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Hip hop (also spelled hip-hop or hiphop) is both a cultural movement and a genre of music developed in New York City in the 1970s primarily by African Americans and Latinos. Since first emerging in The Bronx and Harlem, the lifestyle of hip hop culture has today spread around the world.

The four historic "elements" of hip hop are: MCing (rapping), DJing, urban inspired art/tagging (graffiti), and b-boying (or breakdancing). The most known "extended" elements are beatboxing, hip hop fashion, and hip hop slang.

When hip hop music developed in the 1970s, it was originally based around DJs who created rhythmic beats by "scratching" with record players, and "rapping" (a rhythmic style of chanting).

Etymology

The word hip was used as African American Vernacular English (AAVE) as early as 1904. The colloquial language meant "informed" or "current," and was likely derived from the earlier form hep. Hip hop pioneer and South Bronx community leader Afrika Bambaataa credits the first use of the term "Hip Hop," as it relates to the instant culture to Lovebug Starski a DJ who put out a single called "The Positive Life" in 1981.

Keith Cowboy, a rapper with Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five has been credited with the coining of the term hip hop in a musical sense. Though Lovebug Starski, Keith Cowboy, and DJ Hollywood used the term when the music was still known as disco rap, Cowboy claimed to have "created" the term while teasing a friend who had just joined the US Army, by scat singing the words "hip/hop/hip/hop" in a way that mimicked the rhythmic cadence of marching soldiers. Cowboy later worked the "hip hop" cadence into a part of his stage performance, which was quickly copied by other artists; for example the opening of the song "Rapper's Delight" by The Sugarhill Gang.

Bambaataa, a former Black Spades gang member is credited with first using the term to describe the subculture that hip hop music belongs to, although it is also suggested that the term was originally used derisively against the new type of music.

History of hip hop

1970s

DJs: rhythmic grooves from the turntable

In the early 1970s, Clive Campbell, a Jamaican born DJ who went by the name "Kool Herc," arrived in New York City. In Jamaica, Herc was known for his dancehall beats, a key component to the movement of music in NYC and the Bronx. This idea of dancehall had nothing to do with where the music was played, but more of a feeling of getting the people of Kingston, Jamaica to get on their feet and dance. This music, known as reggae, became a staple in the new music made in the Bronx. Herc introduced the Jamaican tradition of toasting, or boasting impromptu poetry and sayings over Reggae, Disco and Funk records, during parties held in parks in the Bronx, New York.

Herc and other DJs would tap into the power lines at public basketball courts to connect their equipment and perform. Their equipment was composed of huge stacks of speakers, turntables, and one or more microphones. Herc was also the developer of break-beat deejaying, where the breaks of funk songs—the part most suited to dance, often featuring percussion—were isolated and repeated for the purpose of all-night dance parties.

Later DJs such as Grandmaster Flash refined and developed the use of breakbeats, including cutting and scratching. The Bronx building "where hip hop was born" is 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, where Kool Herc started spinning records, and is now eligible to be listed on the national and state register of historic sites. The approach used by Herc was soon widely copied, and by the late 1970s DJs were releasing 12" records where they would rap to the beat. Popular tunes included Kurtis Blow's "The Breaks", and The Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight."

Rapping and emceeing

Emceeing is the rhythmic spoken delivery of rhymes and wordplay, delivered over a beat or without accompaniment. Rapping is derived from the griots (folk poets) of West Africa, and Caribbean-style toasting.

Rap developed both inside and outside of hip hop culture, and began with the street parties thrown in the Bronx neighborhood of New York in the 1970s by Kool Herc and others. It originated as MCs would talk over the music to promote their DJ, promote other dance parties, take light-hearted jabs at other lyricists, or talk about problems in their areas and issues facing the community as a whole.

Melle Mel, a rapper/lyricist with The Furious Five is often credited with being the first rap lyricist to call himself an "MC".

1980s

Hip hop as a culture was further defined in 1983, when Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force released a track called "Planet Rock." Instead of simply rapping over disco beats, Bambaataa created an innovative electronic sound, taking advantage of the rapidly improving drum machine and synthesizer technology. The appearance of music videos changed entertainment: they often glorified urban neighborhoods, commonly called ghettos.. The music video for Planet Rock showcased the subculture of hip hop musicians, graffiti artists and breakdancers. Many hip hop-related films were released between 1983 and 1985, among them Wild Style, Beat Street, Krush Groove, Breakin, and the documentary Style Wars.

These films expanded the appeal of hip hop beyond the boundaries of New York. By 1985, youth worldwide were laying down scrap linoleum or cardboard, setting down portable "boombox" stereos and spinning on their backs in Adidas tracksuits and sneakers to music by Run DMC, LL Cool J, the Fat Boys, Herbie Hancock, EPMD, Soulsonic Force, Jazzy Jay, Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, and Stetsasonic, just to name a few. The hip hop artwork and "slang" of US urban communities quickly found its way to Europe and Asia, as the culture's global appeal took root.

The 1980s also saw many artists make social statements through hip hop. In 1982, Melle Mel and Duke Bootee recorded "The Message" (officially credited to Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five), a song that foreshadowed the socially conscious statements of Run-DMC's "It's like That " and Public Enemy's "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos."

During the 1980's, hip hop also embraced the creation of rhythm by using the human body, via the vocal percussion technique of beatboxing. Early pioneers such as Doug E. Fresh, Biz Markie, and Buffy from the Fat Boys made beats, rhythm, and musical sounds using their mouth, lips, tongue, voice, and other body parts. "Human Beatbox" artists would also sing or imitate turntablism scratching or other instrument sounds.

