The Connotation Of Hip Hop In Our Society

The connotation of “Hip-Hop” has changed drastically over the years. When people hear it nowadays, the first thing that comes to their head is rapping, profanity, drugs, violence, dancing, etc. Except, you cannot argue that it’s all those things, not when it originated anyways. Hip-Hop is a culture, a culture whose beauty has been forgotten by our world today. When hip hop originated, it was defined as "a set of expressions in vocalization, instrumentation, dancing and the visual arts."(Herc) In more detail, hip hop is made up of the elements graffiti, break dancing, djing and mcing (now called rapping). Hip hop creates a lifestyle with its own music form, language, and way of dressing. Most importantly, hip hop establishes a mindset that 's

In the past few decades, as Hip hop culture as evolved, it has started having lots of influence in our society. Major artists now days can control their audiences to some extent and some people argue that this is leading to higher crime and violence rates. However, it is important to acknowledge how hip hop is benefiting our society. Songs have much deeper lyrical meanings than people realize, it’s not all drugs, crime, and violence. Hip Hop connects our youth and gives them a sense of belonging and opens many doors for them in today’s society. The good definitely outweighs the bad.

To understand the changes that Hip Hop culture has overcome and how it functions in our society, it is important to understand the origin and background of Hip Hop. A key man who is given much credit is DJ Kool Herc, who with the help of a few other people, gave life to the Hip-Hop culture in the south Bronx. In 1965, Herc relocated from Jamaica to an area in New York known as the Western Bronx. Herc 's original style incorporated a lot of Jamaican style, but hadn’t yet been introduced to much reggae. Later, he

In the 1970 's, this form of dance was started in the Bronx. Any song that people listen to today can be stripped down to a simple pattern that is repeating, this is what gives rhythm. DJ’s repeated these patterns over and over and then a beat emerged that could be danced to. This is known as a breakbeat (nowadays it is becoming another genre of music). “Break dancing” gets its name from this very concept; the breakbeat gives dancers a steady rhythm to move to. Unlike any other dance performance that is done on a street, break dancing is quite different. Break dancing is a way to express your character by performing various types of moves. This type of dance was not done solo when it originated but it has evolved as more people have gained interest in it. Typically, a first dancer would made a move by performing a segment of their dance, the next dancer would comprehend that move and reply to it in a creative manner. Just like graffiti, this type of dance was very unique to everyone to participated in it. When break dancing originated, the aim was to be quick and determined. The first ones who started participating in this form of dance were the youth and people in street gangs. It became more widespread later but the kids and people within their gangs used this form to “battle” each other. This dancing acted as a substitute for physical violence back in the 1970s. Nowadays, we know these by the name