Hip hop (1979- ) is a form of American music. At the heart of its songs is the beat. On top of that there is a rap – verse that is spoken, not sung, to the beat. Singing might be added, as well as samples – bits of older songs that are played over and over to the beat.
Hip hop music is done by people like Kanye West, Missy Elliott, Jay-Z, Nas, Eminem, Common, 50 Cent, the Fugees, Tupac Shakur, Lil Kim, Snoop Dogg, LL Cool J, NWA, Public Enemy, Run DMC, Doug E Fresh and Roxanne Shante.
There are different forms of hip hop: old school, gangsta rap, crunk, Miami Bass, dirty south and so on.
Hip hop started, as they say, with two turntables and a microphone somewhere in the South Bronx part of New York in the 1970s. The first song that was played across the country was “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugar Hill Gang in 1979, in the dying days of disco.
In the 1980s hip hop took root and flowered. In the 1990s it married R & B and became the main form of music among blacks in America. By the 2000s it was the main form of music of young people in America, black or white.
To the rest of the world hip hop is as American as Coca-Cola or blue jeans. And like Coca-Cola, it has spread from one end of earth to the other.
A whole new form of black American music seems to arise every 30 years or so. First it was ragtime, then jazz, then R & B or soul, now it is hip hop. In the 2010s it will be something else.
Hip hop is now at its height in terms of chart success. What is striking is how it never became something white. It never had its Elvis Presley or Glenn Miller. Jazz became swing, R & B became rock, pop and disco, but hip hop is still hip hop. Even today, when most listeners are white, almost all the top acts are still black, as are many of its businessmen. In October 2003, for the first time ever, the top ten songs in America were all by black acts.
Hip hop has gone beyond the music to take in dance, fashion, language and even art. For some it is a way of life, a way of looking at the world.
If you watch the videos you might get the idea that hip hop has something to do with cars, half-naked women and a tasteless show of wealth. But hip hop is broader than that. It was broader than that even in the early 1990s when it had both 2 Live Crew (“Me So Horny”) and Digable Planets (“Rebirth of Slick – Cool Like Dat”).
Some say that hip hop is noise, not music, that no respectable person would listen to it, that it is loosening the morals of society. But they once said that about jazz and rock music too.
See also:
Hip hop is at its height? Hmmmm … I think there’s room for healthy debate about its Golden Era but would be stunned to learn that too many people would say it’s now.
Aside from Jay, Nas, Common and The Roots, who’s doing anything right now?
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It is at its height in terms of the number of top ten songs that belong to its style. Its artistic golden age is probably behind us already.
Rock music, in this sense, reached its height in the early 1980s even though its golden age was in the late 1960s.
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Well, are we talking rap or are we talking hip hop?
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Hip hop.
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Hip hop in general has influened America for 30 years. The impact is just enormous.
Stephanie B.
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I like your summary. At least you acknowledged Hip-Hop’s diversity. That diversity remains, but the industry is so high off of the profits from animialistic imagery in current commercial rap music that they won’t let these other kinds of artists breathe. I’m still a fan, and probably will always be a fan. Hip-Hop has been the soundtrack to my life since age 10.
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Too often the bad drives out the good.
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[…] the beat. Singing might be added, as well as samples – bits of older songs that are played over andhttps://abagond.wordpress.com/2008/03/10/hip-hop-music/Steampunk Moves Between 2 Worlds New York TimesSpotting a trend at the intersection of technology […]
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Most hip-hop sucks-They don’t talk about anything with a message anymore, and our people keep buying it. How idiotic. They are nothing more than mere slaves to the white man who wants us to kill, degrade, and sell each other out to make thier jobs easier.
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Golden Age hip hop (1985-1996) is the best genre of popular music ever. It’s a damn shame that it sucks now.
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Sure does suck now.
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You forgot to mention how racist it is against Black women & girls.
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@ The Star Blazer
Do you mean sexist? Or racilized sexism?
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Much love – much love for this. Reminds me of the best up and coming in my opinion, Mickey Factz who’s lyrics don’t dissappoint yo!
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Back in the day you had so many different types of genre that were geting equal exposure, wheter it was gangsta- NWA, silly- Kid’N Play and Fresh Prince, Romance-father MC and LL cool J, conscious- mos def.
There were so many styles and subgenres that got a lot equal amount of exposure but now not so much
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Definitely. Among the many young people in my mother’s homeland, hip hop is very popular.
