditions in the Bronx, and even if it wasn't the first time rap was used as a social commentary, it was the first time it was commercialized. It's also one of the first hip-hop tracks to be entirely written and composed rather than using other records. And by the way, Grandmaster Clash did almost nothing but give his name. The track was composed by a teacher since he fell into oblivion. And The Message is a huge success that will create a lot of people from all over the world to be interested in hip-hop but also to discover what life in the Bronx looked like, completely ignored at the time. But above all, with this track, rappers have regained power over DJs. The young people of the Bronx, left behind for years, heard on the radio someone denouncing their conditions, it was unprecedented, and everyone wanted to start rapping. Besides, they didn't even need a DJ anymore, many made music directly with their mouths, beatboxing. At the time, men and women shared the stage, even if they will often be unfairly invisible in the years to come. Yes, of course, that's me, it's just a ceremony. The one that's gonna take it to the top of the key, introducing myself, MC Lee Sali. For example, the first time we heard rap on TV was on the Saturday Night Live stage in 1980 with Funky 4 Plus 1 led by the rapper Shah Rukh. Come on, we're on the mic, and y'all suck at the house. Come on, we all get together, we can turn it up, and we're in the house, and you can play and sing, and it's a great way to spread around the country. One of the most popular branches, and which fascinates white America and the media, is breakdancing. In 1985, Ronald Reagan even invited a troupe of breakers to his inauguration. New York City Breakers. Make your mark in society, not on society. As you know, rap started on the street corners, in the ghettos, and there were many people who said, it won't last. What's happened? It lasted. Rap is here to stay. The album sold millions of copies, and became the first rap album to become a gold record. Run-D.M.C. also innovated with their clothing style, making them real fashion icons. While the old DJs wore very disco glitter outfits, the members of Run-D.M.C. came in surveys, basketball and bob, like most of the young people of the city at the time. They even wrote a song about their father, Adidas. Such a success that the brand representative offered them a partnership worth millions of dollars, never seen before, and unimaginable a few years before, when hip-hop was only spoken to young people in the Bronx. The first of a long series of partnerships between the big brands and the hip-hop world. But above all, Run-D.M.C. was one of the first rap groups to accompany their music videos. And thanks to their rock style, they were the first to be broadcast on MTV, a huge step to popularize rap around the country, and make Run-D.M.C. real national stars. Run-D.M.C. is the group that makes white teenagers listen to rap in the suburbs. Their rock style will even allow them to collaborate with Aerosmith, a new achievement for hip-hop culture, which is seen to be propelled to the top of sales. And this especially forces MTV to create a legitimate musical genre, until dedicating an entire show to it, Yo MTV Raps. A show first developed by a French woman, then adapted in the United States a year later. It will be presented by the grapher Fab Five Freddy, whom I told you about earlier. The show was going to highlight the most talented rappers, and it made hip-hop accessible to the general public until it became adored by teenagers, at a time when it was almost not broadcast on the radio, and booed by most media. I invite you to go see my video on the subject, if it is not done yet. Rappers will then professionalize themselves, labels gain in power, and we will see a lot of rappers emerge who will bring their own innovations, like LL Cool J or KRS-One. Some artists will also manage to impose themselves, but the sexism of the industry, like Salt-N-Pepa, does not go unnoticed. We also started to see several white rappers, especially the Beastie Boys of Brooklyn, who, like Run-D.M.C., stood out with their very rock music and their humorous lyrics. In short, hip-hop will become a real commercial industry, and will influence the whole world. And all these successful artists were represented by the same label, Def Jam, the first to specialize in rap, and they made millions of dollars. But like everything new, it scared the parents. The lyrics of the Beastie Boys, for example, may have been ironic, some took them seriously. And like rock 20 years before that, it was said that rap had a bad influence on young people because of their rebellious aspect. It's just like it's a movie. When you see a Clint Eastwood movie and somebody walks around and shoots a hundred people in the face, it's like a movie. That promotes violence more than rap. And yet, at the time, rap was far from being violent or even contesting. Some will even say that rappers have become too disconnected from the problems of the neighborhood. In 1986, the young LL Cool J, one of the first rappers to make love songs, considered that the goal of rap was not necessarily to talk about problems. I don't rap about problems, like the ghetto or nothing, because when kids come to my concert, when they come to my concert, I want them to... I want life's pressure to be taken off their backs, you know what I'm saying? And not put on their backs. So it's not necessary for rap to have messages like Grandmaster Flash? No, that's unnecessary. Why would a kid want to pay a ticket to come and hear how bad life is? At the beginning of the decade, there were real divisions within the movement. Or between neighborhoods. Some wanted rap to show young people that black people could also succeed. Hence the golden chains and the big heart. A lot of them are addicted to the same stuff they were selling. The kids are looking up to me, because they see me on American bands with Dick Clark and Soul Train, rapping, being cool, wearing a cool hat, you know, bopping down the street the same way. But I'm legit. Others found rap too bling-bling. Like DJ Jazzy Jeff and the French Prince, it's Will Smith's blast, if you haven't recognized him, based in Philadelphia. Rap has a bad connotation. A lot of times have done things wrong. Certain people have done things