Founded in New York City,1984,by Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin, Def Jam Records is now one of hip hop’s most influential record labels. Famous for dragging a once underground genre into the mainstream.Def Jam Record’s first release under the label was Jazzy Jay and T La Rock's "It's Yours." This was the initial fuel that launched the label to fame in 1984. Singles produced by Def Jam such as ‘I Need a Beat’ by LL Cool J in 1985 closely followed by ‘Rock Hard’ by the Beastie boys allowed Def Jam to gain a distribution deal with CBS records which boosted the popularity of the record label dramatically. Def Jam Records embraced controversy and signed controversial artists in order to gain a young target audience. An example of this is Public Enemy’s debut album ‘Yo! Bum Rush the Show.’ In 1987. The group marketed itself as a distillation of black anger and the resistance and set out to be a voice for the black community. Many black musicians were still struggling to have their music played on the radio and the added controversy of rap and hip …show more content…
This is shown in the single ‘Rock Hard’ which combined rock and hip hop. This was shown even more so in the album ‘Licensed to Ill’ by the Beastie Boys. Def Jam also created hybrids of heavy metal and hip hop which was another method of enticing a young audience. Def Jam were notorious for making music that told a story. Whilst hip hop often became a way for artists to brag about what they had, Def Jam focused more on stories that listeners could relate to. Slick Rick’s ‘Children’s Story’ in 1989 set the benchmark for this style. Another way Def Jam differentiated from other hip hop labels was through sampling. This was shown in Jay Z’s ‘Hard Knock Life’ in which sampled from the musical ‘Annie’ were incorporated into the mix. The unorthodox hip hop sampling and led the track to be successful and unique due to the technology capabilities at the
Signing with Def Jams in 1984, LL Cool J gave hip-hop a new component which is love. As Guestlist explain his type of rapping as “LL cool J’s song adopted a ‘soft’ style which bred
In the song You Gotta Fight for Your Right to Party! ), the guitar, and drums are clearly heard especially on off beats of the rap lyrics. The album has a very upbeat sound in general with some more traditional rock and roll guitar chords, but the rap lyrics is what made this album the first of its kind. The song "You gotta Fight for Your Right to Party" was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 songs that shaped rock n roll. (Rolling Stones) Daniella Kohavy points out how in “Rhymin’ And Stealin,” the first track on the album, samples Led Zeppelin, The Clash, and Black Sabbath; the epitomes of rock and punk rock”.
“My job is to write shocking lyrics that will wake people up,” said Chuck D. This was his goal as the leader of Public Enemy (Dery, 1990). He wrote lyrics that were awakening and energizing. Public Enemy was a spokesperson for the African American community. Their lyrics contain controversial and popular issues such as drugs, crime, racism, and poverty. As well as the lyrics, the instrumentals are significant to conveying the group’s goal. The instrumental/sound part creates the mood, sets the beat, and prompts the engagementengages of the people. In the late 1980’s, Public Enemy introduced an intense, hard, hip-hop sound, which changed the sound of hip-hop. According to Rolling Stone magazine, “Public Enemy’s inventive production team, the Bomb Squad, tailored a unique, noisy, layered avant-garde-inspired sound that incorporated sirens, skittering turntable scratches, and cleverly juxtaposed musical and spoken samples ” (Simon & Schuster, 2001). All these brand new sounds of their songs were musically revolutionary during the late 1980’s. Public Enemy’s music consists of inspirational lyrics as well as strong and innovative sound. The lyrics and the sound work together, in addition to visual media to make it possible to reach millions of people as political commentary.
Hip-Hop became characterized by an aggressive tone marked by graphic descriptions of the harshness and diversity of inner-city life. Primarily a medium of popular entertainment, hip-hop also conveys the more serious voices of youth in the black community. Though the approaches of rappers became more varied in the latter half of the 1980s, message hip-hop remained a viable form for addressing the problems faced by the black community and means to solve those problems. The voices of "message" hip...
In a reputable rap album, an artist must tell a real-life story. The following three artists come from different but similar backgrounds. One artist from Detroit, one from Compton, another from Brooklyn. Sada Baby, along with other Detroit rappers, share their experiences living in different parts of the city. Throughout D.O.N. & D.O.N. by Sada Baby, he references a lot of weapon use, gang activity, and drug use in his neighborhood.
Motown paved the way for future artists to explore themselves. It helped created the grounds of a great music and cultural integration in the 1970’s to now and hopefully forever. Hip Hop’s arrival was credit to Motown triumphs in the musical world. Through the mixing of percussion and the rhythm of the drumbeats of funk and disco, hip hop revealed the opposition to social inequality and discrimination
Heavily influenced by the Beastie Boys and their classic Licensed to Ill, Kid Rock’s debut, Grits Sandwiches for Breakfast, was released in 1990. Rolling Stone would later include it in a list of "20 terrible debut albums by great artists," criticizing it for being “so insistently generic it’s like he tossed everything current about hip hop in 1990 into a giant colander and sifted out all the individuality.”
... ability to rock a crowd with sheer lyricism, explaining why you are doper than the other man, and having a Dj who could support you with dope beats were essentials in old school hip-hop and still are in the underground scene.
More than any other rapper, Dr. Dre was responsible for moving away from the avant-noise and political stance of Public Enemy and Boogie Down Productions, as well as the party vibes of old school rap. Instead, Dre pioneered gangsta rap and his own variation of the sound, G-Funk. BDP's early albums were hardcore but cautionary tales of the criminal mind, but Dre's records with N.W.A. celebrate the hedonistic, amoralistic side of gang life. Dre was never much of a rapper -- his rhymes were simple and his delivery was slow and clumsy -- but as a producer, he was extraordinary. With N.W.A. & C.A. he melded the noise collages of the Bomb Squad with funky rhythms.
Hip hop is both a culture and a lifestyle. As a musical genre it is characterized by its hard hitting beats and rhythms and expressive spoken word lyrics that address topics ranging from economic disparity and inequality, to gun violence and gang affiliated activity. Though the genre emerged with greater popularity in the 1970’s, the musical elements involved and utilized have been around for many years. In this paper, we will cover the history and
“Hip hop has been named the most influential musical genre to emerge since 1960, beating the British invasion of the Rolling Stones and The Beatles, soul, punk, prog rock, heavy metal, disco and many more in a new study” (Von Radowitz and Webb).
Rap started in the mid-1970s in the South Bronx area of New York City. The birth of rap is, in many ways, like the birth of rock and roll. Both originated in the African American community and both were first recorded by small, independent record labels and marketed towards, mostly to a black audience. And in both cases, the new style soon attracted white musicians that began performing it. For rock and roll it was a white American from Mississippi, Elvis Presley. For rap it was a young white group from New York, the Beastie Boys. Their release “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)” (1986) was one of the first two rap records to reach the Billboard top-ten. Another early rap song to reach the top ten, “Walk This Way” (1986), was a collaboration of Run-DMC and Aerosmith. Soon after 1986, the use of samples was influenced in the music of both black and white performers, changing past thoughts of what make up a “valid” song.
Mos Def’s “Hip Hop” and Jose B. Gonzalez’s “Elvis in the Inner City” are very similar even though the timeframes are different. It shows that circumstances of life don’t change as much as we think. Each character turned to music to get away from their own lives. Music was an escape.
The contract that started it all was with Def Jam records, which accompanied her rising for a considerable period of time.
Hip- hop is a standout amongst the most compelling musical sorts on the globe. There are rappers everywhere that know what amount of an impact their music can have. Some entertainers attempt to utilize that force of impact to do great (Ruiz INT).