For anyone who is down with Rap N Hip Hop Music.
:: Rules ::
1) No other topics besides music.
2) No Spamming
3) No harrassing people in the group but you can harrass there stupid ass topics and replies.
4) You can call me the Don
The History of Hip Hop
Rap music originated as a cross-cultural product. Most of its important early practitioners-including Kool Herc, D.J. Hollywood, and Afrika Bambaataa-were either first- or second-generation Americans of Caribbean ancestry. Herc and Hollywood are both credited with introducing the Jamaican style of cutting and mixing into the musical culture of the South Bronx. By most accounts Herc was the first DJ to buy two copies of the same record for just a 15-second break (rhythmic instrumental segment) in the middle. By mixing back and forth between the two copies he was able to double, triple, or indefinitely extend the break. In so doing, Herc effectively deconstructed and reconstructed so-called found sound, using the turntable as a musical instrument.
While he was cutting with two turntables, Herc would also perform with the microphone in Jamaican toasting style-joking, boasting, and using myriad in-group references. Herc's musical parties eventually gained notoriety and were often documented on cassette tapes that were recorded with the relatively new boombox, or blaster, technology. Taped duplicates of these parties rapidly made their way through the Bronx, Brooklyn, and uptown Manhattan, spawning a number of similar DJ acts. Among the new breed of DJs was Afrika Bambaataa, the first important Black Muslim in rap. (The Muslim presence would become very influential in the late 1980s.) Bambaataa often engaged in sound-system battles with Herc, similar to the so-called cutting contests in jazz a generation earlier. The sound system competitions were held at city parks, where hot-wired street lamps supplied electricity, or at local clubs. Bambaataa sometimes mixed sounds from rock-music recordings and television shows into the standard funk and disco fare that Herc and most of his followers relied upon. By using rock records, Bambaataa extended rap beyond the immediate reference points of contemporary black youth culture. By the 1990s any sound source was considered fair game and rap artists borrowed sounds from such disparate sources as Israeli folk music, bebop jazz records, and television news broadcasts.
In 1976 Grandmaster Flash introduced the technique In 1979 the first two rap records appeared: "King Tim III (Personality Jock)," recorded by the Fatback Band, and "Rapper's Delight," by Sugarhill Gang. A series of verses recited by the three members of Sugarhill Gang, "Rapper's Delight" became a national hit, reaching number 36 on the Billboard magazine popular music charts. The spoken content, mostly braggadocio spiced with fantasy, was derived largely from a pool of material used by most of the earlier rappers. The backing track for "Rapper's Delight" was supplied by hired studio musicians, who replicated the basic groove of the hit song "Good Times" (1979) by the American disco group Chic. Perceived as novel by many white Americans, "Rapper's Delight" quickly inspired "Rapture" (1980) by the new-wave band Blondie, as well as a number of other popular records. In 1982 Afrika Bambaataa's "Planet Rock" became the first rap record to use synthesizers and an electronic drum machine. With this recording, rap artists began to create their own backing tracks rather than simply offering the work of others in a new context. A year later Bambaataa introduced the sampling capabilities of synthesizers on "Looking for the Perfect Beat" (1983).of quick mixing, in which sound bites as short as one or two seconds are combined for a collage effect. Quick mixing paralleled the rapid-editing style of television advertising used at the time. Shortly after Flash introduced quick mixing, his partner Grandmaster Melle Mel composed the first extended stories in rhymed rap. Up to this point, most of the words heard over the work of disc jockeys such as Herc, Bambaataa, and Flash had been improvised phrases and expressions. In 1978 DJ Grand Wizard Theodore introduced the technique of scratching to produce rhythmic patterns.
Sampling brought into question the ownership of sound. Some artists claimed that by sampling recordings of a prominent black artist, such as funk musician James Brown, they were challenging white corporate America and the recording industry's right to own black cultural expression. More problematic was the fact that rap artists were also challenging Brown's and other musicians' right to own, control, and be compensated for the use of their intellectual creations. By the early 1990s a system had come about whereby most artists requested permission and negotiated some form of compensation for the use of samples. Some commonly sampled performers, such as funk musician George Clinton, released compact discs (CDs) containing dozens of sound bites specifically to facilitate sampling. One effect of sampling was a newfound sense of musical history among black youth. Earlier artists such as Brown and Clinton were celebrated as cultural heroes and their older recordings were reissued and repopularized.
