Hip hop

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Breakdance, an early form of hip hop dance, often involves battles, showing off skills without any physical contact with the adversaries.
Breakdance, an early form of hip hop dance, often involves battles, showing off skills without any physical contact with the adversaries.

Hip hop is both a cultural movement and a genre of music developed in New York City in the 1970s primarily by African Americans. .[1]. Since first emerging in The Bronx and Harlem[2], the lifestyle of hip hop culture has today spread around the world.[3]

The four historic "elements" of hip hop are: MCing (rapping), DJing, urban inspired art/tagging (graffiti), and b-boying (or breakdancing). The most known "extended" elements are beatboxing, hip hop fashion, and hip hop slang.

When hip hop music developed in the 1970s, it was originally based around DJs who created rhythmic beats by "scratching" a record on one turntable while looping the break (an upbeat drum and rhythm phrase of a song often found in soul and funk music) of various records on another, which was later joined by the "rapping" (a rhythmic style of chanting) of MCs.

Contents

[edit] Etymology

The word "hip" was used as African American Vernacular English (AAVE) as early as 1904. The colloquial language meant "informed" or "current," and was likely derived from the earlier form hep. Hip hop pioneer and South Bronx community leader Afrika Bambaataa credits the first use of the term "Hip Hop," as it relates to the instant culture, to Lovebug Starski a Bronx DJ who put out a single called "The Positive Life" in 1981.[4]

Keith "Cowboy" Wiggins, a rapper with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five has been credited with the coining of the term hip hop in a musical sense as it is today. Though Lovebug Starski, Keith Cowboy, and DJ Hollywood used the term when the music was still known as disco rap, Cowboy claimed to have "created" the term while teasing a friend who had just joined the US Army, by scat singing the words "hip/hop/hip/hop" in a way that mimicked the rhythmic cadence of marching soldiers.[5] Cowboy later worked the "hip hop" cadence into a part of his stage performance, which was quickly copied by other artists; for example the opening of the song "Rapper's Delight" by The Sugarhill Gang.[5]

Bambaataa, a former Black Spades gang member, is credited with first using the term to describe the subculture that hip hop music belongs to, although it is also suggested that the term was originally used derisively against the new type of music. [6]

[edit] History

Main article: History of hip hop music

[edit] 1970s

[edit] DJs: rhythmic grooves from the turntable

In the early 1970s, Clive Campbell, a Jamaican born DJ who went by the name "Kool Herc," arrived in New York City. In Jamaica, Herc was known for his dancehall beats, a key component to the movement of music in NYC and the Bronx. This idea of dancehall had nothing to do with where the music was played, but more of a feeling of getting the people of Kingston, Jamaica to get on their feet and dance. This music, known as reggae, became a staple in the new music made in the Bronx. [7] Herc introduced the Jamaican tradition of toasting, or boasting impromptu poetry and sayings over Reggae, Disco and Funk records, during parties held in parks in the Bronx, New York.

Herc and other DJs would tap into the power lines at public basketball courts to connect their equipment and perform. Their equipment was composed of huge stacks of speakers, turntables, and one or more microphones.[8] Herc was also the developer of break-beat deejaying, where the breaks of funk songs—the part most suited to dance, usually percussion-based—were isolated and repeated for the purpose of all-night dance parties.

Later DJs such as Grandmaster Flash refined and developed the use of breakbeats, including cutting and scratching.[9] The Bronx building "where hip hop was born" is 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, where Kool Herc started spinning records,[10] and is now eligible to be listed on the national and state register of historic sites. The approach used by Herc was soon widely copied, and by the late 1970s DJs were releasing 12" records where they would rap to the beat. Popular tunes included Kurtis Blow's "The Breaks (song)", and The Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight."

[edit] Rapping and emceeing

Main article: Rapping

Emceeing is the rhythmic spoken delivery of rhymes and wordplay, delivered over a beat or without accompaniment. Rapping is derived from the griots (folk poets) of West Africa, and Caribbean-style toasting. Rap developed both inside and outside of hip hop culture, and began with the street parties thrown in the Bronx neighborhood of New York in the 1970s by Kool Herc and others. It originated as MCs would talk over the music to promote their DJ, promote other dance parties, take light-hearted jabs at other lyricists, or talk about problems in their areas and issues facing the community as a whole.

