title: Wayne Rooney

text: In July 2011, jerseys with Rooney's name and number (Rooney, 10) were the best-selling sports product under the auspices of the Premier League – taking over top spot from Liverpool striker Fernando Torres (Torres, 9) and becoming the first United player to top the list since Cristiano Ronaldo's number 7 jersey in 2008. During the 2009–10 season, Manchester United sold between 1.2 million and 1.5 million shirts and it is estimated that of that, Rooney's name was printed on several hundred thousand. The account is taken from official jerseys sales across the globe, not just in England.


title: Wayne Rooney

text: On 9 March 2006, Rooney signed the largest sports book deal in publishing history with HarperCollins, who granted him a £5 million advance plus royalties for a minimum of five books to be published over a 12-year period. The first, "My Story So Far", an autobiography ghostwritten by Hunter Davies, was published after the 2006 World Cup. The second publication, "The Official Wayne Rooney Annual", was aimed at the teenage market and edited by football journalist Chris Hunt. His third book, "My Decade in the Premier League", was published in September 2012.


title: Wayne Rooney

text: In July 2006, Rooney's lawyers went to the United Nations' World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to gain ownership of the Internet domain names waynerooney.com and waynerooney.co.uk, both of which Welsh actor Huw Marshall registered in 2002. Three months later, the WIPO awarded Rooney the rights to "waynerooney.com."


title: Wayne Rooney

text: In October 2014, Rooney became the first Premier League footballer to reach ten million followers on social networking site Twitter. That same month, Rooney was the fifth most-followed footballer (and sixth most-followed sportsperson) globally on Twitter. In terms of top UK Twitter individuals, Rooney ranked at number 9 in October 2014.


title: Wayne Rooney

text: In July 2002, while Rooney was with Everton, agent Paul Stretford encouraged Rooney and his parents to enter the player into an eight-year contract with Proactive Sports Management. However, Rooney was already with another representation firm at the time, while Stretford's transaction went unreported to the FA, and he was thus charged with improper conduct. Stretford alleged in his October 2004 trial that he had secretly recorded boxing promoter John Hyland and two other men threatening and attempting to blackmail him for an undisclosed percentage of Rooney's earnings.


title: Wayne Rooney

text: Stretford's case collapsed due to evidence that conflicted with his insistence that he had not signed Rooney, and on 9 July 2008, he was found guilty of "making of false and/or misleading witness statements to police, and giving false and/or misleading testimony". In addition, the contract to which Stretford had signed Rooney was two years longer than the limit allowed by the FA. Stretford was fined £300,000 and given an 18-month ban as a football agent, a verdict he appealed.


title: Wayne Rooney

text: Stretford left Proactive in 2008 and took Rooney with him. Proactive later sued Rooney, claiming £4.3 million in withheld commissions. In July 2010, Proactive was awarded £90,000 as restitution.


title: Wayne Rooney

text: On 1 September 2006, then-Everton manager David Moyes sued Rooney for libel after the tabloid newspaper the "Daily Mail" published excerpts from Rooney's 2006 autobiography that accused the manager of leaking Rooney's reasons for leaving the club to the press. The case was settled out of court for £500,000 on 3 June 2008, and Rooney apologised to Moyes for "false claims" he had made in the book regarding the matter.


title: Wayne Rooney

text: Helen Wood claims Rooney paid £1,000 for a threesome with her and Jennifer Thompson in a Manchester hotel while his wife was five months pregnant. It was reported his solicitors unsuccessfully tried to fight the allegations when they first surfaced in early August 2010.


title: Wayne Rooney

text: On 1 September 2017, Rooney was arrested in Wilmslow by Cheshire police after being caught driving over the prescribed alcohol limit. He appeared at Stockport Magistrates' Court on 18 September and pleaded guilty to drink driving. Rooney was fined £170 by the court and banned from driving for two years, and was ordered to complete 100 hours of unpaid work as part of a twelve-month community order; Everton fined him two weeks' wages, which was in the region of £300,000.


title: Wayne Rooney

text: On 16 December 2018, Rooney was arrested at Washington Dulles International Airport in Loudoun County, Virginia, charged with public intoxication and use of profanity in public. He was released without bail on a personal recognizance bond, then fined $25 plus $91 in costs without going to court.


title: Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma

text: Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (25 June 1900 – 27 August 1979) was a British naval officer, colonial administrator and close relative of the British royal family. Mountbatten, who was of German descent, was born in the United Kingdom to the prominent Battenberg family and was a maternal uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and a second cousin of King George VI. He joined the Royal Navy during the First World War and was appointed Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia Command, in the Second World War. He later served as the last Viceroy of British India and briefly as the first Governor-General of the Dominion of India.


text: Mountbatten attended the Royal Naval College, Osborne, before entering the Royal Navy in 1916. He saw action during the closing phase of the First World War, and after the war briefly attended Christ's College, Cambridge. During the interwar period, Mountbatten continued to pursue his naval career, specialising in naval communications.


text: Following the outbreak of the Second World War, Mountbatten commanded the destroyer and the 5th Destroyer Flotilla. He saw considerable action in Norway, in the English Channel, and in the Mediterranean. In August 1941, he received command of the aircraft carrier . He was appointed chief of Combined Operations and a member of the Chiefs of Staff Committee in early 1942, and organised the raids on St Nazaire and Dieppe. In August 1943, Mountbatten became Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia Command and oversaw the recapture of Burma and Singapore from the Japanese by the end of 1945. For his service during the war, Mountbatten was created viscount in 1946 and earl the following year.


text: In March 1947, Mountbatten was appointed Viceroy of India and oversaw the Partition of India into India and Pakistan. He then served as the first Governor-General of India until June 1948. In 1952, Mountbatten was appointed commander-in-chief of the British Mediterranean Fleet and NATO Commander Allied Forces Mediterranean. From 1955 to 1959, he was First Sea Lord, a position that had been held by his father, Prince Louis of Battenberg, some forty years earlier. Thereafter he served as chief of the Defence Staff until 1965, making him the longest-serving professional head of the British Armed Forces to date. During this period Mountbatten also served as chairman of the NATO Military Committee for a year.


text: In August 1979, Mountbatten was assassinated by a bomb planted aboard his fishing boat in Mullaghmore, County Sligo, Ireland, by members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. He received a ceremonial funeral at Westminster Abbey and was buried in Romsey Abbey in Hampshire.


text: Mountbatten, then named Prince Louis of Battenberg, was born on 25 June 1900 at Frogmore House in the Home Park, Windsor, Berkshire. He was the youngest child and the second son of Prince Louis of Battenberg and his wife Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine. Mountbatten's maternal grandparents were Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse, and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, who was a daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. His paternal grandparents were Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine and Julia, Princess of Battenberg. Mountbatten's paternal grandparents' marriage was morganatic because his grandmother was not of royal lineage; as a result, he and his father were styled "Serene Highness" rather than "Grand Ducal Highness", were not eligible to be titled Princes of Hesse, and were given the less exalted Battenberg title. Mountbatten's elder siblings were Princess Alice of Battenberg (later Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark, mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh), Princess Louise of Battenberg (later Queen Louise of Sweden), and Prince George of Battenberg (later George Mountbatten, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven).


text: Mountbatten was baptised in the large drawing room of Frogmore House on 17 July 1900 by the Dean of Windsor, Philip Eliot. His godparents were Queen Victoria, Nicholas II of Russia (represented by the child's father) and Prince Francis Joseph of Battenberg (represented by Lord Edward Clinton). He wore the original 1841 royal christening gown at the ceremony.


text: Mountbatten's nickname among family and friends was "Dickie"; however "Richard" was not among his given names. This was because his great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, had suggested the nickname of "Nicky", but to avoid confusion with the many Nickys of the Russian Imperial Family ("Nicky" was particularly used to refer to Nicholas II, the last Tsar), "Nicky" was changed to "Dickie".


text: Mountbatten was educated at home for the first 10 years of his life; he was then sent to Lockers Park School in Hertfordshire and on to the Royal Naval College, Osborne, in May 1913.


text: Mountbatten's mother's younger sister was Russian Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. In childhood he visited the Imperial Court of Russia at St Petersburg and became intimate with the Russian Imperial Family, harbouring romantic feelings towards his maternal first cousin Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, whose photograph he kept at his bedside for the rest of his life.


text: From 1914 to 1918, Britain and its allies were at war with the Central Powers, led by the German Empire. To appease British nationalist sentiment, King George V issued a royal proclamation changing the name of the British royal house from the German House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the House of Windsor. The king's British relatives followed suit with Mountbatten's father dropping his German titles and name and adopting the surname Mountbatten, an anglicization of Battenberg. His father was subsequently created Marquess of Milford Haven.


text: Mountbatten was posted as midshipman to the battlecruiser in July 1916 and, after seeing action in August 1916, transferred to the battleship during the closing phases of the First World War. In June 1917, when the royal family stopped using their German names and titles and adopted the more British-sounding "Windsor", Mountbatten acquired the courtesy title appropriate to a younger son of a marquess, becoming known as "Lord Louis Mountbatten" ("Lord Louis" for short) until he was created a peer in his own right in 1946. He paid a visit of ten days to the Western Front, in July 1918.


text: While still an acting-sub-lieutenant, Mountbatten was appointed first lieutenant (second-in-command) of the P-class sloop HMS "P. 31" on 13 October 1918 and was confirmed as a substantive sub-lieutenant on 15 January 1919. HMS "P. 31" took part in the Peace River Pageant on 4 April 1919. Mountbatten attended Christ's College, Cambridge, for two terms, starting in October 1919, where he studied English literature (including John Milton and Lord Byron) in a programme designed to augment the education of junior officers which had been curtailed by the war. He was elected for a term to the Standing Committee of the Cambridge Union Society and was suspected of sympathy for the Labour Party, then emerging as a potential party of government for the first time.


