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Crazy Legs wasn’t the only one to be influenced positively by those Park Jams in the Bronx. In fact, it could very well be said that it was as a result of those block parties that Benjamin Melendez’s dream of uniting gang members became a reality and that Afrika Bambaataa would see his dream of creating the possibility of not needing gangs.
Kool Herc would also come to believe in the unifying and uplifting power of jamming in the park. But it would take some time before the Park Jams could be resurrected. Although Melendez succeeded in showing what could be possible by celebrating life, others still saw power in death and negativity. After his family began to receive death threats from those gang members who just couldn’t let go of that mentality, Benjamin, along with his wife and children, disappeared, never to be seen again. The Ghetto Brothers were now dead, and with them died the Park Jam – but not forever!
When he moved to New York, Kool Herc’s father, Keith Campbell, found work as a soundman for a local Rhythm and Blues band. He invested his money in a quality Shure P.A. system. The band wanted someone to play records during the intermission, so Kool Herc was asked would he Deejay. But Herc wanted to do his own parties with the system. So his father tells him he can’t use the system if he does not Deejay for the band. This frustrated the young Kool Herc, but luck would soon come his way.
See, there was a problem with Keith’s Sound System – he could not get it to peak. He and his son would be hearing others who had the same Shure P.A. system but for some reason their's was much louder. Of course, these others would not share their secret – and when you’re Sound System is not pumping strong, you can’t compete for clientele.
One day, Kool Herc was playing around with the system. Of course, his father wasn’t home. At some stage he tried a little experiment. He placed a jack on the speaker cable and jacked it into one of the channels. That way, he could control it from the preamp, which gave him extra power and reserve power. The system was now roaring! It was now louder than the other systems. As he jammed away, Kool Herc’s father came home and snuck up behind him. Herc turned around and had guilt written all over his face. His father asked where all the noise was coming from. He answered that it was their Sound System. Naturally, his father asked how this was possible. Herc joyfully showed his father what he had done. His father, realizing what this meant for business, proudly smiled at his son and told him that he could use the system for his parties. So they set up a “Father and Son” business and Kool Herc began Deejayin.
Fires were still raging in the Bronx and when Herc’s younger brother was playing with matches, the fires reached their home. Fortunately, no one was hurt and the family was temporarily relocated to the Concourse Plaza Hotel in the West Bronx. There, Herc would hang out in the disco downstairs called the Plaza Tunnel. Even after the family finally moved into another apartment on 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, he continued to frequent the Plaza Tunnel with his mate from school, Shaft, who along with John Brown, was the Deejay there. Herc liked it there because they played the raw music that wasn’t being played elsewhere, and the crowd loved it.
This was a time when radio was really softening up on their play lists – even Black programmers. So the raw sounds of James Brown and Rare Earth went underground and found a loyal audience in the Bronx. Kool Herc was absorbing all of this Street Knowledge and would soon be ready to rock the crowd himself. That’s when his sister Cindy asked him for a favour.
Cindy needed to make some money for the upcoming school year so that she could buy some nice clothes. She had an idea. If she rented out the hall where they lived, bought some booze at bulk prices and charged 25 cents for the girls and 50 cents for the boys, she could make her money back and have plenty of profit. Kool Herc agreed to help and on the last week of August 1973, he set up his system and the party was on. It was a huge success and so they decided to continue to do it on a monthly basis.
Word spread and the parties got bigger. At the time, discos were shutting down and house parties were declining in the South Bronx, in part because they were being overrun by rowdy Black Spades. This lead to people going over to Herc’s parties in the West Bronx, which kept the hall filled for each jam. Then, in the summer of 1974, Kool Herc decided to throw a free outdoor Block Party. He had noticed some construction workers plugging their equipment into the street lights. So like the Ghetto Brothers, he set up his system outside. Massive turnout! So massive that he could no longer hold subsequent parties in the hall, because it could not accommodate the crowd. With this rediscovered source of power, Kool Herc had resurrected the spirit of the Park Jam!
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