History Of HipHop Essay Research Paper As

History Of Hip-Hop Essay, Research Paper

As an art form, hip-hop is a very young phenomenon. Originating in the South Bronx in the late 70 s/early 80 s, hip-hop itself is only ca. 20 years old. However, despite it s recent founding, it has become a tremendous influence on American culture and global culture as well. It has been a creative output for many people and gone down in history as one of the most important art forms to emerge in the last few decades.

Hip-hop has borrowed from many earlier art forms, whether they be rock and roll, r&b, beat poetry, or even disco. However, what many people don t realize is that it has strong roots derived from past traditions such as slave music or even from the church. Slaves were for the most part unable to get ahold of instruments, thus using whatever they had in their hands to create a beat. Hip-hop is just the same, in that it is merely someone rhyming over a beat. In fact, during hip-hop s earlier years, many people used their mouths to create a beat for someone else to rap over. This was dubbed the beatbox. Slave music is also reflected in rap s subject matter. Many people who rhyme with their friends on streetcorners simply talk about whatever is on their mind through their music, whether it be a girl, their job or any other simple day to day thought. Slaves would do the same, singing about their thoughts, mostly though about going home and freedom. The idea of community, heavily evident in slave songs is also represented in hip-hop. During many songs sung by slaves, during work for example, one person would begin and then another take over or someone else adding in their point of view. Many rappers do the same, beginning a rhyme in a circle of friends and then letting somebody else take over and finish it. Church music can be detected in hip-hop as well. A preacher, often times in a black church (which is generally more lively), would use call and response to involve the people in the sermon. He might call out for and amen or hallelujah and then receive it from the entire congregation. Often times a DJ or rapper does the same. In order to liven up a party or involve an audience, they might call out someone s name or yell out something.

Many people consider DJ Kool Herc to be the father of hip-hop. Kool Herc immigrated from Kingston, Jamaica to the South Bronx, NY in the 70 s. He brought with him a vast knowledge of the Jamaican DJ style as well as Jamaican sound systems. He applied this knowledge when Djing block plarties. His system had to be the biggest and loudest. Thus bringing him fame as one of the premier DJs in the South Bronx. Kool Herc is widely known as the creator of hip-hop for several reasons. With his revolutionary technique of the breakbeat, he layed down the foundation of an entirely new musical style. At block parties, he would play instrumental versions of many funk songs (more often than not James Brown). Since these instrumentals were much shorter than the original songs, Kool Herc used a device known as a mixer to lengthen the songs by repeating the climactic part many times. This became known as the breakbeat, due to the fact that many dancers would simply freak out and dance wildly during these parts. They were dubbed breakdancers, a now famous dance style. Thus, Kool Herc can even be credited with inventing this style even though he didn t dance.

Another Jamaican technique Herc importe with him is the idea of toasting. This meant he would call out people s names during parties in order to get crowd involvement and liven up parties. When he began to perfect his Djing craft, he had no time to continue doing this due to the need of more concentration, therefore he passed the microphone to his friends and let them do it. This eventually evolved into the form of rap or Mcing.

The poplarity of hip-hop is due to numerous factors. One would be the fact that the hip-hop is not only an art form, but an entire culture. One can be apart of this culture without having any connection to music. Many people feel there are 4 elements to hip-hop: Djing, mcing, grafitti and breakdancing. Another reason for its popularity, is that hip-hop is an outlet for many urban youths (often times poor and under-educated) to express themselves creatively. There are absolutely no rules in hip-hop, thus allowing one to be entirely original. Many times when on tour, famous hip-hop artists modify their pre-written songs on-stage in order to possibly reflect a current event or how they feel on a certain issue. One major reason for hip-hop s initial sudden popularity was that it was an escape from drugs and violence. During the late 70 s and early 80 s, gangs where a heavy influence for urban youths, especially in New York.

Afrika Bambaataa, many of whom consider the godfather of hip-hop, played a major role in the formentioned escape of youths from violence to hip-hop. He used to be the leader of one of New York s largest gangs The Black Spades. He grew tired of the constant violence and found an outlet through music. He feels that hip-hop is a tremendous thing as when you have aspirations of making it in music, you have absolutely no time for gangs. His personal motto was to have a war with creativity, not weapons; to have a battle of different styles in order to turn sensless violence into productive energy. He was also on one of the first international hip-hop tours, helping to bring this new