text: Mountbatten was posted to the battlecruiser in March 1920 and accompanied Edward, Prince of Wales, on a royal tour of Australia in her. He was promoted lieutenant on 15 April 1920. HMS "Renown" returned to Portsmouth on 11 October 1920. Early in 1921 Royal Navy personnel were used for civil defence duties as serious industrial unrest seemed imminent. Mountbatten had to command a platoon of stokers, many of whom had never handled a rifle before, in northern England. He transferred to the battlecruiser in March 1921 and accompanied the Prince of Wales on a Royal tour of India and Japan. Edward and Mountbatten formed a close friendship during the trip. Mountbatten survived the deep defence cuts known as the Geddes Axe. Fifty-two percent of the officers of his year had had to leave the Royal Navy by the end of 1923; although he was highly regarded by his superiors, it was rumoured that wealthy and well-connected officers were more likely to be retained. Mountbatten was posted to the battleship in the Mediterranean Fleet in January 1923.


text: Pursuing his interests in technological development and gadgetry, Mountbatten joined the Portsmouth Signals School in August 1924 and then went on briefly to study electronics at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich. Mountbatten became a Member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), now the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). He was posted to the battleship in the Reserve Fleet in 1926 and became Assistant Fleet Wireless and Signals Officer of the Mediterranean Fleet under the command of Admiral Sir Roger Keyes in January 1927. Promoted lieutenant-commander on 15 April 1928, Mountbatten returned to the Signals School in July 1929 as Senior Wireless Instructor. He was appointed Fleet Wireless Officer to the Mediterranean Fleet in August 1931 and, having been promoted commander on 31 December 1932, was posted to the battleship .


text: In 1934, Mountbatten was appointed to his first command – the destroyer . His ship was a new destroyer, which he was to sail to Singapore and exchange for an older ship, . He successfully brought "Wishart" back to port in Malta and then attended the funeral of King George V in January 1936. Mountbatten was appointed a personal naval aide-de-camp to King Edward VIII on 23 June 1936 and, having joined the Naval Air Division of the Admiralty in July 1936, he attended the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in May 1937. Mountbatten was promoted captain on 30 June 1937 and was then given command of the destroyer in June 1939.


text: Within the Admiralty, Mountbatten was called "The Master of Disaster" for his penchant of getting into messes.


text: When war broke out in September 1939, Mountbatten became Captain (D) (commander) of the 5th Destroyer Flotilla aboard HMS "Kelly", which became famous for its exploits. In late 1939 he brought the Duke of Windsor back from exile in France and in early May 1940 Mountbatten led a British convoy in through the fog to evacuate the Allied forces participating in the Namsos Campaign during the Norwegian Campaign.


text: On the night of 9–10 May 1940, "Kelly" was torpedoed amidships by a German E-boat "S 31" off the Dutch coast, and Mountbatten thereafter commanded the 5th Destroyer Flotilla from the destroyer . On 29 November 1940 the 5th Flotilla engaged three German destroyers off Lizard Point, Cornwall. Mountbatten turned to port to match a German course change. This was "a rather disastrous move as the directors swung off and lost target" and it resulted in "Javelin" being struck by two torpedoes. He rejoined "Kelly" in December 1940, by which time the torpedo damage had been repaired.


text: "Kelly" was sunk by German dive bombers on 23 May 1941 during the Battle of Crete; the incident serving as the basis for Noël Coward's film "In Which We Serve". Coward was a personal friend of Mountbatten and copied some of his speeches into the film. Mountbatten was mentioned in despatches on 9 August 1940 and 21 March 1941 and awarded the Distinguished Service Order in January 1941.


text: In August 1941, Mountbatten was appointed captain of the aircraft carrier which lay in Norfolk, Virginia, for repairs following action at Malta in January. During this period of relative inactivity, he paid a flying visit to Pearl Harbor, three months before the Japanese attack on it. Mountbatten, appalled at the US naval base's lack of preparedness, drawing on Japan's history of launching wars with surprise attacks as well as the successful British surprise attack at the Battle of Taranto which had effectively knocked Italy's fleet out of the war, and the sheer effectiveness of aircraft against warships, accurately predicted that the US would enter the war after a Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.


text: Mountbatten was a favourite of Winston Churchill. On 27 October 1941, Mountbatten replaced Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes as Chief of Combined Operations Headquarters and was promoted to commodore.


text: His duties in this role included inventing new technical aids to assist with opposed landings. Noteworthy technical achievements of Mountbatten and his staff include the construction of "PLUTO", an underwater oil pipeline to Normandy, an artificial Mulberry harbour constructed of concrete caissons and sunken ships, and the development of tank-landing ships. Another project Mountbatten proposed to Churchill was Project Habakkuk. It was to be an unsinkable 600-metre aircraft carrier made from reinforced ice ("Pykrete"): Habakkuk was never carried out due to its enormous cost.


text: As commander of Combined Operations, Mountbatten and his staff planned the highly successful Bruneval raid, which gained important information and captured part of a German Würzburg radar installation and one of the machine's technicians on 27 February 1942. It was Mountbatten who recognised that surprise and speed were essential to capture the radar, and saw that an airborne assault was the only viable method.


text: On 18 March 1942, he was promoted to the acting rank of vice admiral and given the honorary ranks of lieutenant general and air marshal to have the authority to carry out his duties in Combined Operations; and, despite the misgivings of General Sir Alan Brooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Mountbatten was placed in the Chiefs of Staff Committee. He was in large part responsible for the planning and organisation of the St Nazaire Raid on 28 March, which put out of action one of the most heavily defended docks in Nazi-occupied France until well after the war's end, the ramifications of which contributed to allied supremacy in the Battle of the Atlantic. After these two successes came the Dieppe Raid of 19 August 1942. He was central in the planning and promotion of the raid on the port of Dieppe. The raid was a marked failure, with casualties of almost 60%, the great majority of them Canadians. Following the Dieppe Raid, Mountbatten became a controversial figure in Canada, with the Royal Canadian Legion distancing itself from him during his visits there during his later career. His relations with Canadian veterans, who blamed him for the losses, "remained frosty" after the war.


text: Mountbatten claimed that the lessons learned from the Dieppe Raid were necessary for planning the Normandy invasion on D-Day nearly two years later. However, military historians such as Major-General Julian Thompson, a former member of the Royal Marines, have written that these lessons should not have needed a debacle such as Dieppe to be recognised. Nevertheless, as a direct result of the failings of the Dieppe Raid, the British made several innovations, most notably Hobart's Funnies – specialised armoured vehicles which, in the course of the Normandy Landings, undoubtedly saved many lives on those three beachheads upon which Commonwealth soldiers were landing (Gold Beach, Juno Beach and Sword Beach).


text: In August 1943, Churchill appointed Mountbatten the Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia Command (SEAC) with promotion to acting full admiral. His less practical ideas were sidelined by an experienced planning staff led by Lieutenant-Colonel James Allason, though some, such as a proposal to launch an amphibious assault near Rangoon, got as far as Churchill before being quashed.


text: British interpreter Hugh Lunghi recounted an embarrassing episode during the Potsdam Conference when Mountbatten, desiring to receive an invitation to visit the Soviet Union, repeatedly attempted to impress Joseph Stalin with his former connections to the Russian imperial family. The attempt fell predictably flat, with Stalin dryly inquiring whether "it was some time ago that he had been there". Says Lunghi, "The meeting was embarrassing because Stalin was so unimpressed. He offered no invitation. Mountbatten left with his tail between his legs."


text: During his time as Supreme Allied Commander of the Southeast Asia Theatre, his command oversaw the recapture of Burma from the Japanese by General Sir William Slim. A personal high point was the receipt of the Japanese surrender in Singapore when British troops returned to the island to receive the formal surrender of Japanese forces in the region led by General Itagaki Seishiro on 12 September 1945, codenamed Operation Tiderace. South East Asia Command was disbanded in May 1946 and Mountbatten returned home with the substantive rank of rear-admiral. That year, he was made a Knight of the Garter and created Viscount Mountbatten of Burma, of Romsey in the County of Southampton, as a victory title for war service. He was then in 1947 further created Earl Mountbatten of Burma and Baron Romsey, of Romsey in the County of Southampton.


text: Following the war, Mountbatten was known to have largely shunned the Japanese for the rest of his life out of respect for his men killed during the war and, as per his will, Japan was not invited to send diplomatic representatives to his funeral in 1979, though he did meet Emperor Hirohito during his state visit to Britain in 1971, reportedly at the urging of the Queen.


text: Mountbatten's experience in the region and in particular his perceived Labour sympathies at that time led to Clement Attlee advising King George VI to appoint him Viceroy of India on 20 February 1947 charged with overseeing the transition of British India to independence no later than 30 June 1948. Mountbatten's instructions were to avoid partition and preserve a united India as a result of the transfer of power but authorised him to adapt to a changing situation in order to get Britain out promptly with minimal reputational damage. Mountbatten arrived in India on 22 March 1947 by air, from London. In the evening, he was taken to his residence and, two days later, he took the Viceregal Oath. His arrival saw large-scale communal riots in Delhi, Bombay and Rawalpindi. Mountbatten concluded that the situation was too volatile to wait even a year before granting independence to India. Although his advisers favoured a gradual transfer of independence, Mountbatten decided the only way forward was a quick and orderly transfer of power before 1947 was out. In his view, any longer would mean civil war. Mountbatten also hurried so he could return to his senior technical Navy courses.


text: Mountbatten was fond of Congress leader Jawaharlal Nehru and his liberal outlook for the country. He felt differently about the Muslim League leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah, but was aware of his power, stating "If it could be said that any single man held the future of India in the palm of his hand in 1947, that man was Mohammad Ali Jinnah." During his meeting with Jinnah on 5 April 1947, Mountbatten tried to persuade him of a united India, citing the difficult task of dividing the mixed states of Punjab and Bengal, but the Muslim leader was unyielding in his goal of establishing a separate Muslim state called Pakistan.


text: Given the British government's recommendations to grant independence quickly, Mountbatten concluded that a united India was an unachievable goal and resigned himself to a plan for partition, creating the independent nations of India and Pakistan. Mountbatten set a date for the transfer of power from the British to the Indians, arguing that a fixed timeline would convince Indians of his and the British government's sincerity in working towards a swift and efficient independence, excluding all possibilities of stalling the process.


