Essay About Hip Hop

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Recommended: History of rapping

Will Thurman
5/5/14
English
Hip Hop Through The Ages
Hip Hop has now locked in its place in music culture, but compared to many other genres of music, hip hop is still just a child, a genre that is still trying to find its true identity. Hip hop began in the South Bronx in the early 1970s. The creation of the term hip hop came from Keith Cowboy, who was a rapper with the Furious Five and others. The roots of hip hop came from mainly African music, which has been noticed to sound very similar to the vocal style of many rappers today. From then on, it came back to life and had significant impact on the post civil rights era during the 1960s and 70s. Now Hip hop has became one of the most, if not the most popular genre of this era today. Hip hop was not only changed and molded from social issues, but also from the influence of other music and events over the years.
First I’d like to say how hip hop has changed over the years due to events and the other music during its time and explain how and why hip hop has changed and gone in so many different directions. Hip hop really came to the scene when block parties in New York City became really popular during the 1970s. This scene became increasingly popular in the Bronx due to the large African-American and Puerto Rican influences combined. These groups of people really became fans because hip hop music was seen as a voice or the stories of the “disenfranchised youth of the lower class areas and cultures and really talked about the social, economic and political realities of their lives. As hip hop grew more popular so did other genres such as disco. Disco started to have a slight influence on hip hop but then decided to part ways after stealing some of the loops and tracks f...

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...elp show the west coast was another viable prospect to gangsta rap compared to the east coast hip hop. Then Along came the Wu-Tang Clan and brought the east coast into mainstream making it divided as if the east coast had hip hop and the west coast had rap. As you assumed this is when the long history of hatred and fighting between east coast and west coast hip hop began. The Big name artists of this time include Notorious B.I.G, Jay-Z, Tupac, and Snoop Dogg.
By the 2000’s, Hip hop had gotten so popular it was no longer being influenced, it was doing the influencing. It started influencing main stream pop and did this with artist such as Eminem, Nelly, and 50 cent. This has carried on to today, where hip hop continues to spread and influence music all over the world. So that is how Hip hop has changed through the influence of others and events over the years.

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