Bronx
Bronx appears in 2 Songsheets issues: Early New York Hip-Hop and Vaporwave. 6 artists in the archive came from here, including DJ Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa.
The Bronx's relationship to vaporwave centers on its sampling heritage and the borough's historical role in remix culture that influenced the genre's plunderphonics approach. While vaporwave primarily developed in online spaces, Bronx producers brought hip-hop production sensibilities to the genre's chopped-and-screwed techniques, creating bridges between Internet aesthetics and street music traditions. The borough's multicultural commercial landscapes—strip malls, bodegas, immigrant-owned businesses—provided visual and conceptual inspiration for vaporwave's examination of consumer capitalism.
Scenes
Artists from Bronx
- DJ Kool Herc
Clive Campbell was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and spent his early childhood in Trenchtown, on Second Street, a few doors from where Bob Marley grew up on First.
- Grandmaster Flash
Born Joseph Saddler in Barbados, Flash grew up in the Bronx obsessed with his father's record collection and studied electronics at Samuel Gompers High School, a technical background that shaped how he approached the turntable as a machine to be mastered rather than just played.
- Afrika Bambaataa
Born Lance Taylor, Bambaataa grew up in the Bronx River Projects, a kid who once rallied friends to go hunting rabbits along the Bronx River with bows and arrows and who was throwing parties by age 11.
- Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five
The first hip-hop group inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in 2007, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five paired Flash's turntable innovations with five distinct MC voices: Melle Mel, Kidd Creole, Cowboy, Rahiem, and Scorpio.
- James Ferraro
James Ferraro built Far Side Virtual (2011) out of the sound of commerce itself: elevator Muzak, cellular ringtones, the chime of a Nintendo Wii menu, the ambient hum of a frozen yogurt shop.
- Melle Mel
Born Melvin Glover, Melle Mel is often credited as the first rapper to call himself an 'MC,' and his verses on 'The Message' in 1982 turned rap into a vehicle for pointed social and political commentary.
