DJ Kool Herc Wants Jamaica to Reclaim Hip-Hop

If you know anything about Hip Hop’s origins then you’d know that a Jamaican immigrant famously known as DJ Kool Herc, brought the concept of dancehall to a Bronx party.

“I came [to New York] with my heritage and I didn’t know I would be accredited. So it’s all new to me. I didn’t walk around like that. But I just respect my people and [those] who gave me recognition,” Herc said in an interview with Billboard.

Despite this fact, the Jamaican music industry is deemed as the least profitable and credited. Following a trip to his hometown with his sister, Cindy Campbell, for the first time in thirty years, he was inspired to build a Hip Hop museum in Jamaica.

Campbell, also known as the self-proclaimed First Lady of Hip Hop thinks the museum will be great for the Jamaican economy. “It will definitely open up a whole other world musically for Jamaica. [The island] is a core tourism Mecca and [the museum] could be a place where people would want to go to learn about history. [They will] not only [have to go to the United States] — it will be right here in Jamaica. I think if the government got behind it, it would be profitable and an asset to the country.”

“When I was looking around [Kingston throughout the weekend], I saw that Peter Tosh and Bob Marley had museums,” the DJ tells Billboard at the Jamaica Music Conference. “Well guess what? I created something, so therefore, I have a contribution myself and it would add to the Jamaican economy with tourism.”

DJ Kool Herc wants Jamaica to reclaim Hip Hop simply “because we are the ones who bought the style and the technique to America, which [later] became hip-hop.”