Kool Herc Not the Father of Hip-Hop?
For decades, hip-hop historians have claimed that rap music was born in the Bronx and fathered by Jamaican-born DJ Kool Herc, but a new documentary draws the Bronx story into question.
In 'Founding Fathers,' filmmakers Ronald Lawrence and Hassan Pore make a case for "the original grandmaster," Grandmaster Flowers. According to the documentary, Flowers along with King Charles, Master D, Infinity Machine and many others were blending records and creating break beats in Brooklyn and Queens with their sound systems as far back as the late 1960's. "It's like Christopher Columbus -- he didn't discover America. When they came to Queens, we was already doin' it, " says DJ Divine of Infinity Machine.
Lawrence -- a member of 90's rap duo Two Kings in a Cipher and Diddy's The Hitmen production team -- and Pore's documentary will be screening at The Chicago International Hip-Hop Film Festival on Sept. 11-12.
A trailer for the documentary can be seen after the jump.