Jeff Chang

They were doing a back to school party because Cindy's thing was, I need to have new clothes to go back to school.

Who, you know, has been playing these records on their dad's like sound system.

No one saw it coming that a teenage girl's back to school party would actually lead to the birth of hip hop.

He stole my line, but I'll allow it.

I was in middle school and Rapper's Delight came out.

And I remember, you know, there were kids at our school with a boombox who played it one day after school and everybody was just like, what's that?

So this is Jeff Chang.

I'm an author.

I started off as a hip hop journalist and wrote the book Can't Stop, Won't Stop, A History of the Hip Hop Generation.

I grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii.

And on Rapper's Delight, they were talking about, you know, the chicken tastes like wood and, you know, like hotel, motel, holiday inn.

For my generation, it was a time of rapid development.

There was a lot of offshore investment, money coming in from Japan and California and all these hotels and buildings going up.

And so, you know, in some ways when we heard this, there was like, oh, this is our music.

This is speaking to our thing.

You know, it was a little more edgy, a lot more urban, obviously.

Gave me permission to be able to begin to express myself.

I'm going to get my brother who, you know, has been playing these records on their dad's like sound system, which they grew up in Jamaica.

So they, you know, they were they were really deeply into music.

And her father, you know, was was the guy that brought the sound system for these bands that would play.