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By 1979 hip hop had become a commercially popular
music genre and began to enter the American mainstream.
In the 1990s, a form of hip hop called gangsta
rap became a major part of American music, causing
significant controversy over lyrics which were
perceived as promoting violence, promiscuity,
drug use and misogyny. Nevertheless, by the beginning
of the 2000s, hip hop was a staple of popular
music charts and was being performed in many styles
across the world.
Characteristics
Hip hop is a cultural
movement, of which music is a part. The music
is itself composed of two parts, rapping, the
delivery of swift, highly rhythmic and lyrical
vocals, and DJing, to compose either through sampling,
turntablism, instrumentation or beatboxing. Another
important factor of hip hop music is the fashion
that originated along with the music.
Rhythmic structure
Beats (though not necessarily
raps) in hip hop are almost always in 4/4 time.
At its rhythmic core, hip hop swings: instead
of a straight 4/4 count (pop music; hip hop is
based on an anticipated feel somewhat similar
to the "swing" emphasis found in jazz
percussion. Like the triplet emphasis in swing,
hip hop's rhythm is subtle, rarely written as
it sounds (4/4 basic; the drummer adds the hip
hop interpretation) and is often played in an
almost "late" or laid back way.
This style was innovated predominantly in soul,
disco and funk music, where beats and thematic
music were repeated for the duration of tracks.
In the 1960s and 1970s, James Brown talked, sang,
and screamed much as MCs do today. This musical
style provides the perfect platform for MCs to
rhyme. Hip hop music generally caters to the MC
for this reason, amplifying the importance of
lyrical and delivering prowess.
Instrumental hip hop is
perhaps the lone exception to this rule. In this
hip hop subgenre, DJs and producers are free to
experiment with creating instrumental tracks.
While they may mix in sampled rap vocals, they
are not bound by traditional hip hop format.
Instrumentation
& production
The instrumentation of
hip hop derives from disco, funk, and R&B,
both in the sound systems and records sampled
and session musicians and their instrumentation
used. Disco and club DJs' use of mixing originated
from the need to have continuous music and thus
smooth transitions between tracks. Hip hop Kool
DJ Herc, in contrast, originated the practice
of isolating and extending only the break?a short
percussion solo interlude?by mixing between two
copies of the same record. This was, according
to Afrika Bambaataa, the "certain part of
the record that everybody waits for?they just
let their inner self go and get wild." (Toop,
1991) James Brown, Bob James, and Parliament?among
many others?have long been popular sources for
breaks. Over this one could and did add instrumental
parts from other records, frequently as horn punches
(ibid). Thus the instrumentation of early sampled
or sound system-based hip hop is the same as funk,
disco, or soul: vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass,
drums and percussion.
Although original hip hop
music consisted solely of the DJ's breakbeats
and other vinyl record pieces, the advent of the
drum machine allowed hip hop musicians to develop
partially original scores. Drum set sounds could
be played either over the music from vinyl records
or by themselves. The importance of quality drum
sequences became the most important focus of hip
hop musicians because these rhythms ( beats) were
the most danceable part. Consequently, drum machines
were equipped to produce strong kick sounds. This
helped emulate the drum solos on old funk, soul
and R&B albums from the late 1960s and early
to mid 1970s. Drum machines had a limited array
of predetermined sounds, including hi-hats, snares,
toms, and kick drums.
The introduction of the
sampler changed the way hip hop was produced.
A sampler can reproduce small sound clips from
any input device, such as a turntable. Producers
were able to sample familiar drum patterns. More
importantly, they could sample a variety of instruments
to play along with their drums. Hip hop had finally
gathered its complete band.
Many producers and listeners
pride certain records for being hip hop lore and
thus a good source of samples and breaks. To this
day, producers use arcane equipment to replicate
the same rough sound used in older records. This
lends credibility to the records and serves as
a historical reminder to the listeners of hip
hop's origins.
| HIP HOP IS
NOT JUST ABOUT RAPP'IN...IT'S AN ENTIRE WORLD
CULTURE! |
| Nas's seminal
debut, Illmatic, had a profound impact
on East Coast hip hop during the mid-1990s |
|
History
The main historical eras of hip hop are the
old school hip hop era (1970 to 1985), which
spanned from the beginning of hip hop until
its emergence into the mainstream, and the
golden age hip hop era (1985 to 1993), which
consolidated the sounds of the East Coast
and the West Coast and transitioned into the
modern era with the rise of gangsta rap and
G-funk, created by the West Coast. The years
after 1993 contain the hardcore hip hop, bling,
and underground genres, which largely define
the modern era.
Hip hop arose during the 1970s at block
parties in New York City, at which the DJs
began isolating the percussion breaks to
hit funk, soul, R&B and disco songs.
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| The roots of this
type of songs stem back to the mid-1950s
when soul/funk rock artist James Brown credit
Little Richard's band as having been the
first to put the funk in the rock beat.
These songs were based on ? "breakbeat"
DJing. As hip hop became popular, performers
began speaking while the music played, and
became known as MCs or emcees. In 1979,
the first two commercially issued hip hop
recordings were released: " King Tim
III (Personality Jock)" by the Fatback
Band, and " Rapper's Delight"
by The Sugarhill Gang; the latter became
a Top 40 hit on the U.S. Billboard pop singles
chart.
During the 1980s, hip hop began to diversify
and develop into a more complex form. At
the same time, more sophisticated techniques
were developed, including scratching, and
electronic recording. In the late 1980s,
a number of new hip hop styles and subgenres
began appearing as the genre gained popularity.
