During the mid-'00s Don Campbell visited Russia. In his mid-fifties, the father of locking L.A loose-limbed, improvisational dance style...

Though Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, and Grandmaster Flash are often cited as the holy trinity of Hip Hop music pioneers, Luis "DJ Disco...

Some DJs, like Jazzy Jay, made the transition from party to studio, from cutting up names to making beats. Others remained local, like...

Grand Mixer D.ST was one of the Roxy's first resident DJs. Born Derek Showard in the South Bronx's Edenwald Houses, D.ST was raised on...

Some DJs couldn't be bothered with headphones and backspins, and just nailed the break by dropping the needle. A 15-year-old named Grand...

Using two copies of Karen Young's "Hot Shot", Grandmaster Flash dazzled the crowd. His quick-mix and backspin techniques were born from...

Herc said he just wanted to see people having a good time. A hulking 6'5" in a cowboy hat, Kool Herc was named after Greek mythology's...

Of Hip-Hop's many-splendored Four Elements, writing holds the patents to several "firsts": first Hip-Hop medium to fully flower...

Queens-bred artist Sandra "Lady Pink" Fabara, widely considered the most influential female writer in the history of subway art, also...

Graffiti was the first of the four Hip Hop elements to take form, with Greek American teenager Taki 183, a messenger from the Washington...

Tom Moulton, who invents the remix when he breaks Don Downing's cult 1975 single "Dream World" down to its basics, reconstructing the...

Poets rise up, just like the griots in old-world Africa, to tell stories and sing the praises of the dead and wounded, using words like...

The Watts Prophets mold themselves from the ashes of the 1965 Watts Riots. They're street-embedded poets, welding serrated words to music...

James Brown seizes the flashpoint moment and elevates himself from dazzling R&B showman to global icon. With a straightening comb and...