American Roots Music: Hip Hop

Hip Hop Evolution 

Before I get into the birth of Hip Hop, I’d like to offer a preface to this blog. As we’ve learned from class, we have the African diaspora to thank for the creation of many of the musical forms we have today. For example, the Blues, created by African Americans is the early 20th century would express their feelings rather than tell stories. The emotions that are expressed are generally sad or melancholy, often due to problems of oppression and hard times. This is a common subject within these genres that highlight the struggles of everyday life and  issues that are affecting the community as a whole, such as police brutality, illegal drugs released into the hood and gang violence. 

What is Hip Hop and How did it get its name?

Hip Hop is more than just a genre of music, its a culture movement in music, art, poetry, dance and politics. Created by African, Latin and Caribbean Americans in the Bronx, NYC, we can find its earliest form in block parties and community gatherings, where DJs would play funk, soul and disco music. 

The name Hip Hop is known to have two origins:

In one explanation, the tempo Hip Hop pairs the word hip that means trendy or fashionable with the leaping movement hop. 

The other explanation comes from Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, a pioneering rap group, a member of the group who was going to the army According to another, a member of the pioneering rap group Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five was teasing a friend who was going into the army, repeating the hip/hop/hip/hop his friend would soon be marching to, and then vocally playing off that - in a way that later got incorporated into other songs and eventually gave the music its name.

Old School (Early 1970s- Mid 1980s)

It wasn't until the early 1970s that Hip Hop was starting to develop, before that Disco was the most prominent genre of music in NYC. The first major Hip Hop Dj, a immigrant from Jamaica named Kool Herc, threw what is known as Hip Hops first party at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx. Here he played funk music which features an instrumental break in it, which later became known as the ‘Breakdown’ and we first see the development of break dancers and b-boying. By mixing percussive beats with popular dance songs, along with drum beats and record scratches, we see the first developments in the Hip Hop sound. 

Party Invite to the "Rec Room"

DJ Kool Herc is also known as the first to popularize the rapping form, which grew upon  West African griots, the talking blues and black power poetry. Including DJ Kool Herc, other pioneering NYC DJs like Grand Wizzard Theodore, Grandmaster Flash, and Afrika Bambaataa began to experiment with different techniques during parties, including turntable techniques, scratching, freestyle, and improvised vocals based on Jamaican “toasting” (the act of talking or chanting). Here is a short video on DJ Kool Herc's Turntables:

In the latter half of the old school hip hop era, the Hip Hop genre was starting to become known across the states. The Sugarhill Gang trio released the song “Rapper’s Delight”(1979), which quickly skyrocketed up the national music charts reaching the top 40 on the US Billboard charts, leading the way for a new wave of musicians, artists and performers.

New School (Mid 1980s- Late 1990s)

In the 1980s, Hip Hop welcomed its next wave of rappers. Many of these artists began bringing new ideas to the genre, including drum machine beats (especially the 808), more complex sampling, shorter songs (radio-friendly) metaphorical rap lyrics, and socio-political commentary. Here we see a great shift from party rhymes and funk influences of the old school to new school which fused rap with hard rock and new style in attire. The 1980s also saw Hip Hop spread internationally to mainstream audiences across the UK, Japan and Australia. The 80’s brought artists like Run-D.M.C., LL Cool J, the Beastie Boys and Public Enemy, who invested rap with the Black political ideology, which built on the social consciousness of “The Message”(1982) by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five: 

The Message

I've included this video clip from Happy Feet, which has been stuck in my mind since I've seen the movie.

It was also in this era where female rappers such as Queen Latifah and Salt-n-Pepa, offered an alternative viewpoint to the misogynistic male dominated rap. Many performers during this time enjoyed the huge mainstream success, introducing major innovations in the genre with each new record. This wave of innovation was also a form of competition between artists to see who could become more popular by bringing something new to the table. Major artists included Public Enemy, Tupac Shakur, The Notorious B.I.G., MC Hammer, Boogie Down Productions, Snoop Dogg, Nas, A Tribe Called Quest, and Big Daddy Kane. 

This era also saw the rise of gangsta rap, a subgenre that emphasized the lifestyle of inner-city youth in South Compton, L.A. In response to New York Hip Hop, the 1989 album Straight Outta Compton by the N.W.A. led the way as West Coast rap grew in prominence in the early 1990s. Their tales of real life in the inner city which offered graphic and violent images of Los Angeles gave rise to the sub genre known as gangsta rap. In L.A., Death Row Records built an empire off of Dr.Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Tupac Shakur, in doing so they also entered into a rivalry with New York City’s Bad Boy Records. This caused a great divide in the two rap powerhouses - East and West Coast, developing into a media-fueled hostility, culminating in the still-unsolved murders of Shakur and the MC known as the Notorious B.I.G.

Straight Out of Compton by N.W.A.

21st century Hip Hop

Hip Hop has remained prominent in mainstream media branching out from the predominant East Coast and West Coasts, we now have new epicenters of rap in cities like New Orleans, Atlanta, Houston and Detroit. At the turn of the century, the music industry entered into a crisis due to digital downloading. Hip Hop sales tumbled throughout the decade, while also solidifying its dominant influence on global youth culture. Dr. Dre’s contributions to Hip Hop allowed for a new type of musician to arise - The Producer. From Timbaland to Swizz Beats, the focus on producers as a creative and a commercial force was a clear indicator that Hip Hop was shifting into Pop music. 

J. Cole

What are the most notable characteristics of Hip Hop? 

There are known to be between 4 basic characteristics of original Hip Hop:

1. DJing—the artistic handling of beats and music

2. MCing, aka rapping—putting spoken-word poetry to a beat

3. Breaking—Otherwise known as B-boying or Breakdancing, Hip Hop’s dance form

4. Writing—the painting of graffiti that is extremely 

Other Characteristics include: 

Strong, Rhythmic beat- strongest unifying factor in Hip Hop. The type of beat varies from song to song but it carries the song steadily forward, serving as a backdrop for the vocals. 

Vocals- Rapping is the main vocal style in Hip Hop songs that is usually a type of rhymed chant that interplays with the beat. Songs can also include other vocal styles such as singing, spoken word, autotune and ad-libs. 

Hip Hop today relies on a 16-bar verse form followed by a chorus/hook section. In most cases there are three verse sections with each one followed by a chorus or hook section. The video below gives some insight on how to write lyrics: 

Citations 

Guide, Step. 2021. “Hip-Hop Music Guide: History of Hip-Hop and Notable Artists - 2022.” MasterClass. https://www.masterclass.com/articles/hip-hop-guide#a-brief-history-of-hip-hop-music.

“Hip-Hop: A Culture of Vision and Voice.” n.d. Kennedy Center. Accessed January 19, 2022. https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/resources-for-educators/classroom-resources/media-and-interactives/media/hip-hop/hip-hop-a-culture-of-vision-and-voice/.

Milliman, Hayley. 2021. “The Complete History of Hip Hop.” PrepScholar Blog. https://blog.prepscholar.com/hip-hop-history-timeline.

Robin. 2015. “Writing Rap and Hip-Hop Songs – My Song Coach.” My Song Coach. https://mysongcoach.com/writing-rap-and-hip-hop-songs/.

Tate, Greg. n.d. “hip-hop | Definition, History, Culture, & Facts.” Britannica. Accessed January 19, 2022. https://www.britannica.com/art/hip-hop.

“What is Hip-Hop?” n.d. Musical Dictionary. Accessed January 19, 2022. https://musicaldictionary.com/what-is-hip-hop/.