Hip hop musicians collaborated with rock
bands and spread out into the genres of
conscious hip hop, jazz-rap and gangsta
rap. In the 1990s, a prolonged confrontation
between West Coast gangsta rappers and the
resurging East Coast began. It centered
around Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G.
and led to both of their deaths, in 1996
and 1997 respectively. In 1996, Cleveland-based
rap group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony tied The
Beatles' 32-year-old record for fastest-rising
single with " Tha Crossroads," and in 2000,
Scottish-American White rapper Eminem's
The Marshall Mathers LP sold over nine million
copies and won a Grammy Award.
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|
All Eyez on
Me (1996) was a highly influential
album for the genre and is one of the
most
successful rap albums |
Social
impact
Hip hop music is
a part of hip hop, a cultural movement that
includes the activities of breakdancing
and graffiti art, as well as associated
slang, fashion and other elements. The popularity
of music has helped to popularize hip hop
culture, both in the United States and to
a lesser degree abroad.
The late 1990s saw
the rise in popularity of the "bling
bling" lifestyle in rap music, focusing
on symbols of wealth and status like money,
jewelry, cars, and clothing. Although references
to wealth have existed since the birth of
hip hop, the new, intensified "bling
bling" culture has its immediate roots
in the enormously commercially successful
late-to-mid nineties work (specifically,
music videos) of Puff Daddy and Bad Boy
Records as well as Master P's No Limit Records.
However, the term was coined in 1999 (see
1999 in music) by Cash Money Records artist
B.G. on his single Bling Bling, and the
Cash Money roster were perhaps the epitome
of the "bling bling" lifestyle
and attitude. Though many rappers, mostly
gangsta rappers, unapologetically pursue
and celebrate bling bling, others, mostly
artists outside of the hip hop mainstream,
have expressly criticized the idealized
pursuit of bling bling as being materialistic.
The widespread
success of hip hop ? specifically gangsta
rap ? has also had a significant social
impact on the demeanor of modern youth.
The sometimes egotistic attitudes often
portrayed in the lyrics and videos of certain
hip hop artists have repeatidly shown negative
effects on some of their idolizing fans.
While the attitudes of specific artists
certainly do not represent the rest of the
hip hop community, and the effect of lyrical
content on youths who are part of the hip
hop culture is debatable, very often such
youths adopt the much glamourized "gangsta"
persona while not being members of any gang.
Often these personas incite anti-social
behavior such as peer harassment, neglect
towards education, rejection of authority,
and petty crimes such as vandalism. While
the majority of listeners are able to distinguish
entertainment from lessons in social conduct,
an evident pseudo-gangsta sub-culture has
risen amongst North American youth.
Because hip hop music almost always puts
an emphasis on hyper-masculinity, its lyrics
have been said to reflect a homophobic mindset.
It is often suspected that there are a great
number of gay or lesbian hip hop musicians
who do not come out of the closet, for fear
of the decline of their career. Rumors of
such have involved hip hop artists such
as Queen Latifah, Da Brat, and several others.
In 2001, the first annual PeaceOUT World
Homo Hop Festival, which features performers
by openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered
rappers was held in Oakland, California,
and the festival has continued on an annual
basis since then. In 2003 the openly gay
hip hop and rap artist Caushun, was signed
to the label Baby Phat; however, his record
was apparently never released. In 2005,
the documentary Pick Up the Mic was released,
focusing on LGBT hip hop performers, such
as Deep Dickollective.
Hip hop has a distinctive
slang, that includes words like yo, flow
and phat. Due to hip hop's extraordinary
commercial success in the late nineties
and early 21st century, many of these words
have been assimilated into many different
dialects across America and the world and
even to non-hip hop fans (the word dis for
example is remarkably prolific). There are
also words like homie which predate hip
hop but are often associated with it. Sometimes,
terms like what the dilly, yo are popularized
by a single song (in this case, "Put
Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See"
by Busta Rhymes) and are only used briefly.
Of special importance is the rule-based
slang of Snoop Dogg and E-40, who add -izz
to the middle of words so that shit becomes
shizznit (the addition of the n occurs occasionally
as well). This practice, with origins in
Frankie Smith's non-sensical language from
his 1980 single "Double Dutch Bus,"
has spread to even non-hip hop fans, who
may be unaware of its derivation.
Censorship
issues
Hip hop has probably
encountered more problems with censorship
than any other form of popular music in
recent years, due to the use of expletives.
It also receives flak for being anti-establishment,
and many of its songs depict wars and coup
d' etats that in the end overthrows the
government. For example, Public Enemy's
"Gotta Give the Peeps What They Need"
song was edited without their permission,
removing the words "free Mumia".[2]
The pervasive use of profanity in many songs
has created challenges in the broadcast
of such material both on television stations
such as MTV, in music video form, and on
radio. As a result, many hip hop recordings
are broadcast in censored form, with offending
language blanked out of the soundtrack (though
usually leaving the backing music intact),
or even replaced with completely different
lyrics. The result ? which quite often renders
the remaining lyrics unintelligible or contradictory
to the original recording ? has become almost
as widely identified with the genre as any
other aspect of the music, and has been
parodied in films such as Austin Powers
in Goldmember, in which a character ? performing
in a parody of a hip hop music video ? performs
an entire verse that is blanked out.
In 1995 Roger
Ebert wrote:
"Rap has a bad
reputation in white circles, where many
people believe it consists of obscene and
violent anti-white and anti-female guttural.
Some of it does. Most does not. Most white
listeners don't care; they hear black voices
in a litany of discontent, and tune out.
Yet rap plays the same role today as Bob
Dylan did in 1960, giving voice to the hopes
and angers of a generation, and a lot of
rap is powerful writing."
[>]
See
World Hip Hop Click
Here
SOURCE: From Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia
For More In-Depth Information on the World
History of Pop Music:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop_music
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