wrong. I mean, how can you just say, okay, rap is bad, I hate rap. You know, I don't think that people should do that. And I don't think anyone should be subject to have to live down that stereotype like we're having to. In contrast with the classic rappers and their jewelry, they are dressed in sports coats, representing Mojave or Val d'Isère. In the hip-hop culture, a lot of people feel that they have to have this fancy car and they have to have this gold and all that kind of stuff. We're not like that, we want people to see that we're ourselves. And they make humorous songs about teenagers. Their most popular song is about strict parents, so we're far from drugs, Bronx or racism. Result, it was one of the most popular rap clips on MTV and it won the first Grammy in history for a hip-hop song. Seeing rap becoming mainstream, some will see a certain loss of freedom and relevance. As if the genre that was once a spokesperson for the poor neighborhoods of New York wasn't too clean anymore. That's what School ED based in Philadelphia thought. He stands out with a very crude language and violent and very sexual lyrics. Some will say that he invented what we'll call the Gangsta Rap, but I'll come back to that a little later. So obviously, his songs were very controversial. But School ED said not to promote anything and not to denounce anything either. He tells what he knows and uses the language that everyone used in his neighborhood, without filters. The other rappers who wanted to bring a new dimension to hip-hop are the band Public Enemy. The first to make a really contested rap and much more mature than what was done at the time. The first to make a really contested rap and much more mature than what was done at the time. Worthy heir of Afro-American activists like the Black Panthers, Public Enemy refused to see music as a simple entertainment and wanted to be a carrier of political and social messages. Public Enemy's lyrics had a revolutionary spirit, calling for rebellion against white supremacy that many journalists interpreted as a message of black supremacy. The band represents a new generation of Afro-Americans born in the 60s who saw the death of Martin Luther King or Malcolm X on TV when they were little and who saw the US government retreat on the subject of civil rights, almost forgotten. Let's add to that the Reagan era politics, the gap between the rich and the poor that grew, the crack epidemic and we understand why the tensions could reach their peak in the 80s. And it paints a little the context of this golden age of hip-hop. As we could expect, the band is very controversial in the United States. Moreover, in the early years, it is in Europe that they will be the most popular. Look at the images of this concert in Paris in 1987 where they put the French in France. Of course, their flagship track is still Fight the Power in 1989 whose success was such that it forced many to recognize the potential of hip-hop as a contested art. Thus, the contested rap of Public Enemy redefined the codes of hip-hop and shed light on racial inequalities in the United States that no one spoke of at the time. However, we were far from the hardcore rap that we can know today. The members of the group were not gangsters at all, they came from Long Island. Their sound therefore spread strong political messages, but it was more an intellectual rap than a rap that told the anger of the street. However, they opened the way to another generation of rappers who will want to evoke the words of society, this time not in New York, but on the other side of the country. To put a little context, rap arrived quite late on the West Coast. California is far from New York, so you could only listen to rap if you had a New York cousin who brought a cassette. Hip-hop spread in the early 80s thanks to several groups of young DJs who played in nightclubs or skateparks, like the World Class Wrecking Crew with Dr. Dre to name a few. But for a long time, Los Angeles rappers struggled to invent their own style, they imitated what was done in New York. One of the first Californian rappers, very influenced by the rap of School E.D. A much more hardcore and unfiltered rap that will inspire many others, like Eazy-E who will use his money by selling drugs to found his label Ruthless and will hire Dr. Dre and DJ Yella who were looking to leave their group. All came from Compton, a city on the outskirts of Los Angeles known for its high poverty rate, its crime and its many gangs. In the team, we also find the rapper Ice Cube, who is 16 years old, and together they will found N.W.A and will change the codes of rap forever. N.W.A's rap was unprecedented, mixing the energy of Public Enemy with the raw language of School E.D. to express the life of the ghettos of Los Angeles without leaving a single detail aside. The rap of Ice Cube, who is 16 years old, will change the codes of rap forever. For the young people of Compton, N.W.A was a real spokesman to talk about their life in the ghettos, the violence of the gangs, but also the police brutality with an aggressive tone that allowed us to feel the anger of its members. But their success was far beyond. Gangster rap was selling itself, including in the white suburbs. N.W.A made the rap of Los Angeles emerge, and this is where the future of hip-hop was going to be played. They laid the first stone of a revolution. Gangster rap was going to become a national subject until the Vice President of the United States intervened. It's a record that says it's ok to kill cops. I find that outrageous. But it's also what allowed the disadvantaged young people of Los Angeles to be heard. A very controversial art, but which will benefit from a real Strice Land effect, gangster rap will sell millions of albums, beat all records and dominate all rankings. In 10 years, rap music has gone from ghetto streets to Main Street USA. Sales last year reached an estimated 5 billion dollars. In short, in the 90s, rap was everywhere, from cinema to politics. The industry will also see a real confrontation between the West Coast and the Cotes, which will rage, from which legendary artists will emerge from each side of the country. The world of gangster rap has been gunned down. This time, it was Notorious B.I.G. Thank you very much for your support, you are more and more on the channel. See you soon.