Melle Mel, a rapper/lyricist with The Furious Five is often credited with being the first rap lyricist to call himself an "MC".[11]

[edit] 1980s

Hip hop as a culture was further defined in 1983, when Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force released a track called "Planet Rock." Instead of simply rapping over disco beats, Bambaataa created an innovative electronic sound, taking advantage of the rapidly improving drum machine and synthesizer technology. The appearance of music videos changed entertainment: they often glorified urban neighborhoods.[12]. The music video for Planet Rock showcased the subculture of hip hop musicians, graffiti artists and breakdancers. Many hip hop-related films were released between 1983 and 1985, among them Wild Style, Beat Street, Krush Groove, Breakin, and the documentary Style Wars.

These films expanded the appeal of hip hop beyond the boundaries of New York. By 1985, youth worldwide were laying down scrap linoleum or cardboard, setting down portable "boombox" stereos and spinning on their backs in Adidas tracksuits and sneakers to music by Run DMC, LL Cool J, the Fat Boys, Herbie Hancock, EPMD, Soulsonic Force, Jazzy Jay, Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, and Stetsasonic, just to name a few. The hip hop artwork and "slang" of US urban communities quickly found its way to Europe and Asia, as the culture's global appeal took root.

The 1980s also saw many artists make social statements through hip hop. In 1982, Melle Mel and Duke Bootee recorded "The Message" (officially credited to Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five), a song that foreshadowed the socially conscious statements of Run-DMC's "It's like That" and Public Enemy's "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos."[13]

During the 1980s, hip hop also embraced the creation of rhythm by using the human body, via the vocal percussion technique of beatboxing. Early pioneers such as Doug E. Fresh, Biz Markie, and Buffy from the Fat Boys made beats, rhythm, and musical sounds using their mouth, lips, tongue, voice, and other body parts. "Human Beatbox" artists would also sing or imitate turntablism scratching or other instrument sounds.

[edit] Legacy and Social Impact

Main article: Hip hop culture

Early hip hop has often been credited with helping to reduce inner-city gang violence by replacing physical violence with dance and artwork battles. In the early 1970s, Kool DJ Herc began organizing dance parties in his home in the Bronx. The parties became popular and were moved to outdoor venues to accommodate for the amount of people attending. City teenagers, after years of gang violence, were looking for new ways to express themselves. [14] These outdoor parties, hosted in parks, became a means of expression and an outlet for teenagers, where “Instead of getting into trouble on the streets, teens now had a place to expend their pent-up energy.” [15]

Tony Tone, a member of the pioneering rap group the Cold Crush Brothers, noted that “Hip-hop saved a lot of lives.”[16] Hip hop culture became an outlet and a way of dealing with the hardships of life as minorities within America, and an outlet to deal with violence and gang culture. MC Kid Lucky mentions that “people used to break-dance against each other instead of fighting.”[17] Inspired by Kool DJ Herc, once-gang leader Afrika Bambaataa created a street organization called Universal Zulu Nation, centered around hip hop, as a means to draw teenagers out of gang life and violence.[18]

Hip-hop was not only centered around violence, drugs, and weapons like most people thought in the early days. Many people used hip-hop in positive ways. "Young black Americans coming out of the civil rights movement have used hip-hop culture in the 1980s and 1990s to show the limitations of the movement."[19] Hip-hop gave young black Americans a voice to let their issues be noticed. It also gave young blacks a chance for financial gain by "reducing the rest of the world to consumers of its social concerns."[20]

This shows that hip-hop's social impacts on the country have not been all negative. It has positively affected many youth and encouraged them to voice their opinions on world and personal issues. "Like rock-and-roll, hip hop is vigorously oppose by conservatives because it romanticises violence, law-breaking, and gangs" [21]. Both hip hop and rock-and-roll were musical movements use by teens in order to express how they felt about certain issues. "Last night at the Waldorf-Astoria, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, who proved that hip-hop was more than party music with their 1982 hit “The Message,” became the first hip-hop group to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame" [22] Now hip hop and rock-and-roll are used together in many ways including rewriting songs where a rapper or rock band play with the other.