During the mid-1980s, rap moved from the fringes of hip-hop culture to the mainstream of the American music industry as white musicians began to embrace the new style. In 1986 rap reached the top ten on the Billboard pop charts with "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)" by the Beastie Boys and "Walk This Way" by Run-DMC and Aerosmith. Known for incorporating rock music into its raps, Run-DMC became one of the first rap groups to be featured regularly on MTV (Music Television). Also during the mid-1980s, the first female rap group of consequence, Salt-N-Pepa, released the singles "The Show Stoppa" (1985) and "Push It" (1987); "Push It" reached the top 20 on Billboard's pop charts. In the late 1980s a large segment of rap became highly politicized, resulting in the most overt social agenda in popular music since the urban folk movement of the 1960s. The groups Public Enemy and Boogie Down Productions epitomized this political style of rap. Public Enemy came to prominence with their second album, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988), and the theme song "Fight the Power" from the motion picture Do the Right Thing (1989),by American filmmaker Spike Lee. Proclaiming the importance of rap in black American culture, Public Enemy's lead singer, Chuck D., referred to it as the African American CNN (Cable News Network).
Alongside the rise of political rap came the introduction of gangsta rap, which attempts to depict an outlaw lifestyle of sex, drugs, and violence in inner-city America. In 1988 the first major album of gangsta rap was released: Straight Outta Compton by the rap group NWA (Niggaz With Attitude). Songs from the album generated an extraordinary amount of controversy for their violent attitudes and inspired protests from a number of organizations, including the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation). However, attempts to censor gangsta rap only served to publicize the music and make it more attractive to both black and white youths. NWA became a platform for launching the solo careers of some of the most influential rappers and rap producers in the gangsta style, including Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, and Eazy-E.
In the 1990s rap became increasingly eclectic, demonstrating a seemingly limitless capacity to draw samples from any and all musical forms. A number of rap artists have borrowed from jazz, using samples as well as live music. Some of the most influential jazz-rap recordings include Jazzamatazz CD (1993), an album by Boston rapper Guru, and "Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)" (1993), a single by the British group US3. In the United Kingdom, jazz-rap evolved into a genre known as trip-hop, the most prominent artists and groups being Tricky and Massive Attack. As rap became increasingly part of the American mainstream in the 1990s, political rap became less prominent while gangsta rap, as epitomized by the Geto Boys, Snoop Doggy Dogg, and Tupac Shakur, grew in popularity.
Since the mid-1980s rap music has greatly influenced both black and white culture in North America. Much of the slang of hip-hop culture, including such terms as dis, fly, def, chill, and wack, have become standard parts of the vocabulary of a significant number of young people of various ethnic origins. Many rap enthusiasts assert that rap functions as a voice for a community without access to the mainstream media. According to advocates, rap serves to engender self-pride, self-help, and self-improvement, communicating a positive and fulfilling sense of black history that is largely absent from other American institutions. Political rap artists have spurred interest in the Black Muslim movement as articulated by minister Louis Farrakhan, generating much criticism from those who view Farrakhan as a racist. Gangsta rap has also been severely criticised for lyrics that many people interpret as glorifying the most violent and misogynistic (woman-hating) imagery in the history of popular music. The style's popularity with middle-class whites has been attacked as vicarious thrill-seeking of the most insidious sort. Defenders of gangsta rap argue that no matter who is listening to the music, the raps are justified because they accurately portray life in inner-city America.
What is hip-hop?: Hip-hop is a culture. The term is loosely used when referring to commercialized rap music, however hip-hop is more than just music. It is the hearbeat of American ghetto youth who claimed their own self-expression and used it to rise above their physical circumstances. Hip-hop culture has its roots in pride, truth, courage and self-determination. As a result it has grown to influence almost every segment of the planet.
Hip-Hop Culture
Hip-Hop is a cultural movement that began amongst urban (primarily, but not entirely, African American) youth in New York and has since spread around the world. The four main elements of hip-hop are MCing, DJing, graffiti art, and breakdancing. The term has since come to be a synonym for rap music to mainstream audiences. The two are not, however, interchangeable - rapping (MCing) is the vocal expression of lyrics in sync to a rhythm beneath it.
Gangsta Rap: also known as hardcore hip-hop, was the name given to the subgenre of hip hop which involves a lyrical focus on the lifestyle of street thugs and gangsters. Though hip hop's ghetto roots had always made violence and drug dealings common lyrical topics, they were rarely handled with anything more than a hard-edged variant of the perspective on inner-city problems seen in the socially conscious soul music of the 1970s; gangsta rap, however, completely focuses upon and in the vast majority of cases embraces the lifestyle of the drug dealers, thugs and criminals of the street. The term "Gangsta rap" is usually used to refer to the music describable as such coming from the West Coast or the South; East Coast hip hop artists and fans also use the "hardcore hip-hop" descriptor. The subgenre is notable for being by far the most commercially successful strand of hip hop and achieved considerable chart dominance during the later two-thirds of the 1990s, when many artists moved towards a more pop-friendly mainstream sound.
Controversy over subject matter
The subject matter inherent in gangsta rap has caused a great deal of controversy, with many observers criticizing the genre for the perceived messages it espouses, including homophobia, misogyny, racism and materialism. Gangsta rappers generally defend themselves by pointing out that they are describing the reality of inner-city ghetto life, and claim that when rapping they are simply playing a character. Given that the audience for gangsta rap has become predominately white, some commentators have even criticized it as analogous to minstrel shows and blackface performance, in which African-Americans or whites, made to look like black caricatures, acted in a stereotypically uncultured and ignorant manner for the entertainment of white audiences. Some performers, such as The Geto Boys, are even accused of being cartoonish and over-the-top (though many artists, particularly the Geto Boys, would be the first to freely admit this).
