You’re standing in a crowd amongst thousands of fans at an Eminem concert, people from all over, shoulder to shoulder in a massive stadium, singing along every word of their favorite song for hours. People from all over are connected to each other through the power of music. When it comes to music, the life experiences, inspiration, and current events play a tremendously significant role. Hip hop is a form of art which can be expressed through rap songs, break-dancing, and graffiti art. The culture has become so popular that it has entered today’s fashion and modern language. Hip hop music is an extremely large part of today’s generation and a global genre, which influences the generation all over the world. The culture has entered everywhere from TV commercials to toys, video games, and also fashion industry. “Hip hop has been America’s most wanted music, both with sales and as the target of censorship. With its simultaneous focus on invention and tradition, hip hop has survived sampling lawsuits, FBI boycotts, Supreme Court obscenity hearings, mix tape raids, parody of the culture, pop crossovers, and the threat of white rappers taking over the music” (Hess 4). The lifestyle, that people thought would be a passing fade, it has grown to become a permanent part of world culture. Some hip hop artists like Russell Simmons have become some of today hero’s. Many other artists such as 50 cent, Jay Z, Lil Wayne, Snoop Dogg are now recognized as successful hip-hop moguls. The hip hop culture started among the African Americans, Latinos of Bronx, and New York in the mid 1970s. It started in streets of New York as an underground movement, as young people sponsored parties on their blocks and clubs, to make money as disk jockeys and clu... ... middle of paper ... ...h | Black Issues in Higher Education | Find Articles at BNET." 22 Apr. 2004. Web. 17 July 2011. . Sahota, Mandy. Personal Interview. 15 July 2011. "The History Of Hip Hop pg 2." Insert Name of Site in Italics. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 July 2011 "Things Just Ain't the Same": Hip-Hop's Reconstruction of the Gangster Rap Identity." Hip-Hop Linguistics - Underground Hip-Hop | News, Reviews, Videos, FREE Hip-Hop. 30 Jan. 2005. Web. 13 July 2011. . Watkins, S. Craig. Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement. Boston: Beacon, 2005. Print. Willams, Joey. Personal interview. 16 July 2011
Hip-hop culture has been a global phenomenon for more than twenty years. When introduced into the American culture, the black culture felt that hip-hop had originated from the African American community. The black community was being denied their cultural rights by the supremacy of the white people, but hip-hop gave the community the encouragement to show their black pride and televise the struggles they were facing in the world. The failure and declining of the movements, the influential, rebellious, and powerful music is what reshaped Black Nationalism, unity and to signify the struggle. The African Americans who suffered from social and political problems found that they similar relations to the political movements, which allowed the blacks to be able to voice their opinions and to acknowledge their culture openly.
Since the early to mid 90’s, hip-hop has undergone changes that purists would consider degenerating to its culture. At the root of these changes is what has been called “commercial hip-hop". Commercial hip-hop has deteriorated what so many emcees in the 80’s tried to build- a culture of music, dance, creativity, and artistry that would give people not only something to bob their head to, but also an avenue to express themselves and deliver a positive message to their surroundings.
Hip hop originated from groups of Afro-Caribbean, and African Americans in Bronx. These musicians combined different kinds of music and used the traditions of their own culture to approach music. Hip hop in the beginning of its time was more of artis...
Hip hop was spurred in the late 70’s. The man credited as being the first rapper ever, DJ Afrika Bambataa, was the first to “talk” to his music. His unorthodox style quickly became very popular in the disco and funk clubs. For the lack of a better word,
Rhodes, Henry A. “The Evolution of Rap Music in the United States.” Yale New Haven
Negus, Keith. "The Business of Rap: Between the Street and the Executive Suite." Rpt. in That’s the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader. Ed. Murray Forman and Mark Anthony Neal. New York, NY: Routledge, 2004. 525-540. Print.
In today’s modern world, we are constantly watching what other cultures are doing. We inspire each other in the way we dress, the music we listen to, and the way we act. It is well known that hip hop is a culture in which people are constantly trying to replicate. This is evident from examining the globalization of hip hop. Hip Hop has become very popular among other countries aside from the United States. Today, people all over the world are using hip hop in their own creative way. Since hip hop has become a global experience, it is important to understand the ways in which people view it within society. To further examine the globalization of hip hop, part one of this paper explores how three authors describe global hip hop. The second part
As hip hop culture became prevalent in pop culture, so did black culture. Hip hop stems from black struggle. Their vernacular, songs, and spiritual ways were different from what whites were used to. Their different lifestyle of “living on the edge” was intriguing yet inaccessible for the whites living among them. Thus, this initiated America’s fascination with the culture. It became about what people assume and perceive about black people rather than what they actually are. In essence, an essential to cool is being on the outside, looking in. In the media and celebrities today,
Hip hop has multiple branches of style and is a culture of these. This essay will examine Hip Hop from the point of view of the following three popular music scholars, Johnson, Jeffries, and Smitherman. It will delve deeper into their understanding of what hip hop is and its relation to the different people that identify with its message and content. It will also identify the history of hip hop and its transition into popular music. In particular, this essay will focus on what hip hop represents in the black community and how it can be used as a social movement against inequalities faced by them.
