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The history of music essay
The history of music essay
History of music and society
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Music has been prevalent in America since before its foundings. From the sounds of the Indians to the music of the Pilgrims there has always been some tone of music in America. In this paper we will look at a newer form of music known as hip hop or rap, although hip hop does not have to have a rap chorus in it to be considered hip hop. Hip hop originated in the Bronx of New York City by African American kids in the 1970’s. Hip hop is a combination of many of the well known genres including but not limited to: Funk, Disco, R&B, Jazz, and Rock. Also, poetry was an influence as well. Hip hop has been a center for controversy since its forefathers foundings. Hip hop musical style can be described as stylized rhythmic, rhyming, and chanting/rapping. …show more content…
MIA has had two separate incidences of censorship. Fist with their song “Born Free” which was banned from Youtube due to its violent images or been being beaten and shot to death by police. Next came censorship by MTV and “Late Night With David Letterman” when their song “Paper Planes” incorporated gunfire into its background. Jadakiss’ song “Why” is not only a protest song but also a highly censored song and even banned to some extent. “Why” features the lyrics “Why do niggas push pounds of powder? Why did Bush knock down the towers?” which shows Jada’s belief that Bush was involved in the 9-11 terrorist attacks. The music video for “Why” during this segment shows a clip of a man holding a sign that says “Buck Fush” obviously a spoof for the real words “Fuck Bush”. Commentator Bill O’Reilly even went as far to state the President Bush should have sued Kiss for slander. The Game came under fire for his song “Red Game” after it was banned from MTV, BET, and the radio due to its reference of gang life. Youtube did not ban the song, and it has received over 10 million views indicating it was very popular even with the ban on major networks. The next song I remember hearing in middle school, and even though it had bad lyrics it never effected me in any negative way. This song would be “Fuck it” by Eamon. Many stations refused to play the song at all, others simply just censored the obscene word. This did not stop the song from being popular though, it topped charts for 4 weeks. Lady Gaga had her popular song “LoveGame” banned from the radio for it’s suggestive lyrics of “I want to take a ride on your disco stick”. She also faced censorship for her song “Judas” which seen as office to the Christian Religion. Adela, someone who I never thought of facing censorship, faced it when her song “Rolling in the Deep” contained the word shit in the line “ Go ahead and lay me out and I’ll lay
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
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...
Hip hop is a culture, it is a way many people use to connect to one another, it allowed many African Americans to express their own point of view in their story. But in the early 2000’s it became commercialized and went from storytelling from many perspectives like a party, politics, self-celebration, and gangstas to consisting of mainly of the lives of hustler, pimps, and hoes. Though it has become quite profitable and a successful form of music it cause arguments in American of whether it is more detrimental than beneficial to black community. Hip hop is in fact in a crisis and critics of hip hop believe it is just angry stories of black males and females but do not see it as proof that black behavior was created from the condition of living in a ghetto.
Notably, hip-hop is the culture from which rap music emerged. According to Keyes, rap music is a musical form that makes use of rhyme, rhythmic speech, and street vernacular, which is recited or sung over a musical soundtrack (Rap Music and Street Consciousness, 1). Rap is a combination of MCing and DJing, which are two of hip-hop’s four
When the genre of hip hop music was starting to emerge to mainstream America it was not classified into distinctive groups based on the type of rapping. Instead, artists were labeled based on the geographic location they were hailing from. Until the mid-1980’s, the majority of the rappers were hailing from the Big Apple. However with the introduction of new artists such as Ice-T and N.W.A., California would offer competition for the East Coast dominated genre. In the coming years, talented artists would emerge from all corners of the country. As a result, four distinctive scenes can b...
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 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.
As the semester comes to a close, I take this opportunity to look back on what I have learned in this class. Since I was young boy, hip-hop has been a huge part of my life. Through the best and worst times, music has always been an escape me. It is an honor to write an essay about my favorite genre of music and to explore and compare hip-hop in American and around the world. In this essay, I will guide you and explain how this genre of music has spread internationally and has become a global sensation.
Since hip-hop has expanded from the undergrounds in Bronx in the 70’s it has grew into a popular accepted music genre. Consequently, as it progressed from the golden age it gradually grew away from its original roots. If one were to evaluate the change of lyrics in hip-hop, they would see a difference between early hip-hop and today’s hip-hop. The current state of hip-hop is in a stage where things like hey young world are outdated. Instead of broadcasting out a positive message, hip-hop sends out a message of sex, drug, and violence. The early musicians who helped solidify hip-hop, by producing music that told stories on subjects of race, respect, or even music that had a positive message.
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 contents. 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. This will then open up the discussion for the how this has influenced society, and the impact it has had in terms of race issues which hip hop itself often represents through music.
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.
Have you ever wondered what was making that horrible racket coming from a teen’s car. The odds are that it would be some type of rap song, yet the beat was too loud for you to hear the lyrics. Based off what the mass knows about rap music, you were lucky to not hear the lyrics right, wrong. Rap lyrics have many senses of great poetry and life lessons that should be heard. At least some of rap songs relate to struggles, deaths they have suffered, or even respect of women that many do not believe that rappers would ever do. Rap music is becoming increasingly meaningful for not only adults but for older youth as well to comprehend about respect and an improved understanding of life with struggles and oppressions.
In order to comprehend hip hop, one must first know the definition and its importance as a component of black culture. Hip hop culture is rap, rap a musical
In recent discussion of hip hop culture, a controversial issue has been whether if hip hop makes people believe that money is everything you need to get respect and power. Some argue that you need to build respect and by building respect you become powerful and that will lead you to money. On the other hand, however, others argue that hip hop life helped them a lot by writing the lyrics and saying the things that they can’t do or say. One of this view’s main proponents, “money brings power, ” according to this view, people who have more money will get more power and then they usually use this power to do the most disturbing activities, such as crime. In sum, then, the issue is whether having too much power is good or it’s just a life destroyer.
What is hip-hop? Assuming that you address hip-hop fans, the term alludes to more than simply a musical type - it incorporates an entire society, including dance structures, graffiti symbolization, and fashion (Selke INT). 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 appeared originally 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).