Reggae: Modern day rap music finds its immediate roots in the toasting and dub talk over elements of reggae music. In the early 70's, a Jamaican dj known as Kool Herc moved from Kingston to NY's West Bronx. Here, he attempted to incorporate his Jamaican style of dj which involved reciting improvised rhymes over the dub versions of his reggae records. Unfortunately, New Yorkers weren't into reggae at the time. Thus Kool Herc adapted his style by chanting over the instrumental or percussion sections of the day's popular songs. Because these breaks were relatively short, he learned to extend them indefinitely by using an audio mixer and two identical records in which he continuously replaced the desired segment.
In those early days, young party goers initially recited popular phrases and used the slang of the day. For example, it was fashionable for dj to acknowledge people who were in attendance at a party. These early raps featured someone such as Herc shouting over the instrumental break; 'Yo this is Kool Herc in the joint-ski saying my mellow-ski Marky D is in the house'. This would usually evoke a response from the crowd, who began to call out their own names and slogans.
As this phenomenon evolved, the party shouts became more elaborate as dj in an effort to be different, began to incorporate little rhymes-'Davey D is in the house/An he'll turn it out without a doubt.' It wasn't long before people began drawing upon outdated dozens and school yard rhymes. Many would add a little twist and customize these rhymes to make them suitable for the party environment. At that time rap was not yet known as 'rap' but called 'emceeing'. With regards to Kool Herc, as he progressed, he eventually turned his attention to the complexities of djaying and let two friends Coke La Rock and Clark Kent (not Dana Dane's dj) handle the microphone duties. This was rap music first emcee team. They became known as Kool Herc and the Herculoids.
Hip-Hop dance: The other elements of graffiti and dance developed at their own pace. One popular form of hip-hop dance, breakdance, grew out of a need for youth to express themselves and prove their prowess in a creative, non-destructive way. Many heads who would have been involved in gang activity or street life were able to express their frustrations through the art of a dance that was at once aggressive and poetic.
Breakdance drew from many dance styles and incorporated elements of Brazil's capoeira, other forms of martial arts, and was sometimes mixed with other hip-hop styles like popping and locking. Crews like the Rock Steady Crew, developed and "battled" other crews on the dancefloor, elevating the dance to an art form with now classic moves such as the 2 step,the Airtrack, the headspin, The Glide, and many more. Krump emerged from clown dancing in the new millennium.
Graffiti: Also known as writing, it started as underground urban art boldly displayed in public areas, usually sides of buildings or walls. It was used by citizens to make political and social commentary, as well as gangs to mark territory. Folks would leave their mark with "tags" such as TAKI 183, FRANK 207 and countless others. Eventually the art of tagging would blossom into a full-blown art form, consisting of beautiful mural art that would cover trains and buildings... and be villainized by the clueless New York Transit System.
Hip-hop Fashion Today: So, how did the term "Hip-hop Fashion" become synonymous with billions of dollars?
Rap music, rising in popularity through music videos, introduced it's sense of style to the masses. African-American entrepreneurs/designers had instant clientele not only within the rapidly expanding rap industry, but also among everyday people who were coming of age in Hip-hop culture. Given that New York City has the highest population of African-Americans in the world, it was no wonder that the main goal of these entrepreneurs was to harness the potential spending power of this huge market. This, coupled with guaranteed exposure from major rap acts sporting their clothing, caused once low-budget companies, such as Cross Colors, to suddenly rake in profits hand over fist.
When others in the fashion industry saw the profits that could be made from the young urban market they quickly jumped on the hip-hop fashion bandwagon. Many New York-based companies that were born within the African-American communities, such as Karl Kani, went international and are still going strong today. Other companies, such as Tommy Hilfiger, while not of the hip-hop culture, managed to tap into the market and deliver what the people wanted. The more popular and lucrative the Rap industry became, the more profitable it was for companies to offer the same looks you saw on your favorite Rap celebrities. This undeniable link between music and fashion, along with the streetwise entrepreneur-ship that fostered it, was the foundation of what we have now - a billion dollar industry whose life blood still flows through the soul of the urban community.
Bottom line, hip-hop celebrity generates dollars. Rap mogul, Russell Simmons, understood the equation of fashion + rap celebrity and offered the Phat Farm line, while FUBU wisely retained rap icon, LL Cool J, as a spokesperson. Designers such as Gucci, Prada and Versace are constantly rapped about and sported by mega-stars such as Puff Daddy, Li'l Kim, Eve and Mary J. Blige, just to name a few. With the inherent entrepreneurial spirit that has been a part of hip-hop since the beginning, it is no surprise then that many hip-hop artists have started their own successful clothing lines.