Hip Hop Music In The 1970's

1. We previously learned that Hip hop music was pioneered in New York's South Bronx in the early 1970’s. Young Jamaican immigrants brought their musical contributions and blended with those of the young African Americans and Puerto Ricans living in the low income neighborhoods of New York’s South Bronx. Hip Hop was created by teenagers who took advantage of accessible tools they had, and created a new form of music that would go on to shape the culture for local youths in the 1970s and youths all over the word just a few decades later. What began with kids rhyming and break dancing on street corners, had begun to evolve into something much bigger by the late 1970’s. The popularity of the genre was beginning to spread like wild fire, New York

By the early 1980’s several popular songs and films prompted a phase of Blaxploitation where several movies like Breakin were released. Despite some of the negative connotations, these films would only raise popularity and give hip hop an even broader platform to build from. Despite growth and popularity, Hip hop was still the urban youth’s music. The era was still plagued with violence and police brutality. Graffiti artists were persecuted and in the case of Michael Stewart, even killed (Chang,

Hip hop is very much a black male dominated industry. It tends to be homophobic, misogynistic, sexist and definitely hyper masculine. Interestingly this relates to this week’s topic of discussion on Trayvon Martin. Since the days of slavery, the black male has been deemed less than human, and naturally this has taken a toll on the black community and the black family. In more recent years hyper masculinity and over sexualized images have become more glamorized than ever, only increasing the prevalence within the music. Despite all the negative contexts we can attach to hip hop, it is important however to remember these are musicians and artists and that this persona is very much part of the performance (Clay,