text: Among the Indian leaders, Mahatma Gandhi emphatically insisted on maintaining a united India and for a while successfully rallied people to this goal. During his meeting with Mountbatten, Gandhi asked Mountbatten to invite Jinnah to form a new central government, but Mountbatten never uttered a word of Gandhi's ideas to Jinnah. When Mountbatten's timeline offered the prospect of attaining independence soon, sentiments took a different turn. Given Mountbatten's determination, Nehru and Patel's inability to deal with the Muslim League and, lastly, Jinnah's obstinacy, all Indian party leaders (except Gandhi) acquiesced to Jinnah's plan to divide India, which in turn eased Mountbatten's task. Mountbatten also developed a strong relationship with the Indian princes, who ruled those portions of India not directly under British rule. His intervention was decisive in persuading the vast majority of them to see advantages in opting to join the Indian Union. On one hand, the integration of the princely states can be viewed as one of the positive aspects of his legacy. But on the other, the refusal of Hyderabad, Jammu and Kashmir, and Junagadh to join one of the dominions led to future wars between Pakistan and India.


text: Mountbatten brought forward the date of the partition from June 1948 to 15 August 1947. The uncertainty of the borders caused Muslims and Hindus to move into the direction where they felt they would get the majority. Hindus and Muslims were thoroughly terrified, and the Muslim movement from the East was balanced by the similar movement of Hindus from the West. A boundary committee chaired by Sir Cyril Radcliffe was charged with drawing boundaries for the new nations. With a mandate to leave as many Hindus and Sikhs in India and as many Muslims in Pakistan as possible, Radcliffe came up with a map that split the two countries along the Punjab and Bengal borders. This left 14 million people on the "wrong" side of the border, and very many of them fled to "safety" on the other side when the new lines were announced.


text: When India and Pakistan attained independence at midnight of 14–15 August 1947, Mountbatten was alone in his study at the Viceroy's house saying to himself just before the clock struck midnight that for still a few minutes, he was the most powerful man on Earth. At 11:58 PM, as a last act of showmanship, he created Joan Falkiner, the Australian wife of the Nawab of Palanpur, a highness, an act that was apparently one of his favourite duties that was annulled at the stroke of midnight.


text: Mountbatten remained in New Delhi for 10 months, serving as the first governor-general of an independent India until June 1948. On Mountbatten's advice, India took the issue of Kashmir to the newly formed United Nations in January 1948. This issue would become a lasting thorn in his legacy and one that is not resolved to this day. Accounts differ on the future which Mountbatten desired for Kashmir. Pakistani accounts suggest that Mountbatten favoured the accession of Kashmir to India, citing his close relationship to Nehru. Mountbatten's own account says that he simply wanted the maharaja, Hari Singh, to make up his mind. The viceroy made several attempts to mediate between the Congress leaders, Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Hari Singh on issues relating to the accession of Kashmir, though he was largely unsuccessful in resolving the conflict. After the tribal invasion of Kashmir, it was on his suggestion that India moved to secure the accession of Kashmir from Hari Singh before sending in military forces for his defence.


text: Notwithstanding the self-promotion of his own part in Indian independence – notably in the television series "The Life and Times of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Mountbatten of Burma", produced by his son-in-law Lord Brabourne, and "Freedom at Midnight" by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins (of which he was the main quoted source) – his record is seen as very mixed. One common view is that he hastened the process of independence unduly and recklessly, foreseeing vast disruption and loss of life and not wanting this to occur on his watch, but thereby actually helping it to occur (albeit in an indirect manner), especially in Punjab and Bengal. John Kenneth Galbraith, the Canadian-American Harvard University economist, who advised governments of India during the 1950s and was an intimate of Nehru who served as the American ambassador from 1961 to 1963, was a particularly harsh critic of Mountbatten in this regard. However, another view is that the British were forced to expedite the partition process to avoid involvement in a potential civil war with law and order having already broken down and Britain with limited resources after the Second World War. According to historian Lawrence James, Mountbatten was left with no other option but to cut and run, with the alternative being involvement in a potential civil war that would be difficult to get out of.


text: The creation of Pakistan was never emotionally accepted by many British leaders, among them Mountbatten. Mountbatten clearly expressed his lack of support and faith in the Muslim League's idea of Pakistan. Jinnah refused Mountbatten's offer to serve as Governor-General of Pakistan. When Mountbatten was asked by Collins and Lapierre if he would have sabotaged the creation of Pakistan had he known that Jinnah was dying of tuberculosis, he replied, "Most probably". After his tenure as Governor-General concluded, Mountbatten continued to enjoy close relations with Nehru and the post-Independence Indian leadership, and was welcomed as a former governor-general of India on subsequent visits to the country, including during an official trip in March 1956. The Pakistani government, by contrast, never forgave Mountbatten for his perceived hostile attitude towards Pakistan and deemed him "persona non grata", barring him from transiting their airspace during the same visit.


text: After India, Mountbatten served as commander of the 1st Cruiser Squadron in the Mediterranean Fleet and, having been granted the substantive rank of vice-admiral on 22 June 1949, he became Second-in-Command of the Mediterranean Fleet in April 1950. He became Fourth Sea Lord at the Admiralty in June 1950. He then returned to the Mediterranean to serve as Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet and NATO Commander Allied Forces Mediterranean from June 1952. He was promoted to the substantive rank of full admiral on 27 February 1953. In March 1953, he was appointed Personal Aide-de-Camp to the Queen.


text: Mountbatten served his final posting at the Admiralty as First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff from April 1955 to July 1959, the position which his father had held some forty years before. This was the first time in Royal Naval history that a father and son had both attained such high office. He was promoted to Admiral of the Fleet on 22 October 1956.


text: In the Suez Crisis of 1956, Mountbatten strongly advised his old friend Prime Minister Anthony Eden against the Conservative government's plans to seize the Suez canal in conjunction with France and Israel. He argued that such a move would destabilize the Middle East, undermine the authority of the United Nations, divide the Commonwealth and diminish Britain's global standing. His advice was not taken. Eden insisted that Mountbatten not resign. Instead, he worked hard to prepare the Royal Navy for war with characteristic professionalism and thoroughness.


text: Despite his military rank, Mountbatten was ignorant as to the physics involved in a nuclear explosion and had to be reassured that the fission reactions from the Bikini Atoll tests would not spread through the oceans and blow up the planet. As Mountbatten became more familiar with this new form of weaponry, he increasingly grew opposed to its use in combat yet at the same time he realised the potential for nuclear energy, especially with regard to submarines. Mountbatten expressed his feelings towards the use of nuclear weapons in combat in his article "A Military Commander Surveys The Nuclear Arms Race", which was published shortly after his death in "International Security" in the Winter of 1979–1980.


text: After leaving the Admiralty, Mountbatten took the position of Chief of the Defence Staff. He served in this post for six years during which he was able to consolidate the three service departments of the military branch into a single Ministry of Defence. Ian Jacob, co-author of the 1963 "Report on the Central Organisation of Defence" that served as the basis of these reforms, described Mountbatten as "universally mistrusted in spite of his great qualities". On their election in October 1964, the Wilson ministry had to decide whether to renew his appointment the following July. The Defence Secretary, Denis Healey, interviewed the forty most senior officials in the Ministry of Defence; only one, Sir Kenneth Strong, a personal friend of Mountbatten, recommended his reappointment. "When I told Dickie of my decision not to reappoint him," recalls Healey, "he slapped his thigh and roared with delight; but his eyes told a different story."


text: Mountbatten was appointed colonel of the Life Guards and Gold Stick in Waiting on 29 January 1965 and Life Colonel Commandant of the Royal Marines the same year. He was Governor of the Isle of Wight from 20 July 1965 and then the first Lord Lieutenant of the Isle of Wight from 1 April 1974.


text: Mountbatten was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and had received an honorary doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 1968.


text: In 1969, Mountbatten tried unsuccessfully to persuade his cousin, the Spanish pretender Infante Juan, Count of Barcelona, to ease the eventual accession of his son, Juan Carlos, to the Spanish throne by signing a declaration of abdication while in exile. The next year Mountbatten attended an official White House dinner during which he took the opportunity to have a 20-minute conversation with Richard Nixon and Secretary of State William P. Rogers, about which he later wrote, "I was able to talk to the President a bit about both Tino [Constantine II of Greece] and Juanito [Juan Carlos of Spain] to try and put over their respective points of view about Greece and Spain, and how I felt the US could help them." In January 1971, Nixon hosted Juan Carlos and his wife Sofia (sister of the exiled King Constantine) during a visit to Washington and later that year "The Washington Post" published an article alleging that Nixon's administration was seeking to persuade Franco to retire in favour of the young Bourbon prince.


text: From 1967 until 1978, Mountbatten was president of the United World Colleges Organisation, then represented by a single college: that of Atlantic College in South Wales. Mountbatten supported the United World Colleges and encouraged heads of state, politicians, and personalities throughout the world to share his interest. Under his presidency and personal involvement, the United World College of South East Asia was established in Singapore in 1971, followed by the United World College of the Pacific in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1974. In 1978, Mountbatten passed the presidency of the college to his great-nephew, the Prince of Wales.


text: Mountbatten also helped to launch the International Baccalaureate; in 1971 he presented the first IB diplomas in the Greek Theatre of the International School of Geneva, Switzerland.


text: In 1975 Mountbatten finally visited the Soviet Union, leading the delegation from UK as personal representative of Queen Elizabeth II at the celebrations to mark the 30th anniversary of Victory Day in Second World War in Moscow.


text: Peter Wright, in his 1987 book "Spycatcher", claimed that in May 1968 Mountbatten attended a private meeting with press baron Cecil King and the government's Chief Scientific Adviser, Solly Zuckerman. Wright alleged that "up to thirty" MI5 officers had joined a secret campaign to undermine the crisis-stricken Labour government of Harold Wilson and that King was an MI5 agent. In the meeting, King allegedly urged Mountbatten to become the leader of a government of national salvation. Solly Zuckerman pointed out that it was "rank treachery" and the idea came to nothing because of Mountbatten's reluctance to act. In contrast, Andrew Lownie has suggested that it took the intervention of the Queen to dissuade Mountbatten from plotting against Wilson.


text: In 2006, the BBC documentary "The Plot Against Harold Wilson" alleged that there had been another plot involving Mountbatten to oust Wilson during his second term in office (1974–1976). The period was characterised by high inflation, increasing unemployment, and widespread industrial unrest. The alleged plot revolved around right-wing former military figures who were supposedly building private armies to counter the perceived threat from trade unions and the Soviet Union. They believed that the Labour Party was unable and unwilling to counter these developments and that Wilson was either a Soviet agent or at the very least a Communist sympathiser – claims Wilson strongly denied. The documentary makers alleged that a coup was planned to overthrow Wilson and replace him with Mountbatten using the private armies and sympathisers in the military and MI5.


