The breakbeat existed long before Kool Herc, and this is one of the biggest misconceptions that shows like The Get Down and modern media keep repeating. Long before Herc touched a turntable at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, Black American musicians in the 1960s were already creating dedicated break sections designed specifically for dancers.
James Brown’s band is the clearest example.
Between 1965 and 1969, Brown and his drummers (Clyde Stubblefield, Jabo Starks, and others) developed the breakdown, which was literally a stretch of stripped-down drums where the rest of the band dropped out. Songs like “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” “Cold Sweat,” “Give It Up or Turnit a Loose,” “Funky Drummer,” and “Mother Popcorn” all feature these breaks. The musicians have openly said that they would “drop out except the drums so the dancers could go off.” That moment is the breakbeat, already fully formed years before Herc ever played a party. Herc didn’t invent it. He recognized its power and leaned into what Black dancers already loved. James Brown and his band invented the long drum-driven instrumental groove called the breakdown, which is literally the “break.”
Fred Wesley, Clyde Stubblefield, and Jabo Starks ALL confirmed the band would:
This is the breakbeat, already fully formed.
Herc didn’t invent it, he used it. Guess what music he was playing at these functions?
Black American dancers had been waiting for “the break” since the late 1950s and early 1960s. The break was already a part of Black dance vocabulary in soul clubs, funk clubs, skating rinks, juke joints, and go-go parties across the country. The reason people loved the break was simple: the drummer became the engine of the party.
When the rhythm section stripped down and the drums took over, the entire room lit up. This tradition existed long before Herc. He didn’t create it. He extended it.
Even before Herc was known, there were older Black American DJs who were already replaying, isolating, or prolonging drum-heavy sections for dancers. DJs like Hollywood in Harlem, Pete “DJ” Jones, Smokey, Plummer, and the Mobile DJs were all manipulating records in various ways during the 1960s. Some were manually rewinding the hype section of a song. Others were cutting between copies of the same record. They did not call it Hip-Hop, but the mechanics were there.
**Herc’s innovation was to make the break longer, louder, and more central by connecting multiple breaks together. That technique became known as the “merry-go-round.” It is important to understand the difference: the breakbeat already existed. The merry-go-round was Herc’s particular way of chaining those existing breaks together so the dancers would never lose momentum. He deserves credit for that method. But the breaks he used, the most famous ones, were already popular among Black American dancers before him.**
The earliest breakbeat records all predate Herc. “Cold Sweat” in 1967 is built around an isolated drum break. “Funky Drummer” in 1969 contains the most sampled break in history. “Give It Up or Turnit a Loose,” also from 1969, features another legendary break. “Apache,” recorded by the Incredible Bongo Band in 1971, existed years before Herc ever touched it. He didn’t invent the Apache break. He loved it and extended it. “Scorpio” by Dennis Coffey in 1972 and “Soul Makossa” in 1973 were both circulating heavily in New York Black clubs before Herc played them. Herc stood on top of a wave that Black musicians had been building for over a decade.
The vocal side of Hip-Hop, MCing, also developed independently of Herc and independently of Jamaica. Long before any Sedgwick Avenue party, people were already talking rhythmically over music, hyping up crowds, speaking in rhyme, and delivering short rhythmic lines. Black American radio DJs like Jocko Henderson in the 1950s used a “rocketship” rhyming style. Pigmeat Markham recorded “Here Comes the Judge” in 1968, a full proto-rap record. The Jubalaires performed rhythmic spoken gospel in the 1940s, especially their 1945 recording of “Noah,” which is pure proto-rap. And the Black American toast tradition, which stretches back to the 1800s, carried the speech patterns, cadence, storyteller bravado, and rhythmic delivery that rap would later formalize. None of this came from Herc or Jamaica. There’s evidence that points to proto-rap forms beginning sometime in the 1800s. It seems purely a Black American tradition. (Dont get me started on where it comes from.)
**Even Kool Herc himself has admitted these realities. He has said, “I didn’t invent the break. The dancers went crazy on the break, so I gave them more of what they liked.” He has also said, “I wasn’t doing anything Jamaican anymore. That’s not what the Bronx wanted.” Herc was a Black American party DJ who used the same records everyone else was dancing to. His genius was in how he arranged those records, not in inventing the break or importing Jamaican musical principles**
The truth is simple. The breakbeat existed first. It was created by Black American funk, soul, and R&B musicians. Black dancers were already going wild on the break long before Herc. Black DJs were already replaying or emphasizing the break before Herc. Herc’s contribution was the extension of those breaks through the merry-go-round, not the creation of the breakbeat itself. Shows like The Get Down and other modern narratives tend to distort this and overstate foreign influence, but the origins of Hip-Hop sit squarely in Black American creativity, tradition, and musical innovation.
Breakdancing? (Great Migration Jazz Era Dancing)
Rapping/Rap Battles? The Dozens, Toasting, and ProtoRap forms (rhythmic, metered vocal delivery aligned to a beat, while poetry is language organized without required synchronization to musical time.) Rap also is in BAE where “rap” meant to talk, to speak sharply, to deliver lines, to have persuasive speech. “Let me RAP to real quick.”
Bboy Style? The clothing used for dancing to the breaks in songs.
Many people from the Caribbean with Occupiers and Collaborators have not only overstated their participation in our culture but they have centered themselves as the originators. They have entrenched themselves in our culture to such a degree that they must strip us of it. The cognitive dissonance from having to jumpship has caused many to be left in a state of confusion and lies as they regurgitate ahistorical positions. This is nothing short of betrayal. A stab in the back when we were reservoirs of love, cooperation, and trust.
Just like how they hijacked Rock, Jazz, Pop, Country, the Blues.
They are attempting the hijack of Hip-Hop and R&B in our time.
Not on our watch
because WE REMEMBER
