Hip Hop Vs Rap Culture

Ever since I was little, music has been an extremely important part of my life. My entire family is in the music business, and both my parents are extremely involved and aware about pop culture. Growing up, the only music that my parents would listen to was rock bands like U2 or the Rolling Stones, so that was the music I listened to as well. As I got older and became more involved with dance, I was required to take hip hop as well. Because of this, I fell in love with hip hop in both music and in dance. As of now, hip hop and rap is really the only music genre I listen to, yet I don't know much about the roots of it. Along with this, I have never even thought of hip hop as poetry, which shows how little I know about it. Being in this class

has really opened up my eyes to a lot of different things, and I will remember all of the work that we have done during this semester. Even though the course we did on hip hop was short, I still feel like I learned so much about the culture itself. I have learned that rappers - like Biggie Smalls - weren't just rapping about drugs and violence; they also used literary tools such as onomatopoeias or repetition in their rhymes as well. But most importantly, I have learned that hip hop and rap isn't just music; it is also poetry.