(AllHipHop News) “Manhattan keeps on making it, Brooklyn keeps on taking it, Bronx keeps creating it,” rapped KRS-One on Boogie Down Production’s classic 1987 song “The Bridge Is Over.”
That line from the scathing diss track aimed at Marley Marl and the Juice Crew was a reminder that The Bronx is the New York City Borough credited as the place Hip-Hop was created.
Now 30+ years after the birth of the culture, The Bronx’s role in originating Hip-Hop is headed to the nation’s premier museum complex.
Daily News reports that the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History will host artifacts that represent Hip-Hop’s technological contributions as part of The Lemelson Center for the Invention & Innovation’s “Place of Invention” exhibit.
A boombox, vinyl records, flyers, and videos will all be included as part of the exhibit. As recognition to the first Hip-Hop DJ’s need to fleece electricity to power their equipment, a lamppost capable of providing energy for the exhibition’s music systems will also be on display.
Visitors can actually step into the role of a Bronx disc jockey by participating in the interactive mixing and scratching portion of the show.
“Modern mixers and a lot of the speakers and sound systems came out of what (early DJs) created,” Laurel Fritzsch, curator of the Bronx section of “Place of Invention,” told the Daily News.
The Bronx will be joined by Massachusetts’ MIT and California’s Hollywood and Silicon Valley at The Lemelson Center. While the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a world renown research institution, Hollywood is where the film industry’s movie magic was founded, and Silicon Valley is the base for tech companies like Apple, eBay, Google, and Yahoo, The BX’s role in transforming technology is notable as well.
“The Bronx (in the 1970s) is an interesting contrast to Silicon Valley, which is kind of the stereotypical example,” said Fritzsch. “Inventors in the Bronx had a lot of hands-on skills and were able to apply that in ways that led to the creation of these innovative sound systems.”
What started as a cutting edge style of DJing by the legendary DJ Kool Herc four decades ago has gone on to revolutionize all forms of contemporary music from Pop to Rock to Jazz.
The Bronx’s part in transporting Hip-Hop across the globe will now get its due.
“We wanted to show that it’s not just a single inventor who creates something, but really a community that creates the right recipe for an invention,” said Fritzsch.
“The Places of Invention” is scheduled to open in spring 2015. For more information visit www.invention.smithsonian.org.
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