History Of Hip Hop: Christmas Rapping

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Back in the disco days, in the early 1970’s, began a new genre called Hip Hop. It was born in the crime ridden neighborhoods of the South Bronx. Hip Hop is the extracting rhythms of melodies from existing records and mixing them up with searing poetry chronicling life in the hood. Though, hip hop started on the east coast, it did spread rapidly throughout all the clubs and hotels in New York. Then later on, it began to spread to the west coast in Los Angeles. This is where hip hop began to develop its own musical style. Hip hop is known and described as the voice of a generation that refused to be silenced by urban poverty. It is a genre that is fueled up with a lot of passion and truth that is spreading across the entire world. Hip hop is …show more content…

One main artist that comes to mind is Kurtis Blow. Kurtis is from Harlem, New York. The motherlands of hip hop itself. “Blow” is the first rapper to be signed by a major label. Blow’s number 1 album that got him to where he is today is called Christmas Rapping. “I’ve recorded over two hundred songs and I have never used profanity and I always thought that was just me trying to have some dignity” (Kurtis Blow Biography). This quote represents to me the description of what Hip Hop really is. Although hip hop is filled with passion and emotion, curse words can still be avoided. When you put curse words into rap, I feel that to society, it degrades that song. Hip hop is a way how people express themselves. Putting cursing into a song also limits your listeners and can be a big impact on getting your name out globally. What Kurtis Blow did was open up an alley for the African American community to get their voices heard. Putting curse words into you rhymes may sound bad and inappropriate for everybody to hear. But according to a certain west side group, they thought otherwise on the subject. A hip hop rap group, from the hood of Compton, California, named NWA (Niggaz Wit Attitudes) is known for bringing cursing and gangster violence into their songs. NWA changed the game of hip hop in multiple ways, all the way down to the fashion of their era. According to the article NWA, it states “the double-platinum album Straight Outta Compton, N.W.A brought gangsta rap into the mainstream. The record was among the first to offer an insider's perspective of the violence and brutality of gang-ridden South Central L.A. With songs like "Fuck tha Police" and "Gangsta Gangsta" set in a chaotic swirl of siren and gunshot sounds, it also foreshadowed the 1992 L.A. riots” (Simon & Schuster

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