Hip hop has permeated popular culture in an unprecedented fashion. Because of its crossover appeal, it is a great unifier of diverse populations. Although created by black youth on the streets, hip hop's influence has become well received by a number of different races in this country. A large number of the rap and hip hop audience is non-black. It has gone from the fringes, to the suburbs, and into the corporate boardrooms. Because it has become the fastest growing music genre in the U.S., companies and corporate giants have used its appeal to capitalize on it. Although critics of rap music and hip hop seem to be fixated on the messages of sex, violence, and harsh language, this genre offers a new paradigm of what can be (Lewis, 1998.) The potential of this art form to mend ethnic relations is substantial. Hip hop has challenged the system in ways that have unified individuals across a rich ethnic spectrum. This art form was once considered a fad has kept going strong for more than three decades. Generations consisting of Blacks, Whites, Latinos, and Asians have grown up immersed in hip-hop. Hip hop represents a realignment of America?s cultural aesthetics. Rap songs deliver a message, again and again, to keep it real. It has influenced young people of all races to search for excitement, artistic fulfillment, and a sense of identity by exploring the black underclass (Foreman, 2002). Though it is music, many people do not realize that it is much more than that. Hip hop is a form of art and culture, style, and language, and extension of commerce, and for many, a natural means of living. The purpose of this paper is to examine hip hop and its effect on American culture. Different aspects of hip hop will also be examined to shed some light that helps readers to what hip hop actually is. In order to see hip hop as a cultural influence we need to take a look at its history.
Hip Hop, a major influence on the young generation today, has encouraged bad behavior and violence through its corrupt messages and suggestive lyrics. Hip-hop is believed to have begun on 11th August 1973 by Dj Kool Herc as he was entertaining at the back- to- school party of his sister and decided to try something new (Birthplace of Hip Hop , 2017). In that case, he extended the instrumental beat making the people dance longer in the breakdance style. He then began rapping during the extended instrumental scratching. This happened at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, Bronx, New York. This kind of music resulted in an entire cultural movement which altered the generational thinking from language to art to race to politics. The Cultural Revolution gave the music the freedom to express any element of culture which has created loopholes for entertaining violence and bad language.
Hip Hop’s according to James McBride article “Hip Hop Planet” is a singular and different form of music that brings with it a message that only those who pay close attention to it understand it. Many who dislike this form of music would state that it is one “without melody, sensibility, instruments, verse, or harmony and doesn’t even seem to be music” (McBride, pg. 1). Though Hip Hop has proven why it deserves to be called music. In going into depth on its values and origins one understands why it is so popular among young people and why it has kept on evolving among the years instead of dying. Many of Hip Hop values that make it unique and different from other forms of music would be that it makes “visible the inner culture of Americas greatest social problem, its legacy of slavery, has taken the dream deferred to a global scale” (McBride, pg. 8). Hip Hop also “is a music that defies definition, yet defines our collective societies in immeasurable ways” (McBride, pg. 2). The
Black culture in our society has come to the point where it is allied with pop culture. The most popular music genres, slang terms, to dance forms it all comes from black culture. Hip hop emerged from black culture, becoming the soul of it that is seen in the media. Hip hop helped the black community by creating new ways of expressing themselves, from breakdance, graffiti, rap and other music, to slang. This culture was rooted in their tradition and created from something new. Hip hop created a new form of music that required the use of turn tables, ‘cuts’, loops, rhythm, rhyme, stories, and deep-rooted emotions, but also incorporated black oral forms of storytelling using communal authors.
From its conception in the 1970's and throughout the 1980's, hip hop was a self-contained entity within the community that created it. This means that all the parameters set for the expression came from within the community and that it was meant for consumption by the community. Today, the audience is from outside of the community and doesn’t share the same experiences that drive the music. An artists’ success hinges on pleasing consumers, not the community. In today's world, it isn’t about music that rings true for those who share the artists' experiences, but instead, music that provides a dramatic illusion for those who will never share the experiences conveyed. This has radically changed the creative process of artists and the diversity of available music. Most notably, it has called in to question the future of hip hop.
Hip-hop music is portrayed by an entertainer rapping over a track that regularly comprises of loops or specimens of other music woven together (Selke INT). Hip-hop originally appeared in the Bronx around the 1970s and steadily turned into the predominant mainstream music structure by the 1990s, representing a multi-billion dollar industry today (Selke INT). Hip-hop music can additionally have some positive impacts. For example, its verbal imagination can motivate audience members to play with dialect, and acknowledge musicality and rhyme (Selke INT). Just like poetry, hip-hop can be a way of expressing oneself.