Scratch

As mainstream hip-hop succumbed to the worst excesses of both gangsta rap and music-biz hype, something interesting was happening in the late '80s/early '90s underground: Groups like the Bay Area's Invisibl Skratch Piklz and New York City's X-ecutioners were spearheading a return to the fundamentals of old-school hip-hop, looking back to a time before the ascendancy of the mic-wielding MC, when the real star of the show was the record-spinning DJ. Innovators such as DJ Kool Herc, who created the concept of the breakbeat by isolating and extending the instrumental break of a particular track, and Grandwizzard Theodore, who's credited with first using "scratching" as a...