text: The first official history of MI5, "The Defence of the Realm" (2009), implied that there was a plot against Wilson and that MI5 did have a file on him. Yet it also made clear that the plot was in no way official and that any activity centred on a small group of discontented officers. This much had already been confirmed by former cabinet secretary Lord Hunt, who concluded in a secret inquiry conducted in 1996 that "there is absolutely no doubt at all that a few, a very few, malcontents in MI5 ... a lot of them like Peter Wright who were right-wing, malicious and had serious personal grudges – gave vent to these and spread damaging malicious stories about that Labour government."


text: Mountbatten was married on 18 July 1922 to Edwina Cynthia Annette Ashley, daughter of Wilfred William Ashley, later 1st Baron Mount Temple, himself a grandson of the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. She was the favourite granddaughter of the Edwardian magnate Sir Ernest Cassel and the principal heir to his fortune. The couple spent heavily on households, luxuries, and entertainment. There followed a honeymoon tour of European royal courts and America which included a visit to Niagara Falls (because "all honeymooners went there"). During their honeymoon in California, the newlyweds starred in a silent home movie by Charlie Chaplin called "Nice And Friendly", which was not shown in cinemas.


text: Mountbatten admitted: "Edwina and I spent all our married lives getting into other people's beds." He maintained an affair for several years with Yola Letellier, the wife of Henri Letellier, publisher of "Le Journal" and mayor of Deauville (1925–28). Yola Letellier's life story was the inspiration for Colette's novel "Gigi".


text: After Edwina died in 1960, Mountbatten was involved in relationships with young women, according to his daughter Patricia, his secretary John Barratt, his valet Bill Evans, and William Stadiem, an employee of Madame Claude. He had a long-running affair with American actress Shirley MacLaine, whom he met in the 1960s.


text: Ron Perks, Mountbatten's driver in Malta in 1948, alleged that he used to visit the Red House, an upmarket gay brothel in Rabat used by naval officers. Andrew Lownie, a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, wrote that the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) maintained files regarding Mountbatten's alleged homosexuality. Lownie also interviewed several young men who claimed to have been in a relationship with Mountbatten. John Barratt, Mountbatten's personal and private secretary for 20 years, has said Mountbatten was not a homosexual, and that it would have been impossible for such a fact to have been hidden from him.


text: In 2019, files became public showing that the FBI knew in the 1940s of allegations that Mountbatten was homosexual and a paedophile. The FBI file on Mountbatten, begun after he took on the role of Supreme Allied Commander in Southeast Asia in 1944, describes Mountbatten and his wife Edwina as "persons of extremely low morals", and contains a claim by American author Elizabeth, Baroness Decies, that Mountbatten was known to be a homosexual and had "a perversion for young boys". Norman Nield, Mountbatten's driver from 1942 to 1943, told the tabloid "New Zealand Truth" that he transported young boys aged 8 to 12 who had been procured for the Admiral to Mountbatten's official residence and was paid to keep quiet. Robin Bryans had also claimed to the Irish magazine "Now" that Mountbatten and Anthony Blunt, along with others, were part of a ring that engaged in homosexual orgies and procured boys in their first year at public schools such as the Portora Royal School in Enniskillen. Former residents of the Kincora Boys' Home in Belfast have asserted that they were trafficked to Mountbatten at Classiebawn Castle, his residence in Mullaghmore, County Sligo. These claims were dismissed by the Historical Institution Abuse (HIA) Inquiry. The HIA stated that the article making the original allegations "did not give any basis for the assertions that any of these people [Mountbatten and others] were connected with Kincora".


text: In October 2022 Arthur Smyth, a former resident of Kincora, waived his anonymity to make allegations of child abuse against Mountbatten. The allegations are part of a civil case against state authorities responsible for care of children in Kincora.


text: Lord and Lady Mountbatten had two daughters: Patricia Knatchbull (14 February 1924 – 13 June 2017), sometime lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth II, and Lady Pamela Hicks (born 19 April 1929), who accompanied them to India in 1947–1948 and was also sometime lady-in-waiting to the Queen.


text: Since Mountbatten had no sons when he was created Viscount Mountbatten of Burma, of Romsey in the County of Southampton on 27 August 1946 and then Earl Mountbatten of Burma and Baron Romsey, in the County of Southampton on 28 October 1947, the Letters Patent were drafted such that in the event he left no sons or issue in the male line, the titles could pass to his daughters, in order of seniority of birth.


text: Mountbatten was passionate about genealogy, an interest he shared with other European royalty and nobility; according to Ziegler, he spent a great deal of his leisure time in studying his links with European royal houses. From 1957 until his death, Lord Mountbatten was Patron of the Cambridge University Heraldic and Genealogical Society. He was equally passionate about orders, decorations and military ranks and uniforms, though he himself considered this interest to be a sign of vanity and constantly tried to distance himself from it, with limited success. Over the course of his career, he consistently attempted to secure as many orders and decorations as possible. Particular about details of dress, Mountbatten took an interest in fashion design, introducing trouser zips, a tail-coat with broad, high lapels and a "buttonless waistcoat" that could be pulled on over the head. In 1949, having by then relinquished the office of Governor-General of India but retaining a keen interest in Indian affairs, he designed new flags, insignia, and details of uniforms for the Indian Armed Forces ahead of the transition from British dominion to republic; many of his designs were implemented and remain in use.


text: Like many members of the royal family, Mountbatten was an aficionado of polo. He received US patent 1,993,334 in 1931 for a polo stick. Mountbatten introduced the sport to the Royal Navy in the 1920s and wrote a book on the subject. He also served as Commodore of Emsworth Sailing Club in Hampshire from 1931. He was a long-serving Patron of the Society for Nautical Research (1951–1979). Apart from official documents, Mountbatten was not much of a reader, though he liked P. G. Wodehouse's books. He enjoyed the cinema; his favourite stars were Fred Astaire, Rita Hayworth, Grace Kelly and Shirley MacLaine. In general, however, he had a limited interest in the arts.


text: Mountbatten was a strong influence in the upbringing of his grand-nephew, King Charles III, and later as a mentor – "Honorary Grandfather" and "Honorary Grandson", they fondly called each other according to the Jonathan Dimbleby biography of the then-Prince – though according to both the Ziegler biography of Mountbatten and the Dimbleby biography of the Prince, the results may have been mixed. He from time to time strongly upbraided the Prince for showing tendencies towards the idle pleasure-seeking dilettantism of his predecessor as Prince of Wales, King Edward VIII, whom Mountbatten had known well in their youth. Yet he also encouraged the Prince to enjoy the bachelor life while he could, and then to marry a young and inexperienced girl so as to ensure a stable married life.


text: Mountbatten's qualification for offering advice to this particular heir to the throne was unique; it was he who had arranged the visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to Dartmouth Royal Naval College on 22 July 1939, taking care to include the young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret in the invitation, but assigning his nephew, Cadet Prince Philip of Greece, to keep them amused while their parents toured the facility. This was the first recorded meeting of Charles's future parents. But a few months later, Mountbatten's efforts nearly came to naught when he received a letter from his sister Alice in Athens informing him that Philip was visiting her and had agreed to repatriate permanently to Greece. Within days, Philip received a command from his cousin and sovereign, King George II of Greece, to resume his naval career in Britain which, though given without explanation, the young prince obeyed.


text: In 1974, Mountbatten began corresponding with Charles about a potential marriage to his granddaughter, Hon. Amanda Knatchbull. It was about this time he also recommended that the 25-year-old prince get on with "sowing some wild oats". Charles dutifully wrote to Amanda's mother (who was also his godmother), Lady Brabourne, about his interest. Her answer was supportive, but advised him that she thought her daughter still rather young to be courted.


text: In February 1975, Charles visited New Delhi to play polo and was shown around Rashtrapati Bhavan, the former Viceroy's House, by Mountbatten.


text: Four years later, Mountbatten secured an invitation for himself and Amanda to accompany Charles on his planned 1980 tour of India. Their fathers promptly objected. Prince Philip thought that the Indian public's reception would more likely reflect response to the uncle than to the nephew. Lord Brabourne counselled that the intense scrutiny of the press would be more likely to drive Mountbatten's godson and granddaughter apart than together.


text: Charles was rescheduled to tour India alone, but Mountbatten did not live to the planned date of departure. When Charles finally did propose marriage to Amanda later in 1979, the circumstances were changed and she refused him.


text: On 27 April 1977, shortly before his 77th birthday, Mountbatten became the first member of the Royal Family to appear on the TV guest show "This Is Your Life". In the UK, 22.22 million people tuned in to watch the programme.


text: Mountbatten usually holidayed at his summer home, Classiebawn Castle, on the Mullaghmore Peninsula in County Sligo, in the north-west of Ireland. The village was only from the border with County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland and near an area known to be used as a cross-border refuge by IRA members. In 1978, the IRA had allegedly attempted to shoot Mountbatten as he was aboard his boat, but poor weather had prevented the sniper taking his shot.


text: On 27 August 1979, Mountbatten went lobster-potting and tuna fishing in his wooden boat, "Shadow V", which had been moored in the harbour at Mullaghmore. IRA member Thomas McMahon had slipped onto the unguarded boat the previous night and attached a radio-controlled bomb weighing . When Mountbatten and his party had taken the boat just a few hundred yards from the shore, the bomb was detonated. The boat was destroyed by the force of the blast and Mountbatten's legs were almost blown off. Mountbatten, then aged 79, was pulled alive from the water by nearby fishermen, but died from his injuries before being brought to shore.


text: Also aboard the boat were his elder daughter Patricia, Lady Brabourne; her husband Lord Brabourne; their twin sons Nicholas and Timothy Knatchbull; Lord Brabourne's mother Doreen, Dowager Lady Brabourne; and Paul Maxwell, a young crew member from Enniskillen in County Fermanagh. Nicholas (aged 14) and Paul (aged 15) were killed by the blast and the others were seriously injured. Doreen, Dowager Lady Brabourne (aged 83), died from her injuries the following day.


