The Bronx: From Darkness to Hip-Hop – The Night that Changed Music History

On the night of July 13, 1977, at 9:34 p.m., a clap of thunder sounded from an immense black cloud covering New York. From this immense threatening cumulus bursts a sparkling lightning, which strikes the center of Manhattan. In an instant, New York plunges into total darkness. Under the effect of lightning, all the major electrical stations supplying the city burned out, one after the other.

In just a few seconds, the small basketball court on which the spontaneous concert between Curtis Fisher and Luis Cadeño, and the rest of the city, are plunged into total darkness. The largest North American metropolis, the city that never sleeps, suddenly finds itself forced to rest.

This widespread power outage forces the two young apprentice musicians to find another urban scene. In reality, in the hustle and bustle that sets in on the fringes of this blackout, they seize a unique opportunity: the two young men make the decision to leave their Bronx neighborhood for the center of Manhattan, and the department store B&H. . in order to steal professional musical equipment.

At the end of the seventies, this electronics store located in the heart of Manhattan had already acquired an incomparable reputation. Musicians and sound engineers sometimes traveled half the United States to obtain a sampler or a mixing console on the ground floor of this immense building. In short, in New York, everyone knew B&H, it was the Mecca for anyone wanting to get into sound. A golden opportunity for a generation of African-Americans living in the poverty of the Bronx to offer themselves everything that the time denied them. After this famous looting, new crews were formed: at home, new musicians composed productions which they then submitted to their MC’s so that they could write a text on the music. These July looters call themselves Bambaataa Africa, Kool Herc or Grandmaster Flash.

H Hour tells you how the Bronx emerged as the nerve center of hip-hop. Before the night of July 13 to 14, 1977, this musical genre was only in its infancy: it was only experienced by a few inhabitants of the ‘lower neighborhoods’ of New York. This widespread power outage allowed the explosion of a sound and the emergence of a cultural scene which, little by little, conquered the world.

2023-10-10 14:00:54


#blackout #York #founding #myth #hiphop