Hip Hop in New York City

Hip Hop in New York City is native. From long roots, Hip hop culture was created by Black and Latin kids in The Bronx in the 1970s.

Latin kids pumped up break dancing with the sophistication of their parents’ Palladium Ballroom mambo moves.

If you are familiar with Latin drum, song, and dance traditions like rumba, bomba, cumbia, and soundsystem; you can’t help but notice the similarities with hip hop.

In 2023, Hip-Hop celebrates 50 years since New York Jamaicans Cindy Campbell and her brother DJ Kool Herc held the first hip hop party as a back-to-school fund-raiser at 1520 Sedgewick in Morris Heights, The Bronx.

The four pillars of Bronx hip hop are:

• DJing
• Rapping
• Graffiti
• Break Dancing

Latin artists tend towards DJing and rapping. Freestyle is a popular Latin form.

In the Latin world, hip hop becomes reggaeton and Latin trap.

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New York’s Hip Hop Scene

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Hip Hop Artists in New York

• Cardi B is a Dominican New Yorker. 🇩🇴
• Maluca Mala is a Dominican New Yorker🇩🇴
• Nicki Minaj is a Trinidadian New Yorker. 🇹🇹

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Hip Hop Festivals in New York

• Red Bull Batalla is an international Latin DJ battle.
• Rolling Loud

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Hip Hop Film and Television

• Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme (2004)
• “The Get Down” (Netflix, 2016) by Baz Lurmann (Moulin Rouge) and New York playwright Stephen Adly Giurgis (Between Riverside & Crazy). 🇵🇷
• Wild Style (1982)

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Hip Hop Theatre in New York

• Freestyle Love Supreme (Lin-Manuel Miranda, 2004) 🇵🇷
• Hamilton (Lin-Manuel Miranda, 2015) 🇵🇷
• La canción (Vico C) 🇵🇷

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Hip Hop Venues in New York

• Barclays Center
• Coney Island Amphitheater
• La Boom
• Madison Square Garden
• Prudential Center
• Radio City Music Hall
• Theater at Madison Square Garden

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Hip Hop Museums in New York

Universal Hip Hop Museum

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Hip Hop Radio in New York

WKCR 89.9fm at Columbia University

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Global Hip Hop Artists

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Ana Tijoux is a fierce Chilean French rapper. 🇨🇱 🇫🇷

Mala Rodríguez is one of Spain’s top rappers. 🇪🇸

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Hip Hop Origins

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R&B, disco, Jamaican sound system culture (reggae, ska, and dancehall), Cuban & Puerto Rican trovadores (troubadours), West African Griots, and Indigenous storytellers are roots. We use our Creole speech to stretch language in interesting ways. Vico C was the first Latin rapper. Residente (Calle 13) won the most awards.

Freestyle is a popular form of rap in New York’s Puerto Rican and Italian communities since the 1980s. The Stretch and Bobbito radio show on WKCR Columbia University was a 1990s catalyst. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s (“In the Heights,” “Hamilton“) first show was Freestyle Love Supreme. He put freestyle on Broadway.

Rap crosses over into other urban musics such as reggaeton and latin trap. Rap is everywhere now.

To an island Puerto Rican, rap looks like a lot Puerto Rico’s trovadores (troubadours). A trova battle is just like a rap battle.

Some hip-hop dance moves look like bomba moves. The way a rapper stands with folded arms, throws their arms out in a circular motion, and starts a break dance in the dance circle, all look like bomba dance traditions to us.

Once you notice, the similarities are striking. We just don’t know who influenced who.

Freestyle rap started in the African American community.

Nayobe made freestyle Latin.

South of the border, we mix Latin rap into all kinds of fusions. Calle 13 started rapping over cumbia and other Latin traditions on their way to winning 3 Grammys and 27 Latin Grammys, more than anyone else.