text: The attack triggered outrage and condemnation around the world. The Queen received messages of condolence from leaders including US President Jimmy Carter and Pope John Paul II. Carter expressed his "profound sadness" at the death.


text: Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said:His death leaves a gap that can never be filled. The British people give thanks for his life and grieve at his passing.


text: George Colley, the "Tánaiste" (Deputy head of government) of the Republic of Ireland, said:No effort will be spared to bring those responsible to justice. It is understood that subversives have claimed responsibility for the explosion. Assuming that police investigations substantiate the claim, I know that the Irish people will join me in condemning this heartless and terrible outrage.


text: The IRA issued a statement afterward, saying:The IRA claim responsibility for the execution of Lord Louis Mountbatten. This operation is one of the discriminate ways we can bring to the attention of the English people the continuing occupation of our country. ... The death of Mountbatten and the tributes paid to him will be seen in sharp contrast to the apathy of the British Government and the English people to the deaths of over three hundred British soldiers, and the deaths of Irish men, women, and children at the hands of their forces.


text: Six weeks later, Sinn Féin vice-president Gerry Adams said of Mountbatten's death:The IRA gave clear reasons for the execution. I think it is unfortunate that anyone has to be killed, but the furor created by Mountbatten's death showed up the hypocritical attitude of the media establishment. As a member of the House of Lords, Mountbatten was an emotional figure in both British and Irish politics. What the IRA did to him is what Mountbatten had been doing all his life to other people; and with his war record I don't think he could have objected to dying in what was clearly a war situation. He knew the danger involved in coming to this country. In my opinion, the IRA achieved its objective: people started paying attention to what was happening in Ireland.


text: Adams later said in an interview, "I stand over what I said then. I'm not one of those people that engages in revisionism. Thankfully the war is over."


text: On the day of the bombing, the IRA also ambushed and killed eighteen British soldiers at the gates of Narrow Water Castle, just outside Warrenpoint, in County Down in Northern Ireland, sixteen of them from the Parachute Regiment, in what became known as the Warrenpoint ambush. It was the deadliest attack on the British Army during the Troubles.


text: On 5 September 1979, Mountbatten received a ceremonial funeral at Westminster Abbey, which was attended by the Queen, the royal family, and members of the European royal houses. Watched by thousands of people, the funeral procession, which started at Wellington Barracks, included representatives of all three British Armed Services, and military contingents from Burma, India, the United States (represented by 70 sailors of the US Navy and 50 US Marines), France (represented by the French Navy) and Canada. His coffin was drawn on a gun carriage by 118 Royal Navy ratings. During the televised service, the Prince of Wales (later, King Charles III) read the lesson from Psalm 107. In an address, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Donald Coggan, highlighted his various achievements and his "lifelong devotion to the Royal Navy". After the public ceremonies, which he had planned himself, Mountbatten was buried in Romsey Abbey. As part of the funeral arrangements, his body had been embalmed by Desmond Henley.


text: Two hours before the bomb detonated, Thomas McMahon had been arrested at a Garda checkpoint between Longford and Granard on suspicion of driving a stolen vehicle. He was tried for the assassinations in Ireland and convicted on 23 November 1979 based on forensic evidence supplied by James O'Donovan that showed flecks of paint from the boat and traces of nitroglycerine on his clothes. He was released in 1998 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.


text: On hearing of Mountbatten's death, the then Master of the Queen's Music, Malcolm Williamson, wrote the "Lament in Memory of Lord Mountbatten of Burma" for violin and string orchestra. The 11-minute work was given its first performance on 5 May 1980 by the Scottish Baroque Ensemble, conducted by Leonard Friedman.


text: Mountbatten's faults, according to his biographer Philip Ziegler, like everything else about him, "were on the grandest scale. His vanity though child-like, was monstrous, his ambition unbridled ... He sought to rewrite history with cavalier indifference to the facts to magnify his own achievements." However, Ziegler concludes that Mountbatten's virtues outweighed his defects:


text: He was generous and loyal ... He was warm-hearted, predisposed to like everyone he met, quick-tempered but never bearing grudges ... His tolerance was extraordinary; his readiness to respect and listen to the views of others was remarkable throughout his life.


text: What he could do with superlative aplomb was to identify the object at which he was aiming, and force it through to its conclusion. A powerful, analytic mind of crystalline clarity, a superabundance of energy, great persuasive powers, endless resilience in the face of setback or disaster rendered him the most formidable of operators. He was infinitely resourceful, quick in his reactions, always ready to cut his losses and start again ... He was an executor of policy rather than an initiator; but whatever the policy, he espoused it with such energy and enthusiasm, made it so completely his own, that it became identified with him and, in the eyes of the outside world as well as his own, his creation.


text: Others were not so conflicted. Field Marshal Sir Gerald Templer, the former Chief of the Imperial General Staff, once told him, "You are so crooked, Dickie, that if you swallowed a nail, you would shit a corkscrew".


text: Mountbatten supported the burgeoning nationalist movements which grew up in the shadow of Japanese occupation. His priority was to maintain practical, stable government, but driving him was an idealism in which he believed every people should be allowed to control their own destiny. Critics said he was too ready to overlook their faults, and especially their subordination to communist control. Ziegler says that in Malaya, where the main resistance to the Japanese came from Chinese who were under considerable communist influence, "Mountbatten proved to have been naïve in his assessment. ... He erred, however, not because he was 'soft on Communism' ... but from an over-readiness to assume the best of those with whom he had dealings." Furthermore, Ziegler argues, he was following a practical policy based on the assumption that it would take a long and bloody struggle to drive the Japanese out, and he needed the support of all the anti-Japanese elements, most of which were either nationalists or communists.


text: Mountbatten took pride in enhancing intercultural understanding and in 1984, with his elder daughter as the patron, the Mountbatten Institute was developed to allow young adults the opportunity to enhance their intercultural appreciation and experience by spending time abroad. The IET annually awards the Mountbatten Medal for an outstanding contribution, or contributions over a period, to the promotion of electronics or information technology and their application.


text: Canada's capital city of Ottawa named Mountbatten Avenue in his memory. The Mountbatten estate in Singapore and Mountbatten MRT station were named after him.


text: Mountbatten's personal papers (containing approximately 250,000 papers and 50,000 photographs) are preserved in the University of Southampton Library.


text: He was appointed personal aide-de-camp by Edward VIII, George VI and Elizabeth II, and therefore bore the unusual distinction of being allowed to wear three royal cyphers on his shoulder straps.


title: Hip hop music

text: Hip hop music or hip-hop music, also known as rap music and formerly known as disco rap, is a genre of popular music that originated in New York City in the 1970s. It consists of stylized rhythmic music (usually built around drum beats) that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted. It developed as part of hip hop culture, a subculture defined by four key stylistic elements: MCing/rapping, DJing/scratching with turntables, break dancing, and graffiti writing. Other elements include sampling beats or bass lines from records (or synthesized beats and sounds), and rhythmic beatboxing. While often used to refer solely to rapping, "hip hop" more properly denotes the practice of the entire subculture. The term "hip hop music" is sometimes used synonymously with the term "rap music", though rapping is not a required component of hip hop music; the genre may also incorporate other elements of hip hop culture, including DJing, turntablism, scratching, beatboxing, and instrumental tracks.


title: Hip hop music

text: Hip hop as both a musical genre and a culture was formed during the 1970s when block parties became increasingly popular in New York City, particularly among African American youth residing in the Bronx. At block parties, DJs played percussive breaks of popular songs using two turntables and a DJ mixer to be able to play breaks from two copies of the same record, alternating from one to the other and extending the "break". Hip hop's early evolution occurred as sampling technology and drum machines became widely available and affordable. Turntablist techniques such as scratching and beatmatching developed along with the breaks. Rapping developed as a vocal style in which the artist speaks or chants along rhythmically with an instrumental or synthesized beat.


title: Hip hop music

text: Hip hop music was not officially recorded for play on radio or television until 1979, largely due to poverty during the genre's birth and lack of acceptance outside ghetto neighborhoods. Old school hip hop was the first mainstream wave of the genre, marked by its disco influence and party-oriented lyrics. The 1980s marked the diversification of hip hop as the genre developed more complex styles and spread around the world. New school hip hop was the genre's second wave, marked by its electro sound, and led into golden age hip hop, an innovative period between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s that also developed hip hop's own album era. The gangsta rap subgenre, focused on the violent lifestyles and impoverished conditions of inner-city African American youth, gained popularity at this time. West Coast hip hop was dominated by G-funk in the early-mid 1990s, while East Coast hip hop was dominated by jazz rap, alternative hip hop, and hardcore hip hop. Hip hop continued to diversify at this time with other regional styles emerging, such as Southern rap and Atlanta hip hop. Hip hop became a best-selling genre in the mid-1990s and the top-selling music genre by 1999.


title: Hip hop music

text: The popularity of hip hop music continued through the late 1990s to early-2000s "bling era" with hip hop influences increasingly finding their way into other genres of popular music, such as neo soul, nu metal, and R&B. The United States also saw the success of regional styles such as crunk, a Southern genre that emphasized the beats and music more than the lyrics, and alternative hip hop began to secure a place in the mainstream, due in part to the crossover success of its artists. During the late 2000s and early 2010s "blog era", rappers were able to build up a following through online methods of music distribution, such as social media and blogs, and mainstream hip hop took on a more melodic, sensitive direction following the commercial decline of gangsta rap. The trap and mumble rap subgenres have become the most popular form of hip hop during the mid-late 2010s and early 2020s. In 2017, rock music was usurped by hip hop as the most popular genre in the United States.


title: Hip hop music

text: The words "hip" and "hop" have a long history behind the two words being used together. In the 1950s, older folks referred to teen house parties as "hippity hops". The creation of the term "hip hop" is often credited to Keef Cowboy, rapper with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. However, Lovebug Starski, Keef Cowboy, and DJ Hollywood used the term when the music was still known as "disco rap". It is believed that Cowboy created the term while teasing a friend who had just joined the U.S. Army, by scat singing the words "hip/hop/hip/hop" in a way that mimicked the rhythmic cadence of soldiers marching. Cowboy later worked the "hip hop" cadence into a part of his stage performance. For example, he would say something along the lines of "I said a hip-hop, a hibbit, hibby-dibby, hip-hip-hop and you don't stop." which was quickly used by other artists such as The Sugarhill Gang in "Rapper's Delight". Universal Zulu Nation founder Afrika Bambaataa, also known as "the Godfather", is credited with first using the term to describe the subculture in which the music belonged; although it is also suggested that it was a derogatory term to describe the type of music. The term was first used in print to refer to the music by reporter Robert Flipping, Jr. in a February 1979 article in the "New Pittsburgh Courier", and to refer to the culture in a January 1982 interview of Afrika Bambaataa by Michael Holman in the "East Village Eye". The term gained further currency in September of that year in another Bambaataa interview in "The Village Voice", by Steven Hager, later author of a 1984 history of hip hop.


