Event · 1973-08-11 · New York City [40.71, -74.01]
Kool Herc's Back-to-School Party (11 August 1973)
On 11 August 1973, DJ Kool Herc played a back-to-school party in the recreation room of 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, an event widely treated as the birth moment of hip-hop. Extending the percussion breaks for the dancers, he laid down the core technique the culture would build on. The cited movement entity dates hip-hop's inception to this very night.
Evidence2
- Wikidata: hip-hopWikidata
www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11401
accessed 2026-06-04
- Wikidata: 1520 Sedgwick AvenueWikidata
www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4550268
accessed 2026-06-04
Connections1
migrated from → DJ Kool Herc
DJ Kool Herc was born Clive Campbell in Kingston, where the Jamaican sound-system tradition built around toasting, dub-plate exclusives, and massive bass was the public form of the music. He carried that blueprint north when his family migrated to the Bronx, and his 1973 Sedgwick Avenue party is widely cited as hip hop's founding event. The cited sources confirm Herc's Kingston origin and his place among the genre's originating pioneers.