Today's 'Google Doodle' celebrates the birth of hip-hop

Today's Google Doodle celebrates the 44th anniversary of a day that is widely credited as "the birth of hip-hop". It's the day DJ Kool Herc invented "The Break", a style that laid the foundation for the genre going forward.

On this day in 1973, Kool Herc was DJ and MC for a Bronx party.

Herc used two turntables— music journalist Steven Ivory says it was James Brown's Sex Machine— to create a longer instrumental break in the music. People had more time to dance, and "break dancing" earned its name. Kool Herc also added rhymes over the music, and a movement began.

The interactive Doodle lets users spin their own turntables and mix samples from songs of the era.

In a blog Google said they consulted with Fab 5 Freddy, who narrates the Doodle. Cey Adams, founding creative director of Def Jams records provided the animation's artwork.