You see hip-hop dancing everywhere, from television and YouTube to social parties and gatherings. This form of dance is commonly recognized in our modern American society, but where did it all start? Hip-hop dancing started in the 1970s in New York City, where the first professional street-based dance crews formed. Around the time, young dancers would hit the parties and mimic the moves that were seen by dance crews and on the streets. Clive Campbell, better known as DJ Kool Herc, played an instrumental role in the birth of this dance form. Campbell, a Jamaican, was a regular DJ at local teenage parties in the Bronx. He studied dancers and zeroed-in on the fundamental break instrumental gap in the song when dancers really went wild, the break. Dancers were able to fully express themselves in the break, and they found inspiration through the music, which was filled with stylized, upbeat rhythms, and it allowed them to ‘break’ to the beat. These young dancers would eventually earn the name ‘b-boys’ (or ‘b-girls’), also known as ‘break dancers’. Throughout the 70’s, it was common to walk down the streets of New York City and see a big boom box, cardboard, and someone b-boying to the music.
In 1977 b-boys Jamie “Jimmy D” White and Santiago “Jo Jo” Torres founded Rock Steady Crew in the Bronx, one of the oldest continually active breaking crews along with Dynamic Rockers and Mighty Zulu Kings, formed by Afrika Bambaataa. In order to join the group, an individual had to ‘battle’ one of the existing Rock Steady breakers in a dance-off. Once Richard “Crazy Legs” Colón gained leadership over the crew, he established a Manhattan chapter and was instrumental in spreading breaking beyond the Bronx. They danced in Wild Style and...
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...al television viewers. Since the arrival of music television, hip-hop has become a significant inspiration in dancing for music videos. Incorporating a mix of street dance and hip-hop, much of what the icons use in their videos and onstage was influenced by the hip-hop dance style.
Despite its modest early stages as a street dance, hip-hop has gradually become more prevalent in the past two decades. Thanks to enticing rhythms and attention-grabbing steps that break many of the conventions of classical dance, hip-hop has greatly appealed of the modern public. Hip-hop began on the streets in some of the United States' ghettos, and has made its way to famous performance venues around the world. In a short era, hip-hop has created a whole new section of dance culture for itself, and dance enthusiasts revel in the original nature of hip-hop choreography and style.
The hip hop culture began in the suburbs of New York over 30 years ago and has gone through drastic changes over this time. Hip Hop contains four different elements including: graffiti, rap, disc jockey and break-dancing. In the 1970’s, musical artists began to express themselves like Kool DJ Herc. Rap music began to spread through the urban neighborhoods of New York City and people used a new form of expression that gave a chance to sing about anything.
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
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...
Break dancing actually originated a few years prior to DJ Afrika Bambataa. Break dancers (B-Boys and B-Girls), would dance during the breaks in the music while steady beats were played. Eventually rap and break dancing united and hip hop began.
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 around for decades. Due to positive perceptions behind the idea, many DJs and artist started to come about. Hip Hop solely originated in New York city where DJ Kool Herc is the founding father of Hip Hop. The main components within hip hop was Break Dancing, Rap, Beat Boxing, and Graffiti. These components originated from the Ghettos of New York city. Hip Hop culture formed in the 1970s during many block parties and gatherings in New York, where DJs from all over Manhattan and the Bronx came and created mixes and breaks on the turn tables. Alongside Kool Herc is GrandMaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa who created Universal Zulu Nation, which was music to decrease violence, drugs and get kids involved. Around this time funk,
Hip-Hop is a cultural movement that emerged from the dilapidated South Bronx, New York in the early 1970’s. The area’s mostly African American and Puerto Rican residents originated this uniquely American musical genre and culture that over the past four decades has developed into a global sensation impacting the formation of youth culture around the world. The South Bronx was a whirlpool of political, social, and economic upheaval in the years leading up to the inception of Hip-Hop. The early part of the 1970’s found many African American and Hispanic communities desperately seeking relief from the poverty, drug, and crime epidemics engulfing the gang dominated neighborhoods. Hip-Hop proved to be successful as both a creative outlet for expressing the struggles of life amidst the prevailing crime and violence as well as an enjoyable and cheap form of recreation.
Hip-hop began in the undergrounds in Bronx New York in the early 1970s and has gradually grown to become mainstream music. According to Lori Selke a professional writer for Global post, “hip-hop is the term that refers to more than just a musical genre; it includes culture, dance, art, and even fashion” (Selke). Since it originated in the 1970’s, hip-hop has had profound influence on society, and has grown into the lives of listeners worldwide; hip-hop’s influential power is astonishing. Within the last decade, hip-hop artist like Jay-Z, Nas, and Young Jeezy helped to increase voting in the 2008 presidential campaign by informing a hip hop audience consisting of a majority of African Americans on soon to be 44th President of the United States, by using their voice and lyrics as their tool to encouraging people to stand up for a change by voting. According to Emmett Price in his book Hip Hop Culture (2006), “in the early years prior to the rise of recorded rap music via Sugar Hill Gang’s controversial “Rapper’s Delight” (1979) hip-hop was a growing culture driven by self-determination, a love for life, and a desire to have fun [through entertaining fans and expressing themself].” (Price) Although artists today accomplish the same things, the focus of the lyrics has changed consisting of “extolling violence, drug and alcohol use, and detailing sexual exploits” (Selke). If one were to observe the most popular music from artist in the 80’s until now, they would notice a definitive change in its overall message. If hip-hop continues on its current route it will become a musical genre known solely for its references to sex, drugs, and violence.
“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).
People say hip hop originated from the south Bronx of New York, but really it came from Jamaica. One man named DJ Kool Herc moved from Jamaica to America too starts a new life. In the 1970’s, he introduced the type of music into a style we know now as rap. He used turn tables and used other records to make longer segments. Soon deejays started to work with other rappers and talk in rhythmic sayings, this became to be known as hip hop. For years popular styles of club deejays like Herc, and Afrika Bambaataa, rapped originally in African American neighborhoods in New York.
Hip hop culture has been around since the 1970s. Multiple sources all come down to the South Bronx in New York City, as the origin of hip hop culture. The culture began to take its shape within the African American, Afro-Caribbean, and Latino communities. The father of the start of this culture was a Jamaican-born DJ named Clive Campbell but also known as DJ Kool Herc. He brought forth a new sound system and the Jamaican style of “toasting.” Toasting was when Jamaicans would talk or rap over the music they played. This whole new style soon brought what is now known as DJs, B-Boys, MC’s, and graffiti artists (Kaminski).
"40 Years on from the Party Where Hip Hop Was Born." BBC Culture. N.p., 9 Aug. 2013. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
B-boying or break dancing is described as “a hip hop dance style developed by Caribbean, African American, and Latino youth dancing to Kool Herc’s beat music.” It was also created from many different forms of African dancing from all around the country that were merged together in which dancers could compete and challenge each other in battles. It is also one of the four major elements that were brought together by the Bronx River Organization that originally created hip hop culture. In one scene in the film, Stomp the Yard, the dancers compete in a variety of different moves that hype up the crowd and is an obvious expression of soul and energy by their bodies. They also perform in a “cipha” which is an enclosed circle surrounded by an audience rather than on a stage, allowing the
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.