title: Hip hop music

text: There are disagreements about whether or not the terms "hip hop" and "rap" can be used interchangeably, even amongst its most knowledgeable proponents. The most common view is that hip-hop is a cultural movement that emerged in the South Bronx in New York City during the 1970s, with MCing (or rapping) being one of the primary four elements. Hip hop's other three essential elements are graffiti art (or aerosol art), break dancing, and DJing. Rap music has become by far the most celebrated expression of hip hop culture, due to being the easiest to market to a mass audience.


title: Hip hop music

text: Musical genres from which hip hop developed include funk, blues, jazz and rhythm and blues recordings from the 60s, 50s, and earlier, including several records by Bo Diddley.


title: Hip hop music

text: Muhammad Ali's 1963 spoken-word album "I Am the Greatest" is regarded by some writers as an early example of hip hop. Pigmeat Markham's 1968 single "Here Comes the Judge" is one of several songs said to be the earliest hip hop record. Leading up to hip hop, there were spoken-word artists such as the Last Poets who released their debut album in 1970, and Gil Scott-Heron, who gained a wide audience with his 1971 track "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised". These artists combined spoken word and music to create a kind of "proto-rap" vibe.


title: Hip hop music

text: Hip hop as music and culture formed during the 1970s in New York City from the multicultural exchange between African Americans and children of immigrants from countries in the Caribbean. Hip hop music in its infancy has been described as an outlet and a voice for the disenfranchised youth of marginalized backgrounds and low-income areas, as the hip hop culture reflected the social, economic and political realities of their lives. Many of the people who helped establish hip hop culture, including DJ Kool Herc, DJ Disco Wiz, Grandmaster Flash, and Afrika Bambaataa were of Latin American or Caribbean origin.


title: Hip hop music

text: It is hard to pinpoint the exact musical influences that most affected the sound and culture of early hip hop because of the multicultural nature of New York City. Hip hop's early pioneers were influenced by a mix of cultures due to the diversity of New York City. New York City experienced a heavy Jamaican hip hop influence during the 1990s. This influence was brought on by cultural shifts particularly because of the heightened immigration of Jamaicans to New York City and the American-born Jamaican youth who were coming of age during the 1990s.


title: Hip hop music

text: In the 1970s, block parties were increasingly popular in New York City, particularly among African American, Caribbean and Latino youth residing in the Bronx. Block parties incorporated DJs, who played popular genres of music, especially funk and soul music. Due to the positive reception, DJs began isolating the percussive breaks of popular songs. This technique was common in Jamaican dub music, and was largely introduced into New York by immigrants from the Caribbean, including DJ Kool Herc, one of the pioneers of hip hop. To be clear, Herc has repeatedly denied there being any direct connections between Jamaican musical traditions and early hip hop, stating that his own biggest influence was James Brown, from whom he says rap originated. Even before moving to the U.S., Herc says his biggest influences came from American music:


title: Hip hop music

text: I was listening to American music in Jamaica and my favorite artist was James Brown. That's who inspired me. A lot of the records I played were by James Brown.


title: Hip hop music

text: Herc also says that he was not influenced by Jamaican sound system parties, as he was too young to experience them when he was in Jamaica.


title: Hip hop music

text: Because the percussive breaks in funk, soul and disco records were generally short, Herc and other DJs began using two turntables to extend the breaks. On August 11, 1973, DJ Kool Herc was the DJ at his sister's back-to-school party. He extended the beat of a record by using two record players, isolating the percussion "breaks" by using a mixer to switch between the two records. Herc's experiments with making music with record players became what we now know as breaking or "scratching".


title: Hip hop music

text: A second key musical element in hip hop music is emceeing (also called MCing or rapping). Emceeing is the rhythmic spoken delivery of rhymes and wordplay, delivered at first without accompaniment and later done over a beat. This spoken style was influenced by the African American style of "capping", a performance where men tried to outdo each other in originality of their language and tried to gain the favor of the listeners. The basic elements of hip hop—boasting raps, rival "posses" (groups), uptown "throw-downs", and political and social commentary—were all long present in African American music. MCing and rapping performers moved back and forth between the predominance of songs packed with a mix of boasting, 'slackness' and sexual innuendo and a more topical, political, socially conscious style. The role of the MC originally was as a Master of Ceremonies for a DJ dance event. The MC would introduce the DJ and try to pump up the audience. The MC spoke between the DJ's songs, urging everyone to get up and dance. MCs would also tell jokes and use their energetic language and enthusiasm to rev up the crowd. Eventually, this introducing role developed into longer sessions of spoken, rhythmic wordplay, and rhyming, which became rapping.


title: Hip hop music

text: By 1979 hip hop music had become a mainstream genre. It spread across the world in the 1990s with controversial "gangsta" rap. Herc also developed upon break-beat deejaying, where the breaks of funk songs—the part most suited to dance, usually percussion-based—were isolated and repeated for the purpose of all-night dance parties. This form of music playback, using hard funk and rock, formed the basis of hip hop music. Campbell's announcements and exhortations to dancers would lead to the syncopated, rhymed spoken accompaniment now known as rapping. He dubbed his dancers "break-boys" and "break-girls", or simply b-boys and b-girls. According to Herc, "breaking" was also street slang for "getting excited" and "acting energetically".


title: Hip hop music

text: DJs such as Grand Wizzard Theodore, Grandmaster Flash, and Jazzy Jay refined and developed the use of breakbeats, including cutting and scratching. As turntable manipulation continued to evolve a new technique that came from it was needle dropping. Needle dropping was created by Grandmaster Flash, it is prolonged short drum breaks by playing two copies of a record simultaneously and moving the needle on one turntable back to the start of the break while the other played. The approach used by Herc was soon widely copied, and by the late 1970s, DJs were releasing 12-inch records where they would rap to the beat. Popular tunes included Kurtis Blow's "The Breaks" and the Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight". Herc and other DJs would connect their equipment to power lines and perform at venues such as public basketball courts and at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, Bronx, New York, now officially a historic building. The equipment consisted of numerous speakers, turntables, and one or more microphones. By using this technique, DJs could create a variety of music, but according to "Rap Attack" by David Toop "At its worst the technique could turn the night into one endless and inevitably boring song". KC the Prince of Soul, a rapper-lyricist with Pete DJ Jones, is often credited with being the first rap lyricist to call himself an "MC".


title: Hip hop music

text: Street gangs were prevalent in the poverty of the South Bronx, and much of the graffiti, rapping, and b-boying at these parties were all artistic variations on the competition and one-upmanship of street gangs. Sensing that gang members' often violent urges could be turned into creative ones, Afrika Bambaataa founded the Zulu Nation, a loose confederation of street-dance crews, graffiti artists, and rap musicians. By the late 1970s, the culture had gained media attention, with "Billboard" magazine printing an article titled "B Beats Bombarding Bronx", commenting on the local phenomenon and mentioning influential figures such as Kool Herc. The New York City blackout of 1977 saw widespread looting, arson, and other citywide disorders especially in the Bronx where a number of looters stole DJ equipment from electronics stores. As a result, the hip hop genre, barely known outside of the Bronx at the time, grew at an astounding rate from 1977 onward.


title: Hip hop music

text: DJ Kool Herc's house parties gained popularity and later moved to outdoor venues to accommodate more people. Hosted in parks, these outdoor parties became a means of expression and an outlet for teenagers, where "instead of getting into trouble on the streets, teens now had a place to expend their pent-up energy." Tony Tone, a member of the Cold Crush Brothers, stated that "hip hop saved a lot of lives". For inner-city youth, participating in hip hop culture became a way of dealing with the hardships of life as minorities within America, and an outlet to deal with the risk of violence and the rise of gang culture. MC Kid Lucky mentions that "people used to break-dance against each other instead of fighting". Inspired by DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa created a street organization called Universal Zulu Nation, centered around hip hop, as a means to draw teenagers out of gang life, drugs and violence.


title: Hip hop music

text: The lyrical content of many early rap groups focused on social issues, most notably in the seminal track "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, which discussed the realities of life in the housing projects. "Young black Americans coming out of the civil rights movement have used hip hop culture in the 1980s and 1990s to show the limitations of the Hip Hop Movement." Hip hop gave young African Americans a voice to let their issues be heard; "Like rock-and-roll, hip hop is vigorously opposed by conservatives because it romanticises violence, law-breaking, and gangs". It also gave people a chance for financial gain by "reducing the rest of the world to consumers of its social concerns."


title: Hip hop music

text: In late 1979, Debbie Harry of Blondie took Nile Rodgers of Chic to such an event, as the main backing track used was the break from Chic's "Good Times". The new style influenced Harry, and Blondie's later hit single from 1981 "Rapture" became the first single containing hip hop elements to hit number one on the U.S. "Billboard" Hot 100—the song itself is usually considered new wave and fuses heavy pop music elements, but there is an extended rap by Harry near the end.


title: Hip hop music

text: Boxer Muhammad Ali, as an influential African American celebrity, was widely covered in the media. Ali influenced several elements of hip hop music. Both in the boxing ring and in media interviews, Ali became known in the 1960s for being "rhyming trickster". Ali used a "funky delivery" for his comments, which included "boasts, comical trash talk, [and] the endless quotabl[e]" lines. According to "Rolling Stone", his "freestyle skills" (a reference to a type of vocal improvisation in which lyrics are recited with no particular subject or structure) and his "rhymes, flow, and braggadocio" would "one day become typical of old school MCs" like Run–D.M.C. and LL Cool J, the latter citing Ali as an influence. Hip hop music in its infancy has been described as an outlet and a "voice" for the disenfranchised youth of low-income and marginalized economic areas, as the hip hop culture reflected the social, economic and political realities of their lives.


