The boombox wasn’t invented by one person, but rather, it built on earlier innovation in audio technology, according to Outdoor Speakers. The first version of the machine, called the “Radiorecorder,” was produced in the Netherlands by the Philips Audio Company, in 1966. This proto-boombox was developed for users to record music directly from the radio onto a cassette tape. It also contained portable speakers for playback, and operated on batteries rather than an electrical cord. It wasn’t until almost a decade later that boomboxes were introduced to America.
However, it was actually in Japan where boomboxes first took off. The country was undergoing a demographic shift at the time, with young people leaving their rural homes for a more urban lifestyle (per Outdoor Speakers). In the densely packed cities, the boombox afforded the Japanese youth an easy way to play music. It would be a few years later, in the late 1970s, when boomboxes started getting big in the States. And, in a major stroke of serendipity, these portable recording devices would help capture and spread a new sound that was emerging in urban America: The sound that would come to be known as hip-hop.