With the emergence of commercial and crime-related rap during the early 1990s, however, an emphasis on violence was incorporated, with many rappers boasting about drugs, weapons, misogyny, and violence. While hip hop music now appeals to a broader demographic, media critics argue that socially and politically conscious hip hop has long been disregarded by mainstream America in favor of gangsta rap.[23]

Though created in the United States by African Americans and Latinos, hip hop culture and music is now global in scope. Youth culture and opinion is meted out in both Israeli hip hop and Palestinian hip hop, while France, Germany, the U.K., Brazil, Japan, Africa, and the Caribbean have long-established hip hop followings. According to the U.S. Department of State, hip hop is "now the center of a mega music and fashion industry around the world," that crosses social barriers and cuts across racial lines.[24] National Geographic recognizes hip hop as "the world's favorite youth culture" in which "just about every country on the planet seems to have developed its own local rap scene."[25] Through its international travels, hip hop is now acknowledged as a “global musical epidemic,”[26] and has diverged from its ethnic roots by way of globalization and localization.

Although some non-American rappers may still relate with young black Americans, hip hop now transcends its original culture, and is appealing because it is “custom-made to combat the anomie that preys on adolescents wherever nobody knows their name.”[27] Hip hop is attractive in its ability to give a voice to disenfranchised youth in any country, and as music with a message it is a form available to all societies worldwide.

Even in the face of growing global popularity, or perhaps because of it, hip hop has come under fire for being too commercial, too commodified, too much about money and bling-bling. Artist Nas said it himself in his 2006 album Hip Hop is Dead. While this of course stirs up controversy, a documentary called The Commodification of Hip Hop directed by Brooke Daniel interviews students at Satellite Academy in New York City. One girl talks about the epidemic of crime that she sees in urban black and Latino communities, relating it directly to the hip hop industry saying “When they can’t afford these kind of things, these things that celebrities have like jewelry and clothes and all that, they’ll go and sell drugs, some people will steal it…”[28] Many students see this as a negative side effect of the hip hop industry, and indeed, hip hop has been criticized all over the world for spreading crime, violence, and American ideals of consumerism.

In an article for Village Voice, Greg Tate argues that the commercialization of hip hop is a negative and pervasive phenomenon, writing that "what we call hiphop is now inseparable from what we call the hiphop industry, in which the nouveau riche and the super-rich employers get richer" [29]. Ironically, this commercialization coincides with a decline in rap sales and pressure from critics of the genre [30]. However, in his book In Search Of Africa, Manthia Diawara explains that hip hop is really a voice of people who are down and out in modern society. He argues that the “worldwide spread of hip-hop as a market revolution” is actually global "expression of poor people’s desire for the good life,” and that this struggle aligns with “the nationalist struggle for citizenship and belonging, but also reveals the need to go beyond such struggles and celebrate the redemption of the black individual through tradition.” [31]

This connection to "tradition" however, is something that may be lacking according to one Satellite Academy staff member who says that in all of the focus on materialism, the hip hop community is “not leaving anything for the next generation, we’re not building.”[32]

As the hip hop genre turns 30, a stronger analysis of the music’s impact has taken place. It has been viewed as a cultural sensation which changed the music industry around the world, but its commercialization has turned many to see the negative aspects of hip hop; the marriage of “New World African ingenuity and that trick of the devil known as global-hypercapitalism.” [33] Its transformation from a cultural expression into a value of money has turned it into a “mainstream that had once excluded its originators.” [34] While this has been seen to be true in many ways, hip hop has allowed for a shared common identity among its followers and originators. These different aspects of analyzing hip hop’s influence expose the dangers of popular music and mass production of cultural output.