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Hip hop is whatever an individual artist wants it to be. Anybody can try to rap. Just like anybody can try to sing or play an instrument or paint a painting. Anybody with a couple of dollars can get recording equipment.
Now the corporate recording establishment pushes what they want to push. It isn’t necessarily a reflection of what everybody else is doing.
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Great article , abagond, Id just like to add, hip hop started out as a dance, break dance. It is what really pushed hip hop into the world limelight getting all the way to films. You even had serious jazz artists like Herbie Hancock with a hit out ,”rockin it” that the break dancers pretty much used as their theme song before it became a popular video.
rap rode in on the coatails of breaking,and then pushed the dancing aside, lamentably for me.
One monster phenominon about rap in hip hop. Its been a farm team for hollywood to pick charactors that have turned into major stars in the industry. The list is huge and outstrips even commedienes and martial artists as a pool for talent that can become box office star quality.
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Just heard – Guru of Gang Starr R.I.P.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/apr/20/guru-gang-starr
And probably my favourite song, which is a musical historical lesson, and the theme tune for Spike Lee’s
movie ‘Mo better Blues’, if my memory serves me correct
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And while on the origins of Hip Hop…One cannot forget the first accredited Hip Hopster DJ Kool Herc from Jamaica
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J yeah, I like Guru, he mixes his rap with jazz vamps that are cool
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Rap and Hip-Hop are just different words for the same thing. People getting anally rententive about this really get on my nerves. KRS calls it Rap, so did Schoolly D and so on and so on.
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I actually think black people invented swing dancing and swing music, but I think white people kinda ran with it =/
@Hammurbai
Not really, Rap is apart of hip-hop. For example beatboxing is also a part of hip-hop
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hip hop was greatest in the early 1990s…in my opinion. you should do a post on ragtime.
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or lindy hop
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Indeed, the seeds of the new genre of black America music must have generated. Wonder what they will grow into.
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Jimmy Fallon?
http://www.hulu.com/watch/468168
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I love hip hop music as long as it isn’t playing!
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In my opinion old school hiphip was great. This new crap not so much. That’s just my humble opinion. Today’s hiphop is very misogynous and it glorifies ignorance and objectifies women. The oldschool stuff was fun. the new stuff is just obnoxious.
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Interesting thing about music nowadays…
http://vigilantcitizen.com/category/musicbusiness/
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Love PE and RUN DMC. Beastie’s were fun too.
I have no time for the bling-and-pose stuff, or for the misogynistic and homophobic side of it. Alternative rather than mainstream for me. I miss the political, powerful stuff like Chuck has always put out there. He almost stands alone IMO.
If what I read about Jay-Z and his comments about Harry Belafonte is true then I have no time for him. He should learn some respect for a man who has walked the walk since before he was born.
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This video is one of my favourite at the moment. I can’t say I am a fan of hip hop, but I can listen to stuff with a strong social message.
Jou Poes, my Laanie’ roughly translated means: “F*ck off, white man” or “F*ck off, my boss.” “Jou poes” literally means your c*nt , very strong rude language I never use. In this context it means ‘f*ck off.’
This video relates to farm workers who are still being systematically and brutally oppressed by the white invader/settler/farmer. They are paid a few cents more than $3 a day. Most do not have any rights.
I love it, just love the lyrics, esp.: “ F*ck off, white man”. Priceless. And it is usually just the sentiment when I think of these f*cking settlers.
The language is Kaaps, a creole that was born in the 17th century from the mixture of indigenous Khoisan and Malays to West African and Madagascan people amongst others, who were enslaved by the Dutch in the Cape (Kaap) who refused to assimilate and speak the language of the colonist.
It precedes the standard Afrikaans still foisted upon many indigenous South Africans. This is a modern day update of the peculiar patois to the Cape (which I understand somewhat).
As usual, Afrikaner rights groups starting moaning and complaining (all the way to the highest court of the land that is hate speech).
This is hip hop I can listen to and what I think it originally was meant to be: a very strong social and political message before it was perverted from its original trajectory by white Jews and Anglos engineering a self-hate campaign amongst Black Americans through misogyny targeted against the building blocks of the USA: the Black women.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmgpDostEqk)
DOOKOOM – LARNEY JOU POES
PS. You can left-click subtitles in French or English.
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