title: Hip hop music

text: Hip hop's early evolution occurred around the time that sampling technology and drum-machines became widely available to the general public at a cost that was affordable to the average consumer—not just professional studios. Drum-machines and samplers were combined in machines that came to be known as MPC's or 'Music Production Centers', early examples of which would include the Linn 9000. The first sampler that was broadly adopted to create this new kind of music was the Mellotron used in combination with the TR-808 drum machine. Mellotrons and Linn's were succeeded by the AKAI, in the late 1980s.


title: Hip hop music

text: Turntablist techniques – such as rhythmic "scratching" (pushing a record back and forth while the needle is in the groove to create new sounds and sound effects, an approach attributed to Grand Wizzard Theodore), beat mixing and/or beatmatching, and beat juggling – eventually developed along with the percussion breaks, creating a musical accompaniment or base that could be rapped over in a manner similar to signifying.


title: Hip hop music

text: Rapping, also referred to as MCing or emceeing, is a vocal style in which the artist speaks lyrically and rhythmically, in rhyme and verse, generally to an instrumental or synthesized beat. Beats, almost always in 4/4 time signature, can be created by sampling and/or sequencing portions of other songs by a producer. They also incorporate synthesizers, drum machines, and live bands. Rappers may write, memorize, or improvise their lyrics and perform their works a cappella or to a beat. Hip hop music predates the introduction of rapping into hip hop culture, and rap vocals are absent from many hip hop tracks, such as "Hip Hop, Be Bop (Don't Stop)" by Man Parrish; "Chinese Arithmetic" by Eric B. & Rakim; "Al-Naafiysh (The Soul)" and "We're Rocking the Planet" by Hashim; and "Destination Earth" by Newcleus. However, the majority of the genre has been accompanied by rap vocals, such as the Sci-fi influenced electro hip hop group Warp 9. Female rappers appeared on the scene in the late 1970s and early 80s, including Bronx artist MC Sha-Rock, member of the Funky Four Plus One, credited with being the first female MC and the Sequence, a hip hop trio signed to Sugar Hill Records, the first all female group to release a rap record, Funk You Up.


title: Hip hop music

text: The roots of rapping are found in African American music and bear similarities to traditional African music, particularly that of the griots of West African culture. The African American traditions of signifyin', the dozens, and jazz poetry all influence hip hop music, as well as the call and response patterns of African and African American religious ceremonies. Early popular radio disc jockeys of the Black-appeal radio period broke into broadcast announcing by using these techniques under the "jive" talk of the post WWII swing era in the late 1940s and the 1950s. DJ Nat D. was the M.C. at one of the most pitiless places for any aspiring musician trying to break into show business, Amateur Night at the Palace theatre on Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee. There he was master of ceremonies from 1935 until 1947 along with his sideman, D.J.Rufus Thomas. It was there he perfected the dozens, signifyin' and the personality jock jive patter that would become his schtick when he became the first black radio announcer on the air south of the Mason–Dixon line. Jive popularized black appeal radio, it was the language of the black youth, the double entendres and slightly obscene wordplay was a godsend to radio, re-invigorating ratings at flagging outlets that were losing audience share and flipping to the new format of R&B with black announcers. The 10% of African Americans who heard his broadcasts found that the music he promoted on radio in 1949 was also in the jukeboxes up north in the cities. They were also finding other D.J's like Chicago's Al Benson on WJJD, Austin's Doctor Hep Cat on KVET and Atlanta's Jockey Jack on WERD speaking the same rhyming, cadence laden rap style. Once the white owned stations realized the new upstarts were grabbing their black market share and that Big Band and swing jazz was no longer 'hip', some white D.J's emulated the southern 'mushmouth' and jive talk, letting their audience think they too were African American, playing the blues and Be-Bop. John R Richbourg had a southern drawl that listeners to Nashville's WLAC nighttime R&B programming were never informed belonged not to a black D.J., as were other white D.J's at the station. Dr. Hep Cat's rhymes were published in a dictionary of jive talk, "The Jives of Dr. Hepcat", in 1953. Jockey jack is the infamous "Jack the Rapper" of Family Affair fame, after his radio convention that was a must attend for every rap artist in the 1980s and 1990s These jive talking rappers of the 1950s black appeal radio format were the source and inspiration of Soul singer James Brown, and musical 'comedy' acts such as Rudy Ray Moore, Pigmeat Markham and Blowfly that are often considered "godfathers" of hip hop music. Within New York City, performances of spoken-word poetry and music by artists such as the Last Poets, Gil Scott-Heron and Jalal Mansur Nuriddin had a significant impact on the post-civil rights era culture of the 1960s and '1970s, and thus the social environment in which hip hop music was created.


title: Hip hop music

text: AM radio at many stations were limited by the 'broadcast Day' as special licenses were required to transmit at night. Those that had such licenses were heard far out to sea and in the Caribbean, where Jocko Henderson and Jockey Jack were American DJs who were listened to at night from broadcast transmitters located in Miami, Florida. Jocko came to have an outsized influence on Jamaican Emcees during the '50s as the R&B music played on the Miami stations was different from that played on JBC, which re-broadcast BBC and local music styles. In Jamaica, DJs would set up large roadside sound systems in towns and villages, playing music for informal gatherings, mostly folks who wandered down from country hills looking for excitement at the end of the week. There the DJs would allow 'Toasts' by an Emcee, which copied the style of the American DJs listened to on AM transistor radios. It was by this method that Jive talk, rapping and rhyming was transposed to the island and locally the style was transformed by 'Jamaican lyricism', or the local patois.


title: Hip hop music

text: Hip hop as music and culture formed during the 1970s in New York City from the multicultural exchange between African American youth from the United States and young immigrants and children of immigrants from countries in the Caribbean. Some were influenced by the vocal style of the earliest African American radio MCs (including Jocko Henderson's "Rocket Ship Show" of the 1950s, which rhymed and was influenced by scat singing), which could be heard over the radio in Jamaica.


title: Hip hop music

text: The first records by Jamaican DJs, including Sir Lord Comic ("The Great Wuga Wuga", 1967) came as part of the local dance hall culture, which featured 'specials,' unique mixes or 'versions' pressed on soft discs or acetate discs, and rappers (called DJs) such as King Stitt, Count Machuki, U-Roy, I-Roy, Big Youth and many others. Recordings of talk-over, which is a different style from the dancehall's DJ style, were also made by Jamaican artists such as Prince Buster and Lee "Scratch" Perry ("Judge Dread") as early as 1967, somehow rooted in the 'talking blues' tradition. The first full-length Jamaican DJ record was a duet on a Rastafarian topic by Kingston ghetto dwellers U-Roy and Peter Tosh named "Righteous Ruler" (produced by Lee "Scratch" Perry in 1969). The first DJ hit record was "Fire Corner" by Coxsone's Downbeat sound system DJ, King Stitt that same year; 1970 saw a multitude of DJ hit records in the wake of U-Roy's early, massive hits, most famously "Wake the Town" and many others. As the tradition of remix (which also started in Jamaica where it was called 'version' and 'dub') developed, established young Jamaican DJ/rappers from that period, who had already been working for sound systems for years, were suddenly recorded and had many local hit records, widely contributing to the reggae craze triggered by Bob Marley's impact in the 1970s. The main Jamaican DJs of the early 1970s were King Stitt, "Samuel the First", Count Machuki, Johnny Lover (who 'versioned' songs by Bob Marley and the Wailers as early as 1971), Dave Barker, Scotty, Lloyd Young, Charlie Ace and others, as well as soon-to-be reggae stars U-Roy, Dennis Alcapone, I-Roy, Prince Jazzbo, Prince Far I, Big Youth and Dillinger. Dillinger scored the first international rap hit record with "Cocaine in my Brain" in 1976 (based on the "Do It Any Way You Wanna Do" rhythm by the People's Choice as re-recorded by Sly and Robbie), where he even used a New York accent, consciously aiming at the new NYC rap market. The Jamaican DJ dance music was deeply rooted in the sound system tradition that made music available to poor people in a very poor country where live music was only played in clubs and hotels patronized by the middle and upper classes. By 1973 Jamaican sound system enthusiast DJ Kool Herc moved to the Bronx, taking with him Jamaica's sound system culture, and teamed up with another Jamaican, Coke La Rock, at the mike. Although other influences, most notably musical sequencer Grandmaster Flowers of Brooklyn and Grandwizard Theodore of the Bronx contributed to the birth of hip hop in New York, and although it was downplayed in most US books about hip hop, the main root of this sound system culture was Jamaican. The roots of rap in Jamaica are explained in detail in Bruno Blum's book, 'Le Rap'.


title: Hip hop music

text: DJ Kool Herc and Coke La Rock provided an influence on the vocal style of rapping by delivering simple poetry verses over funk music breaks, after party-goers showed little interest in their previous attempts to integrate reggae-infused toasting into musical sets. DJs and MCs would often add call and response chants, often consisting of a basic chorus, to allow the performer to gather his thoughts (e.g. "one, two, three, y'all, to the beat"). Later, the MCs grew more varied in their vocal and rhythmic delivery, incorporating brief rhymes, often with a sexual or scatological theme, in an effort to differentiate themselves and to entertain the audience. These early raps incorporated the dozens, a product of African American culture. Kool Herc & the Herculoids were the first hip hop group to gain recognition in New York, but the number of MC teams increased over time.


title: Hip hop music

text: Often these were collaborations between former gangs, such as Afrikaa Bambaataa's Universal Zulu Nation—now an international organization. Melle Mel, a rapper with the Furious Five is often credited with being the first rap lyricist to call himself an "MC". During the early 1970s B-boying arose during block parties, as b-boys and b-girls got in front of the audience to dance in a distinctive and frenetic style. The style was documented for release to a worldwide audience for the first time in documentaries and movies such as "Style Wars", "Wild Style", and "Beat Street". The term "B-boy" was coined by DJ Kool Herc to describe the people who would wait for the break section of the song, showing off athleticism, spinning on the stage to 'break-dance' in the distinctive, frenetic style.


