DJ Kool Herc

DJ Kool Herc
DJ Kool Herc in New York, 2006
Background information
Birth name	Clive Campbell
Also known as	Kool DJ Herc Kool Herc Father of Hip-Hop
Born	(1955-04-16) April 16, 1955 (age 69)[1][2][3] Kingston, Jamaica
Origin	The Bronx, New York City, U.S.
Genres	Hip hop
Occupation(s)	DJ
Years active	1973–present[4]
Website	djkoolherc.com

Clive Campbell (born April 16, 1955), better known by his stage name DJ Kool Herc, is a Jamaican American DJ who is credited with being one of the founders of hip hop music in the Bronx, New York City, in 1973. Nicknamed the Father of Hip-Hop, Campbell began playing hard funk records of the sort typified by James Brown.

Campbell began to isolate the instrumental portion of the record which emphasized the drum beat—the "break"—and switch from one break to another. Using the same two-turntable set-up of disco DJs, he used two copies of the same record to elongate the break. This breakbeat DJing, using funky drum solos, formed the basis of hip hop music. Campbell's announcements and exhortations to dancers helped lead to the syncopated, rhythmically spoken accompaniment now known as rapping.

He called the dancers "break-boys" and "break-girls", or simply b-boys and b-girls, terms that continue to be used fifty years later in the sport of breaking. Campbell's DJ style was quickly taken up by figures such as Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash. Unlike them, he never made the move into commercially recorded hip hop in its earliest years.

On November 3, 2023, Campbell was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Musical Influence Award category.^[5]