About Hip Hop Celebration Day
August 11th is an annual day to celebrate the music, dances, fashion and everything else that makes up hip hop culture.
The roots of hip hop can be traced back to brother and sister duo D.J. Kool Herc and Cindy Campbell who hosted DJ parties in the Bronx in the 1970s.
On Thursday July 29th 2021, the United States passed S.Res.331, a resolution that designates a "Hip Hop Celebration Day," a "Hip Hop Recognition Month," and a "Hip Hop History Month."
"By unanimous consent, the Senate passed S.Res.331," the United States Senate Periodical Press Gallery confirmed via Twitter. For more insight into what S.Res.331 actually is, the Senate elaborated further on the topic, saying that it is "a resolution designating August 11th 2021, as 'Hip Hop Celebration Day,' designating August 2021 as ‘'Hip Hop Recognition Month', and designating November 2021 as 'Hip Hop History Month.'"
As August 11th is often recognized as the birth of Hip-Hop due to DJ Kool Herc's now-legendary spinning at the "Back To School Jam" in the Bronx in 1973, it only makes sense that the Senate would choose that date for Hip Hop Celebration Day and the entire month of August as Hip Hop Recognition Month.
The bill’s text includes the factual story of how America's most popular music genre was birthed. “Whereas, on Aug. 11, 1973, at a Back To School Jam organized by his sister Cindy Campbell and held at the recreation room of 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx, New York, Clive DJ Kool Herc Campbell introduced his innovative style of disk jockeying and, together with the master of ceremonies engaging the crowd with rap on the microphone while partygoers known as B-boys and B-girls danced, introduced a new style, later known as Hip Hop, which combined the elements of a disk jockey (commonly known as a DJ), a master of ceremonies (commonly known as an MC), music, art, fashion, and dance,” the bill reads.
“Whereas, from its humble beginnings in New York City, the music, lyricism, dance, fashion, and art of Hip Hop has become a culture, now found in communities across the United States, and has long been a worldwide phenomenon; Whereas the art and culture of Hip Hop is an original American creation; Whereas the Hip Hop genre has been reinvented often over the years since 1973, reflecting the State, city, and region of the music, from G-funk and Hyphy on the West Coast, to Bass and Trap in the South, to Drill in the Midwest, to many other sounds from coast to coast and from abroad, including the New School, which continues that trend,” the bill continues. “Whereas hip hop artists and supporters, originally of African heritage, now transcend many different ages, ethnicities, religions, locations, political affiliations, and socioeconomic statuses, which demonstrates the melting-pot quality of Hip Hop art and culture.”
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