Entry · catalog no. 9210
breakbeat
/ /ˈbɹeɪk ˌbiːt/ /BRAKE-beet
noun · The Bronx, New York (1973) · 1970s
✓ Verified
1.
The section of a record where the melody drops out and the drums and percussion carry it, isolated and extended by a DJ using two turntables.
“He waited for the breakbeat, and the whole floor dropped.”
2.
A style of dance music built on such loops.
“The set was pure breakbeat.”
Origin & Attribution
DJ Kool Herc, born Clive Campbell in Kingston, Jamaica and raised in the Bronx, developed the technique at parties in the early 1970s. At the back-to-school party his sister Cindy Campbell organised on 11 August 1973 in the rec room at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, he used two turntables to switch between the 'breaks' of records, a method he called the Merry-Go-Round. Dancers who waited for those sections became known as b-boys and b-girls. No recording of the 1973 party exists. The technique became the base of hip-hop DJing and sampling.
1973
Kool Herc plays the 'Merry-Go-Round' at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
The Bronx, New York (1973) · 1970s
Spoken by
Bronx DJs and b-boys, then hip-hop and dance-music producers
$BREAKBThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady53 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
55/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1973
in the culture
Recorded here
2026
point of first record
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
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Atlanta, GA
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Memphis, TN
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Citations & Sources
■
Rolling Stone, 'Kool Herc and the History (and Mystery) of Hip-Hop's First Day' (2023)
web
■
+ Cite a sourceJeff Chang, Can't Stop Won't Stop (2005)
book
See also