Legacy and Social Impact

Early hip hop has often been credited with helping to reduce inner-city gang violence by replacing physical violence with hip hop battles of dance and artwork. In the early 1970s, DJ Kool Herc began organizing dance parties in his home in the Bronx. The parties became popular and were moved to outdoor venues to accommodate for the amount of people attending. New York City teenagers, after years of gang violence, were looking for new ways express themselves. These outdoor parties, hosted in parks, became a means of expression and an outlet for teenagers. “Instead of getting into trouble on the streets, teens now had a place to expend their pent-up energy.” Tony Tone, a member of the pioneering rap group the Cold Crush Brothers, noted that “’Hip-hop saved a lot of lives.’” Hip hop culture became an outlet and a way of dealing with the hardships of life as minorities within America, and an outlet to deal with violence and gang culture. MC Kid Lucky mentions “people used to break-dance against each other instead of fighting.” Inspired by DJ Kool Herc, once gang-leader Afrika Bambaataa created a street organization called Universal Zulu Nation, centered around hip hop, as a means to draw teenagers out of gang life and violence.

However, with the emergence of commercial and crime-related rap during the early 1990s, an emphasis on violence was incorporated, with many rappers boasting about drugs, weapons, misogyny, and violence. While hip hop music now appeals to a broader demographic, media critics argue that socially and politically conscious hip hop has long been disregarded by mainstream America in favor of gangsta rap.

The musical genre of hip hop became further popularized when, in the early 1990s, Spanish language and Latin musical styles developed as integral features of hip hop. Although Puerto Ricans had been involved in hip hop culture since its beginnings in the 1970s,the emergence of popular Latin performers such as Kid Frost, Mellow Man Ace, Gerardo, and El General allowed for the international expansion of the music throughout Latin America.

Though created in the United States by African Americans and Latinos, hip hop culture and music is now global in scope. Youth culture and opinion is meted out in both Israeli hip hop and Palestinian hip hop, while France, Germany, the U.K., Brazil, Japan, Africa, and the Caribbean have long-established hip hop followings. According to the U.S. Department of State, hip hop is "now the center of a mega music and fashion industry around the world," that crosses social barriers and cuts across racial lines. National Geographic recognizes hip hop as "the world's favorite youth culture" in which "just about every country on the planet seems to have developed its own local rap scene."

See also

Template:Hip hop portal

• Hip hop culture
• Hip hop music
• Hip hop production
• Hip hop dance
• Hip hop fashion
• Hip hop theatre
• Hip-hop magazines
• 2007 in hip hop
• Dancehall
• Reggaetón
• Rhythm
• Beats (music)
• Universal Hip Hop Parade
• National Hip Hop Political Convention

References

1. The Resource - THE NEXT
2. New York Times, March 13, 1981 - "Rap...began in Harlem, the South Bronx and other black communities in the New York area". POP: THE SUGAR HILL GANG by Robert Palmer.
3. [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/arts/music/12rose.html A Rolling Shout-Out to Hip-Hop History.
4. Zulu Nation: History of Hip-Hop
5. ^ Keith Cowboy - The Real Mc Coy
6. http://www.zulunation.com/hip_hop_history2.htm (cached)
7. Kenner, Rob. "Dancehall," In The Vibe History of Hip-hop, ed. Alan Light, 350-7. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999.
8. Kenner, Rob. "Dancehall," In The Vibe History of Hip-hop, ed. Alan Light, 350-7. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999.
9. History of Hip Hop - Written by Davey D
10. Tenants Might Buy the Birthplace of Hip-Hop, Jennifer 8. Lee, New York Times, January 15, 2008.
11. Article about MelleMel (Melle Mel) at AllHipHop.com
12. Rose, Tricia. "Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America" page 192. Wesleyan Press, 1994
13. Rose, Tricia. "Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America", pages 53-55. Wesleyan Press, 1994.
14. Chang, Jeff. “It’s a Hip-hop World.” Foreign Policy 163, Nov/Dec 2007, 58-65.
15. Chang, Jeff. “It’s a Hip-hop World.” Foreign Policy 163, Nov/Dec 2007, 58-65.
16. Chang, Jeff. “It’s a Hip-hop World.” Foreign Policy 163, Nov/Dec 2007, 58-65.
17. http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/article/Bringing_that_beat_back__on_the_E_train/1200.html
18. Chang, Jeff. “It’s a Hip-hop World.” Foreign Policy 163, Nov/Dec 2007, 58-65.
19. Media coverage of the Hip-Hop Culture - By Brendan Butler, Ethics In Journalism, Miami University Department of English
20. Flores, Juan. “Puerto Rocks: Rap, Roots, and Amnesia,” In That’s the Joint! The Hip-Hop Studies Reader, ed. Murray Forman and Mark Anthony Neal, 69-72. Taylor & Francis Books, Inc. 2004.
21. Hip-Hop Culture Crosses Social Barriers - US Department of State
22. Hip Hop: National Geographic World Music

Further reading

• Wunderlich, Annelise. "Cuban Hip-hop: Making Space for New Voices of Dissent." In The Vinyl Ain’t Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture, ed. by Dipannita Basu and Sidney J. Lemelle, 167-79. London; Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Press, 2006.
• Sellin’ Out: An Essay on Commercial Hip Hop by Amrita Singh
• The "Death" of Hip-Hop by David Drake
• Theses on Hip-Hop by the Democracy and Hip-Hop Project
• The Globalization of Hip-Hop Culture by Eric Richardson
• Don't blame hip-hop for society's sexism by Cousin Jeff

• Hip hop