[edit] Global impact

From its early spread to Europe and Japan to an almost worldwide acceptance through Asia and South American countries such as Brazil, the musical influence has been global. Hip hop sounds and styles differ from region to region, but there is also a lot of crossbreeding. In each separate hip hop scene there is also constant struggle between “old school” hip hop and more localized, newer sounds.[35] Regardless of where it is found, the music often targets local disaffected youth.[36]

Hip hop has given people a voice to express themselves, from the "Bronx to Beirut, Kazakhstan to Cali, Hokkaido to Harare, Hip Hop is the new sound of a disaffected global youth culture."[37] Though on the global scale there is a heavy influence from US culture, different cultures worldwide have transformed hip hop with their own traditions and beliefs. “Global Hip Hop succeeds best when it showcases...cultures that reside outside the main arteries of the African Diaspora.”[38] Not all countries have embraced hip hop, where, “as can be expected in countries with strong local culture, the interloping wildstyle of hip hop is not always welcomed.”[39]

As hip hop becomes globally-available, it is not a one-sided process that eradicates local cultures. Instead, global hip hop styles are often synthesized with local styles. Hartwig Vens argues that hip hop can also be viewed as a global learning experience. [40] Hip hop from countries outside the United States is often labelled "world music" for the American consumer. Author Jeff Chang argues that Èthe essence of hip-hop is the cipher, born in the Bronx, where competition and community feed each other."[41]

Hip-hop has impacted many different countries culturally and socially in positive ways. "Thousands of organizers from Cape Town to Paris use hip-hop in their communities to address environmental justice, policing and prisons, media justice, and education."[42] Also, "young people in places as disparate as Chile, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Norway use hip-hop to push their generation's views into the local conversation."[43]

While hip-hop music has been criticized as a music which creates a divide between western music and music from the rest of the world, a musical "cross pollination" has taken place, which strengthens the power of hip-hop to influence different communities. [44]Hip hop's impact as a "world music" is also due to its translatability among different cultures in the world. Hip hop's messages allow the under-privileged and the mistreated to be heard.[45] These cultural translations cross borders.[46] While the music may be from a foreign country, the message is something that many people can relate to- something not "foreign" at all.[47]

Even when hip-hop is transplanted to other countries, it often retains its "vital progressive agenda that challenges the status quo." [48] Global hip hop is the meeting ground for progressive local activism, as many organizers use hip-hop in their communities to address environmental injustice, policing and prisons, media justice, and education. In Gothenburg, Sweden, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) incorporate graffiti and dance to engage disaffected immigrant and working class youths. And indigenous young people in places as disparate as Chile, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Norway use hip-hop to push their generation's views into local conversation. [49]


