Jamaican Deejays, American Rappers & The Myth of Hip-Hop's Origins.

I was listening to Screaming Target, one of the landmark albums of Jamaican deejay music, for the first time in years. As I enjoyed it I thought about the cultural impact of the artist who recorded it. His name is Big Youth. He’s the man in the photo above.

After I was done listening to the album I reflected on some of these asymmetrical conversations on the internet about who did, and who did not, create hip-hop. There are Jamaicans who say that they made it by themselves. Then there are Foundational Black Americans who say the claim is ridiculous because they exclusively created it.