Week 10: Essay #2 (final hip hop definition)

HIP-HOP Culture

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The relationship between hip hop culture and rap

Introduction

Typically, common knowledge underly the notion that hip hop is a culture and rapping is an aspect therein.Hip hop culture and rap trace the historical, ideological, cultural, and social influences on a South Bronx music genre. The art was developed as a strategy for the community to stake its voice. This article will elucidate the relationship between hip hop culture and rap.

Hip hop music was pioneered in South Bronx by Kool DJ Herc, a Jamaican, in 1973. At a dance party organized by his sister (Chang, 2007)Kool used an innovative turntable approach to make percussive older records fragments break by paying the portion of two identical records simultaneously.As a result, Herc created a continuous music flow.This bore breakdancing that was later played at dance parties in New York.Chang (2007) noted that it also served as the origin of deejaying, dancing, and rapping. Worth noting, hip hop is aculture that includes dance, deejaying, graffiti, and MCing. For instance, Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, Grand Wizard, and Grandmaster Flash extended and isolated the break-eat to engineer improvisational dancing. Graffiti involved teenagers who tagged or signed their names on subway systemswalls in New York City. The evolution included spraying paint colorful comics. Later, new techniques were intertwined in hiphop music. Deejays, in particular, crafted unprecedented techniques to manipulate turntables. Forexample, Grandmaster Flash created the needle dropping, which extended the shirt drum breaks by moving the needle on one turntable and playing two record copies. The rhythmic effect created was called scratching.

According to Gonzales (2008), rap is a component that grew out of hip hop culture. In this sense, hip hop is cultural and deep, while rap is commercial and superficial.Rap music was crafted on a slow tempo. Currently, rap is developed at very low tempos. In particular, the music style involves rhythmic speech that becomes the most effective and lasting art form.Rap's early success led to society's reaction, spread to mainstream culture, and gangsta rap. Rap encompasses spoken rhymes in line with a played record by a DJ. The music genre is a manifestation of hip hop energy (Gonzales, 2008). Most importantly, rap is essential in preserving the elements that make up hip hop. Therefore, rap is an expression of a more in-depth and broader set of hip hop processes.

Herc made spoken interjection over records. Termed as the father of rapping, Kool Herc, was associated with several epic oratorical rapping precedents. Both music genres were responsive to community needs, ethical, and personally fulfilling. Arguably, hip hop and rap are integral in integrating people and are tremendously flexible (Chang, 2007). Understanding rap from the hip hop culture perspective implies that elements such as ideals, history, culture, and philosophy are naturally fixated. Both music forms provide a sense of identity and depend heavily on fashion and slang to adapt to various lifestyles. Hip hop is limited to a specific tempo. For instance, funk music was first infused in hip hop by the gangsta rappers creating unique content and sound.

The hip hop lyrical content is confronting. It is associated with uplifting gender discrimination, the glorification of substance abuse and violence. However, hip hop is designed on fun, social justice, respect, community, peace, and self-worth values at its core(Gonzales, 2008). As a result, it has developed as a therapeutic tool for youths. On the contrary, rap is based on the high-risk message, profanity, and materialism.

References

Chang, J. (2007). Can't stop won't stop: A history of the hip-hop generation—St. Martin's Press.

Gonzales, M. A. (2008). The Holy House of Hip Hop. New York Magazine, 6.