Hip Hop Language Essay

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The Language of Hip Hop Before I detail how authenticity is constructed in Hip Hop, it is important to distinguish the ways in which I use the term throughout this paper. Many scholars use Hip Hop and rap interchangeably, however, I find this usage problematic due to its erasure of Hip Hop as a standalone cultural system. Rap is a musical genre that infuses rhythmic verses over bass lines and sampled beats while Hip Hop is the subculture that rap music exists within. More specifically, Hip Hop is comprised of four key elements: DJing (aural), rap (oral), b-boying/b-girling (movement), graffiti (visual). This is important to distinguish since it helps to explain how it functions as a cultural system and that the foundation that it is built …show more content…

To illustrate how this term is used and the power it exudes within Hip Hop spaces, two key points must be detailed. First, the term heads reveal those that are confirmed as legitimized persons, based on their knowledge of all things Hip Hop, their age, position within the Hip Hop hierarchy; mainly in the underground vs. the mainstream commercialized space, and someone that embodies the culture, which must be confirmed by other heads. In addition, being acknowledged as a head is also, drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s scholarship, a form of cultural capital. This is embodied cultural capital due to the ways in which heads use their acquired knowledge, invested time in the culture, and the amount of respect it conjures up for consumers and performs who occupy Hip Hop spaces. Also, similarly to the nocturnal self that David Grazian details when describing “the currency” and “special kind of presentation of self-associated with consuming urban nightlife,” heads use cultural capital to maintain their positionality as legitimized persons within Hip Hop (Grazian). Now that I have established two unique terms and the ways that I will use them, I will explain at length how authenticity is constructed within the culture of Hip

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