New School Rap Research Paper

The Wrap on Rap
“Mo money, mo problems.” This phrase, coined by Notorious B.I.G. on his posthumous album Life After Death, not only represents this influential rapper’s personal finances, but it also epitomizes the outcome of the New School rap industry. Like most other subcultures tend to originate, this genre emerged by giving a voice to the voiceless—in this case many of the black citizens of America struggling to make a living on the streets. However, as the many music and fashion trends associated with subcultures, New School included, become increasingly popular on a nationwide scale, so does the desire to be widely attractive to consumers. Because of the music and fashion trends associated with New School rap, it morphed from a subculture to a mainstream corporate industry which both weakened its authenticity and changed its original focus and audience.
To begin, New School rap began as a subculture from Old School. As Dawn Norfleet, music professor at Columbia University, states, New School

At the same time, alternative rock began to pick up (Straw 471). Will Straw, professor of urban media studies at McGill University, describes this outbreak as an appropriation of the previously established punk culture, creating a new and modified subculture of rock (471). In the same fashion, New School originated from Old School; it expanded some of the same ideas, like rhythms and rhyme schemes, but ultimately created a separate genre with differences in subject matter, performance, and style (Norfleet 371-373). For example, where Old School lyrics were more “party-oriented,” telling the ladies and fellas in the audience to get up and boogie, New School lyrics addressed more “street-oriented,” discussing issues like police violence, poverty, and other social issues black people had been experiencing