[edit] See also

Hip hop Portal

[edit] Elements

[edit] Musical subgenres

[edit] References

  1. ^ The Resource - THE NEXT
  2. ^ New York Times, March 13, 1981 - "Rap...began in Harlem, the South Bronx and other black communities in the New York area". POP: THE SUGAR HILL GANG by Robert Palmer.
  3. ^ [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/arts/music/12rose.html A Rolling Shout-Out to Hip-Hop History.
  4. ^ Zulu Nation: History of Hip-Hop
  5. ^ a b Keith Cowboy - The Real Mc Coy
  6. ^ http://www.zulunation.com/hip_hop_history2.htm (cached)
  7. ^ Kenner, Rob. "Dancehall," In The Vibe History of Hip-hop, ed. Alan Light, 350-7. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999.
  8. ^ Kenner, Rob. "Dancehall," In The Vibe History of Hip-hop, ed. Alan Light, 350-7. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999.
  9. ^ History of Hip Hop - Written by Davey D
  10. ^ Tenants Might Buy the Birthplace of Hip-Hop, Jennifer 8. Lee, New York Times, January 15, 2008.
  11. ^ Article about MelleMel (Melle Mel) at AllHipHop.com
  12. ^ Rose, Tricia. "Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America" page 192. Wesleyan Press, 1994
  13. ^ Rose, Tricia. "Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America", pages 53-55. Wesleyan Press, 1994.
  14. ^ Chang, Jeff. “It’s a Hip-hop World.” Foreign Policy 163, Nov/Dec 2007, 58-65.
  15. ^ Chang, Jeff. “It’s a Hip-hop World.” Foreign Policy 163, Nov/Dec 2007, 58-65.
  16. ^ Chang, Jeff. “It’s a Hip-hop World.” Foreign Policy 163, Nov/Dec 2007, 58-65.
  17. ^ metro
  18. ^ Chang, Jeff. “It’s a Hip-hop World.” Foreign Policy 163, Nov/Dec 2007, 58-65.
  19. ^ Diawara, Manthia. “Homeboy Cosmopolitan.” In Search of Africa, 237-76. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998
  20. ^ Diawara, Manthia. “Homeboy Cosmopolitan.” In Search of Africa, 237-76. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998
  21. ^ Diawara, Manthia. “Homeboy Cosmopolitan.” In Search of Africa, 237-76. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998.
  22. ^ Hip-Hop Is Rock ’n’ Roll, and Hall of Fame Likes It - New York Times
  23. ^ Media coverage of the Hip-Hop Culture - By Brendan Butler, Ethics In Journalism, Miami University Department of English
  24. ^ Hip-Hop Culture Crosses Social Barriers - US Department of State
  25. ^ Hip Hop: National Geographic World Music
  26. ^ CNN.com - WorldBeat - Hip-hop music goes global - January 15, 2001
  27. ^ village voice > music > Rock&Roll&: Planet Rock by Robert Christgau
  28. ^ The Commodification of Hip Hop, Brooke Daniel and Kellon Innocent, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiCo_uUD2SY
  29. ^ Diawara, Manthia. “Homeboy Cosmopolitan.” In Search of Africa, 237-76. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998.
  30. ^ Rap Criticism Grows Within Own Community, Debate Rages Over It's Effect On Society As It Struggles With Alarming Sales Decline - The ShowBuzz
  31. ^ Diawara, Manthia. “Homeboy Cosmopolitan.” In Search of Africa, 238. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998.
  32. ^ The Commodification of Hip Hop, Brooke Daniel and Kellon Innocent, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiCo_uUD2SY
  33. ^ Tate, Greg. “Hip-hop Turns 30: Whatcha Celebratin’ For?” Village Voice. 4 January 2005.
  34. ^ Tate, Greg. “Hip-hop Turns 30: Whatcha Celebratin’ For?” Village Voice. 4 January 2005.
  35. ^ Christgau, Robert. "The World's Most Local Pop Music Goes International." The Village Voice. 7 May 2002. 16 Apr 2008. <http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0219,christgau,34334,22.html>
  36. ^ Manteca. "Global Hip-Hop: Beats and Rhymes- The Nu World Cult." 2004. 18 Apr 2008.<http://www.afropop.org/explore/album_review/ID/2450/Global+Hip+Hop:+Beats+and+Rhymes-The+Nu+World+Cult>
  37. ^ Global Hip Hop: Beats and Rhymes-The Nu World Cult
  38. ^ Global Hip Hop: Beats and Rhymes-The Nu World Cult
  39. ^ UNet Login:
  40. ^ Hartwig Vens. “Hip-hop speaks to the reality of Israel”. WorldPress. 20 November 2003. 24 March 2008.
  41. ^ Chang, Jeff. “It’s a Hip-hop World.” Foreign Policy 163, Nov/Dec 2007, 58-65.
  42. ^ Chang, Jeff. “It’s a Hip-hop World.” Foreign Policy 163, Nov/Dec 2007, 58-65
  43. ^ Chang, Jeff. “It’s a Hip-hop World.” Foreign Policy 163, Nov/Dec 2007, 58-65
  44. ^ Chang, Jeff. “It’s a Hip-hop World.” Foreign Policy 163, Nov/Dec 2007, 58-65.
  45. ^ Hartwig Vens. “Hip-hop speaks to the reality of Israel”. WorldPress. 20 November 2003. 24 March 2008.
  46. ^ Chang, Jeff. “It’s a Hip-hop World.” Foreign Policy 163, Nov/Dec 2007, 58-65.
  47. ^ Wayne Marshall, "Nu Whirl Music, Blogged in Translation?"
  48. ^ Chang, Jeff. “It’s a Hip-hop World.” Foreign Policy 163, Nov/Dec 2007, 58-65.
  49. ^ Chang, Jeff. “It’s a Hip-hop World.” Foreign Policy 163, Nov/Dec 2007, 58-65.

[edit] Further reading

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