So when we came within that circle, that was our way to get away from all the other negative stuff. Some of us was living in poverty, politicians always doing their own thing. But there was just a feeling that you knew you had to be a part of. I traveled all over the Bronx just to be a part of the whole scene. I used to travel around with them to B-girl, to every park jam, every DJ that played, every house party, every hip-hop venue. They taught me what it was to uprock, what it was to just hit the beats whenever you hear that certain break beat.įrom there, you know, I used to travel and watch the famous twins perform, back then were called the N**** Twins, now they are called the Legendary Brothers, Keith and Kevin. The first person that I saw breakdance was friends of mine that had went to junior high school with me. The very moment my taste for hip-hop is 1976 as a B-girl - you know, being out there, break dancing, watching young kids move around throughout the Bronx, traveling as nomadic B-girls and B-boys, just to hit those breakbeats. Using her personal mementos, Sha-Rock takes us through her entry into early hip-hop culture as a B-girl, her emergence as a pioneering MC, her groundbreaking (pregnant!) performance on Saturday Night Live and her long-running fight to preserve her legacy, in her own words.Ĭourtesy of Sharon Green Sha Rock, the B-girl, 1976. Yet she is not given her due as a trailblazer.īut Sha-Rock has receipts. She was such a titanic force in early rap communities that even DMC, one third of the game-changing group Run-DMC, cites her as an influence. The retelling of hip-hop history centers men, often excluding the women in the same frame, so if you haven't heard about MC Sha-Rock, original member of Sugar Hill's Funky 4 + 1, and the first woman MC, you're not alone. These are familiar figures in recaps of rap's ascent into a global phenomenon, but who gets to leave a legacy and who gets left out?
The late 1970s and early 1980s were a formative time for MCing with seminal acts from Sugar Hill Records leading the charge: Keef Cowboy, of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, is often credited with coining the term "hip-hop," and, in 1979, the trio The Sugarhill Gang released "Rapper's Delight," which broke the music for a national audience.
Hip-hop was born in the Bronx at a back-to-school party in 1973, when DJ Kool Herc started scratching for the crowd, but rapping didn't become the music's primary form until it transitioned beyond the party - with record deals, singles, tours and TV spots.
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