Essay On Hip Hop As A Subculture

In today’s world, music is played just about everywhere around the world. There is not many days that go by that you don’t hear some type of music. Those music’s can be broken down into their own sub categories and with that they can become into a subculture that people belong to or just claim to be a part of. To explain it more a subculture is defined as a cultural group within a culture, that often has beliefs or interest that is apart from those of the main culture itself. Subcultures are often made so that those who are actively participating within them can be set apart from those of other groups. They feel the need to establish their own ideas, traditions, languages, and criteria to form something that is their own and that makes them different from anything else. That can also cause for conclusions to be made up in the form of stereotypes that can sometimes be

So I decide to look deeper into the language of the subculture. What I found was a language that was so divergent to anything else I have heard before. The language of hip hop was almost backwards from the English language. I found that words were interchangeable with other words, for the soul purpose of making them mean other things. For example the word dope could actually mean something cool or awesome, but in the literal sense the word dope actually refers to drugs (Baldwin, James). When first researching this I wasn’t surprised at all because I too use this form of language amongst my friends. I also found that within hip hop culture, people do have the tendency to use explicit language as well, for instance the use of the “F” word is very common but not with everyone in the subculture. The style of rapping is different with each individual and is looked at as something that identifies you in the