title: Hip hop music

text: Although there were some early MCs that recorded solo projects of note, such as DJ Hollywood, Kurtis Blow, and Spoonie Gee, the frequency of solo artists did not increase until later with the rise of soloists with stage presence and drama, such as LL Cool J. Most early hip hop was dominated by groups where collaboration between the members was integral to the show. An example would be the early hip hop group Funky Four Plus One, who performed in such a manner on "Saturday Night Live" in 1981.


title: Hip hop music

text: The earliest hip hop music was performed live, at house parties and block party events, and it was not recorded. Prior to 1979, recorded hip hop music consisted mainly of PA system soundboard recordings of live party shows and early hip hop mixtapes by DJs. Puerto Rican DJ Disco Wiz is credited as the first hip hop DJ to create a "mixed plate," or mixed dub recording, when, in 1977, he combined sound bites, special effects and paused beats to technically produce a sound recording. The first hip hop record is widely regarded to be the Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight", from 1979. It was the first hip hop record to gain widespread popularity in the mainstream and was where hip hop music got its name from (from the opening bar). However, much controversy surrounds this assertion as some regard the March 1979 single "King Tim III (Personality Jock)" by the Fatback Band, as a rap record. There are various other claimants for the title of first hip hop record.


title: Hip hop music

text: By the early 1980s, all the major elements and techniques of the hip hop genre were in place, and by 1982, the electronic (electro) sound had become the trend on the street and in dance clubs. New York City radio station WKTU featured Warp 9's "Nunk," in a commercial to promote the station's signature sound of emerging hip hop Though not yet mainstream, hip hop had begun to permeate the music scene outside of New York City; it could be found in cities as diverse as Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Dallas, Kansas City, San Antonio, Miami, Seattle, St. Louis, New Orleans, Houston, and Toronto. Indeed, "Funk You Up" (1979), the first hip hop record released by a female group, and the second single released by Sugar Hill Records, was performed by the Sequence, a group from Columbia, South Carolina which featured Angie Stone. Despite the genre's growing popularity, Philadelphia was, for many years, the only city whose contributions could be compared to New York City's. Hip hop music became popular in Philadelphia in the late 1970s. The first released record was titled "Rhythm Talk", by Jocko Henderson.


title: Hip hop music

text: "The New York Times" had dubbed Philadelphia the "Graffiti Capital of the World" in 1971. Philadelphia native DJ Lady B recorded "To the Beat Y'All" in 1979, and became the first female solo hip hop artist to record music. Schoolly D, starting in 1984 and also from Philadelphia, began creating a style that would later be known as gangsta rap.


title: Hip hop music

text: Hip hop music was influenced by disco music, as disco also emphasized the key role of the DJ in creating tracks and mixes for dancers, and old school hip hop often used disco tracks as beats. At the same time however, hip hop music was also a backlash against certain subgenres of late 1970s disco. While the early disco was African American and Italian-American-created underground music developed by DJs and producers for the dance club subculture, by the late 1970s, disco airwaves were dominated by mainstream, expensively recorded music industry-produced disco songs. According to Kurtis Blow, the early days of hip hop were characterized by divisions between fans and detractors of disco music. Hip hop had largely emerged as "a direct response to the watered down, Europeanised, disco music that permeated the airwaves". The earliest hip hop was mainly based on hard funk loops sourced from vintage funk records. However, by 1979, disco instrumental loops/tracks had become the basis of much hip hop music. This genre was called "disco rap". Ironically, the rise of hip hop music also played a role in the eventual decline in disco's popularity.


title: Hip hop music

text: The disco sound had a strong influence on early hip hop music. Most of the early rap/hip-hop songs were created by isolating existing disco bass-guitar bass lines and dubbing over them with MC rhymes. the Sugarhill Gang used Chic's "Good Times" as the foundation for their 1979 hit "Rapper's Delight", generally considered to be the song that first popularized rap music in the United States and around the world. In 1982, Afrika Bambaataa released the single "Planet Rock", which incorporated electronica elements from Kraftwerk's "Trans-Europe Express" and "Numbers" as well as YMO's "Riot in Lagos". The Planet Rock sound also spawned a hip-hop electronic dance trend, electro music, which included songs such as Planet Patrol's "Play at Your Own Risk" (1982), C Bank's "One More Shot" (1982), Cerrone's "Club Underworld" (1984), Shannon's "Let the Music Play" (1983), Freeez's "I.O.U." (1983), Midnight Star's "Freak-a-Zoid" (1983), Chaka Khan's "I Feel For You" (1984).


title: Hip hop music

text: DJ Pete Jones, Eddie Cheeba, DJ Hollywood, and Love Bug Starski were disco-influenced hip hop DJs. Their styles differed from other hip hop musicians who focused on rapid-fire rhymes and more complex rhythmic schemes. Afrika Bambaataa, Paul Winley, Grandmaster Flash, and Bobby Robinson were all members of third s latter group. In Washington, D.C. go-go emerged as a reaction against disco and eventually incorporated characteristics of hip hop during the early 1980s. The DJ-based genre of electronic music behaved similarly, eventually evolving into underground styles known as house music in Chicago and techno in Detroit.


title: Hip hop music

text: The 1980s marked the diversification of hip hop as the genre developed more complex styles. New York City became a veritable laboratory for the creation of new hip hop sounds. Early examples of the diversification process can be heard in tracks such as Grandmaster Flash's "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel" (1981), a single consisting entirely of sampled tracks as well as Afrika Bambaataa's "Planet Rock" (1982), and Warp 9's "Nunk," (1982) which signified the fusion of hip hop music with electro. In addition, Rammellzee & K-Rob's "Beat Bop" (1983) was a 'slow jam' which had a dub influence with its use of reverb and echo as texture and playful sound effects. "Light Years Away," by Warp 9 (1983), (produced and written by Lotti Golden and Richard Scher) described as a "cornerstone of early 80s beatbox afrofuturism," by the UK paper, "The Guardian", introduced social commentary from a sci-fi perspective. In the 1970s, hip hop music typically used samples from funk and later, from disco. The mid-1980s marked a paradigm shift in the development of hip hop, with the introduction of samples from rock music, as demonstrated in the albums "King of Rock" and "Licensed to Ill". Hip hop prior to this shift is characterized as old school hip hop.


title: Hip hop music

text: In 1980, the Roland Corporation launched the TR-808 Rhythm Composer. It was one of the earliest programmable drum machines, with which users could create their own rhythms rather than having to use preset patterns. Though it was a commercial failure, over the course of the decade the 808 attracted a cult following among underground musicians for its affordability on the used market, ease of use, and idiosyncratic sounds, particularly its deep, "booming" bass drum. It became a cornerstone of the emerging electronic, dance, and hip hop genres, popularized by early hits such as Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force's "Planet Rock". The 808 was eventually used on more hit records than any other drum machine; its popularity with hip hop in particular has made it one of the most influential inventions in popular music, comparable to the Fender Stratocaster's influence on rock.


title: Hip hop music

text: Over time sampling technology became more advanced. However, earlier producers such as Marley Marl used drum machines to construct their beats from small excerpts of other beats in synchronisation, in his case, triggering three Korg sampling-delay units through a Roland 808. Later, samplers such as the E-mu SP-1200 allowed not only more memory but more flexibility for creative production. This allowed the filtration and layering different hits, and with a possibility of re-sequencing them into a single piece. With the emergence of a new generation of samplers such as the AKAI S900 in the late 1980s, producers did not have to create complex, time-consuming tape loops. Public Enemy's first album was created with the help of large tape loops. The process of looping a break into a breakbeat now became more commonly done with a sampler, now doing the job which so far had been done manually by the DJs using turntables. In 1989, DJ Mark James, under the moniker "45 King", released "The 900 Number", a breakbeat track created by synchronizing samplers and vinyl records.


title: Hip hop music

text: The lyrical content and other instrumental accompaniment of hip hop developed as well. The early lyrical styles in the 1970, which tended to be boasts and clichéd chants, were replaced with metaphorical lyrics exploring a wider range of subjects. As well, the lyrics were performed over more complex, multi-layered instrumental accompaniment. Artists such as Melle Mel, Rakim, Chuck D, KRS-One and Warp 9 revolutionized hip hop by transforming it into a more mature art form, with sophisticated arrangements, often featuring "gorgeous textures and multiple layers" The influential single "The Message" (1982) by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five is widely considered to be the pioneering force for conscious rap.


title: Hip hop music

text: Independent record labels like Tommy Boy, Prism Records and Profile Records became successful in the early 1980s, releasing records at a furious pace in response to the demand generated by local radio stations and club DJs. Early 1980s electro music and rap were catalysts that sparked the hip hop movement, led by artists such as Cybotron, Hashim, Afrika Bambaataa, Planet Patrol, Newcleus and Warp 9. In the New York City recording scene, artists collaborated with producer/writers such as Arthur Baker, John Robie, Lotti Golden and Richard Scher, exchanging ideas that contributed to the development of hip hop. Some rappers eventually became mainstream pop performers. Kurtis Blow's appearance in a Sprite soda pop commercial marked the first hip hop musician to do a commercial for a major product. The 1981 songs "Rapture" by Blondie and "Christmas Wrapping" by the new wave band the Waitresses were among the first pop songs to use rap. In 1982, Afrika Bambaataa introduced hip hop to an international audience with "Planet Rock."


title: Hip hop music

text: Prior to the 1980s, hip hop music was largely confined within the context of the United States. However, during the 1980s, it began its spread and became a part of the music scene in dozens of countries. Greg Wilson was the first DJ to introduce electro hip hop to UK club audiences in the early 1980s, opting for the dub or instrumental versions of Nunk by Warp 9, Extra T's "ET Boogie," Hip Hop, Be Bop (Don't Stop) by Man Parrish, Planet Rock and Dirty Talk.


title: Hip hop music

text: In the early part of the decade, B-boying became the first aspect of hip hop culture to reach Japan, Australia and South Africa. In South Africa, the breakdance crew Black Noise established the practice before beginning to rap later in the decade. Musician and presenter Sidney became France's first black TV presenter with his show "H.I.P. H.O.P." which screened on TF1 during 1984, a first for the genre worldwide. Sidney is considered the father of French hip hop. Radio Nova helped launch other French hip hop stars including Dee Nasty, whose 1984 album "Paname City Rappin"' along with compilations Rapattitude 1 and 2 contributed to a general awareness of hip hop in France.