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Hip hop's effect on popular culture
Hip hop's effect on popular culture
Emergence of hip hop
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things such as influence of everyday language also known as slang, or possibly being the “eye-opener” to the struggle and harsh life of living in the hood. Many people believe that the origins of hip-hop began on 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in South Bronx, New York, which is the home of DJ Kool Herc notoriously named the “father of hip-hop”. This influential movement would then start to spread from borough to borough, town to town, and then state to state. It was new and refreshing and many people would enjoy it. There are five elements included in the culture of hip-hop and they are emceeing (rapping), DJ-ing, breakdancing, beat boxing, and graffiti. Now with this evolution of hip-hop changing, the true essence of hip-hop is slowly fading away from
the radio and possibly people’s ears. Then people ask about where this true essence has gone, there’s something in the far distance that most people are oblivious to nowadays. The movement known as underground hip-hop is without a doubt the true place in which true hip-hop is staying and has stayed for a long time. Underground hip-hop is another word for independent music for hip-hop and has gained a massive cult-like following. There are so many underground artists who wouldn’t think twice of making a buck. Instead they make their music for the fun of it and they too see the changes that are made in hip-hop. Comparing to the hip-hop of the past and present, you’d understand the argument that’s being made here and that’s that people and the youth of today need the hip-hop that many of the late 80’s and early 90’s type of hip-hop
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.
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.
In the words of rapper Busta Rhymes, “hip-hop reflects the truth, and the problem is that hip-hop exposes a lot of the negative truth that society tries to conceal. It’s a platform where we could offer information, but it’s also an escape” Hip-hop is a culture that emerged from the Bronx, New York, during the early 1970s. Hip-Hop was a result of African American and Latino youth redirecting their hardships brought by marginalization from society to creativity in the forms of MCing, DJing, aerosol art, and breakdancing. Hip-hop serves as a vehicle for empowerment while transcending borders, skin color, and age. However, the paper will focus on hip-hop from the Chican@-Latin@ population in the United States. In the face of oppression, the Chican@-Latin@ population utilized hip hop music as a means to voice the community’s various issues, desires, and in the process empower its people.
Music is one of the most powerful and influential language which to many people in
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.
Greek Philosopher Plato once said, “Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.” Plato was right; not only is music an essential element to the world, but it also gave birth to one of the most prominent genres in all of music history. That significant genre happens to be HipHop. Generally, Hiphop music is considered to have been pioneered in New York 's South Bronx in 1973 by Jamaicanborn DJ Herc. Hiphop music originated from a combination of traditionally AfricanAmerican forms of musicincluding jazz, soul, gospel, and reggae.
Nowadays if you ask someone to define the hip-hop genre, they probably would say that it’s an African American artist reciting lyrics that rhyme to the beat of music. However, it’s a form of expression where the artist’s lyrics connect to self-image and a meaningful bond to their community. The purpose of my paper will outline the true reality of hip-hop through urban black communities, the act of spreading positivity, and the techniques of hip-hop sounding.
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).
This will then open up the discussion about 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 originated in the ghetto areas of New York during the 1970’s and is a mixture of DJ, MC, B boy and Beat boxing. In his studies of defining hip hop, Jeffries concluded that these mixtures of art forms do not define hip hop but rather that hip hop itself is a culture of these elements. “Hip-hop is like a culture, it’s a voice for black people to be heard. Our own style, our own music” (Jeffries). 2011; 28).
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.
Black culture in our society has come to the point where it is allied with pop culture. The most popular music genres, slang terms, to dance forms it all comes from black culture. Hip hop emerged from black culture, becoming the soul of it that is seen in the media. Hip hop helped the black community by creating new ways of expressing themselves, from breakdance, graffiti, rap and other music, to slang. This culture was rooted in their tradition and created from something new. Hip hop created a new form of music that required the use of turn tables, ‘cuts’, loops, rhythm, rhyme, stories, and deep-rooted emotions, but also incorporated black oral forms of storytelling using communal authors.
Throughout their struggles they have been redeemed with a career that provides happiness and financial stability. Gospel and other genres such as Jazz and Blues helped form Hip Hop with their similar styles. Hip Hop's culture gave visibility to urban youth whose goals, frustrations, and dreams were hidden as they were discounted by the system. When defining Hip Hop it is important to understand that Hip Hop is more than music, it started with five elements which are "deejaying, b-boying also known as breakdancing, graffiti art, fashion, and emceeing (rapping)" (Sanchez 9). As the youth began to navigate their media representations, post-Civil Rights politics, and ghetto stigma they began a new form of music and culture.
Hip hop started in the sixties and seventies and the way in which hip hop came about, was to tell a message from the people of the streets and the struggles they had to endure. Although there were and still are hip hop songs that people would dance and express their body freely to, hip hop was initially supposed to be a therapeutic way for inner city young people, primarily black people to express themselves and convey their story of struggle in a lyrical fun way. Hip-hop’s roots in the 1970s can be traced back to New York’s South Bronx neighbourhood. The genre was founded by young African-American, Caribbean and Latino communities who started MCing and breakbeats. The person widely credited as the father of the movement, DJ Kool Herc, based
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.