Hip-Hop History Month: A Tribute To East Coast DJs Who Set The Standard

Black America Web Featured Video Source: Johnny Nunez / Getty Hip-hop originating in The Bronx will always make the East Coast a focal point of the culture, especially when discussing the pillar of DJing. Even at its roots with late NYC club king Francis Grasso, credited as being the godfather of beatmatching and the club mix during the 1960s, the origins for any disc jockey will always trace back to the Atlantic Coast. Source: Peter Kramer / Getty Source: Peter Noble / Getty Source: Al Pereira / Getty Source: Al Pereira / Getty Source: PYMCA/Avalon / Getty East Coast DJs have a place in the culture from the very beginning, starting with that 1973 community room party at 1520 Sedgwick Ave hosted by the “Father of Hip-Hop” himself, DJ Kool Herc. Through his invention of “the break,” rap culture elevated in ways that provided the b-boys and b-girls at the helm of the movement something to, well, move to. One b-boy in particular, GrandMixer DXT, went on to mix things up even further as the first DJ to use a turntable as a musical instrument. The classic 1983 film Wild Style perfectly illustrates this era in hip-hop to a tee....