Hustle Music: How Hip Hop Turned Struggle into Culture

“…The time may have come when the issue of race could benefit from a period of ‘benign neglect.’” – Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan to President Richard Nixon in a 1970 memo Many Hip Hop historians agree that—if a date had to be put on it—the genre was born on August 11, 1973 in the rec room at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the South Bronx. That night, 18-year-old Clive Campbell—aka DJ Kool Herc—stood over two turntables at the first “Back to School Jam,” spinning records while his friends breakdanced and rapped over the mic, effectively birthing a culture. Since that Bronx party, hip hop’s spread’s gone global, adapting to the various regions across the world in a way only pop culture can. But what’s often overlooked is the reason Herc threw that party: to raise money for his sister’s school clothes. In other words, the first “Back to School Jam” was a hustle—a money-making venture that eventually grew into so much more. In an interview with Rebecca Laurence of BBC Culture, hip hop historian Jeff Chang says, “Hip hop did not start as a political movement. There was no manifesto. The kids who started it were simply trying to find ways...