The Bronx is such an integral part of hip-hop culture that emceers even have their own name for it: “The Boogie Down” or “The Boogie Down Bronx.” The expression comes from the dance parties where people gathered to “boogie down” in the South Bronx in the early 1970s.

The New York Times pinpointed an apartment building at 1520 Sedwgwick Avenue as the place where hip-hop began. The date was Aug. 11, 1973, and a local emcee who called himself DJ Kool Herc held a back-to-school jam in the building’s rec room. A hand-printed bill from the event listed prices for admission at 25¢ for ladies and 50¢ for fellas. The invitations to the party were written on pencil-fashioned notecards. If you want to see one of those original notecards, there’s one at this website.

Anybody that would have thought that was the beginning of an artistic revolution would have been called crazy at the time. As we all know, it was the beginning of a very big business.

See Where the Beat of the Bronx Began

This means that for hip-hop fans, no visit to the Big Apple can be complete without a trip to the South Bronx. A company called Hush Tours even offers a hip-hop look at New York that includes a bus tour through the South Bronx. The tours are guided and hosted by hip-hop legends such as Grandmaster Caz and Reggie Ring. Tours can be booked online at this website.

Hush Tours is only one of many examples of how the “Beat of the Bronx” has become big business. Hip-hop is now so huge that there is a very well-organized effort to create a National Museum of Hip-Hop, which will naturally be located in the Bronx.

If you’re planning a trip to New York, a side trip to the Bronx to see where and how the phenomenon known as hip-hop began is well worth the effort. It’s also a truly American story of how a bunch of street kids created one of the world’s most popular kinds of music with little more than their own creativity and a few stereo systems.

There’s another great reason to check out the origins of hip-hop in the South Bronx. In recent years, New York, especially Manhattan, has become boring and gentrified. A trip to see where the “Beat of the Bronx” began can show you some of the tough can-do spirit that made New York famous. It also shows us why New York is still the center of American culture.