DJ Kool Herc DJs his first block party (his sister's birthday) at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, Bronx, New York

13 August 1973: Number 1 in our series of the 50 key events in the history of R&B and hip-hop musicConsidering the event is thought to be the birth of a globe-spanning, music-based culture almost half a century old, the ambitions that lay behind it were endearingly modest. Cindy Campbell just wanted to raise a bit of money before the new school term began to buy some clothes from boutiques on Delancey Street, 10 miles south on Manhattan's Lower East Side, rather than wear the same clothes as her...

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