Hip Hop Music: Beat-Making

Hip-hop is a cultured style that started in the 1970’s. Majority of different funk groups began playing disco music at that time it was popular. During this time funk music was technology driven more electronic sounds were being used on the drum machines. Funk was the new dance in the early 70’s. This particular style of singing in which was being used is called rapping, this begun in African American, Urban Areas, Jamaican American, Latino American and many others cities of the United States. The group of artist or singer say words with a rhythm that rhymes. Some hip-hop music lyrics are about violence and illegal drugs. Often time lyrics are about the life of urban people who stay in big cities. Other styles that hip-hop uses come from

Hip Hop was birthed in the neighborhood, where young people gathered in parks, on playgrounds, and neighborhood street corners, to verbalize poetry over spontaneous sounds and adopted melodies. Hip Hop was not just the music; it was also a way for the young to show their skills in break dancing, gymnastic dance style that was valued, and athleticism over choreographed fluidity. Hip hop was also fashion such as: hats, jackets, gold chains, and name-brand sneakers. Hip Hop was a form of graffiti, to a new way of expression that engaged spray paint on the subway walls as the canvas. In addition, today’s hip hop have changed as where the DJ was once is now the producer as the key music maker, and the park is now a studio.

It’s a culture that has gotten so big that its influence can be seen everywhere from movies, commercials, and even pop songs. “We live in a popularity contest now,” says the rapper Chuck Inglish. The genre has become so recognized to the point of over saturation, in addition the music industry has monopolized the radio to dumb down the masses with homogenous rap songs made by a handful of people. So it’s up to the listener to “Put our money where our ears want to be,” and support fresh, creative, and unique hip hop. If the listeners become intent with such sub standard expectations, then the authenticity of Hip Hop will die

The genre created in very poor districts, like the Bronx, in New York by African-American and Latino teenagers. They learned how to use turntables by working as DJs at discos. DJs and MCs would play at free block parties. An MC is an abbreviation for Master of Ceremony his/her job is to focus on skills, lyrical ability, and subject. So, during block parties, the DJ would play music and the MC encouraged guest to have fun. Parties went on MCs slowly started to rhyme while they were performing. Hip-Hop was only played live at first until Sugar Hill Gang released Rappers Delight in 1979. Rappers Delight was a huge success for hip-hop. Personally, I consider the Sugar Hill Gang the founding fathers of Hip-Hop.

Hip-Hop is a complex cultural movement formed during the early 1970s by African Americans in the slums of South Bronx, New York (Dyson 6), it propagated outside of the African American community in late 1980s, and by the opening of the 21th century it became the most spread culture in the world. Hip-Hop consists of four elements: Deejay, Break-Dancing, Rapping, and Graffiti. (Kenon 112)

You’re standing in a crowd amongst thousands of fans at an Eminem concert, people from all over, shoulder to shoulder in a massive stadium, singing along every word of their favorite song for hours. People from all over are connected to each other through the power of music. When it comes to music, the life experiences, inspiration, and current events play a tremendously significant role. Hip hop is a form of art which can be expressed through rap songs, break-dancing, and graffiti art. The culture has become so popular that it has entered today’s fashion and modern language. Hip hop music is an extremely large part of today’s generation and a global genre, which influences the generation all over the world.

Hip-hop culture began to develop in the south Bronx area of New York City during the 1970s. It had a significant influence in the music industry. Hip-hop music generally includes rapping, but other elements such as sampling and beatboxing also play important roles. Rapping, as a key part in the hip-hop music, takes different forms, which including signifying, dozen, toast and jazz poetry. Initially, hip-hop music was a voice of people living in low-income areas, reflecting social, economic and political phenomenon in their life [1]. As time moves on, hip-hop music reached its “golden age”, where it became a mainstream music, featuring diversity, quality, innovation and influence [2]. Gangsta rap, one of the most significant innovations in

Even with the seemingly endless list of negative influences, there are countless positive influences deeply rooted in the soul and culture of hip hop. Hip hop is facing the same criticisms that every new type of music has faced in the development of that genre of music. Blues, Jazz, and Rock (in their beginnings) all scared parents and were criticized by the media, but they are now widely accepted and considered “clean” music. New music of any generation is always scary to the non-youth in society because the media only focuses on bad points and downfalls, but always fail to mention the good being done. Breaking down cultural barriers is the most positive influence rap has had on society. It creates/sustains community, is the voice of the people, defines generations, fuels needed protest, and calls attention to injustices. This new style of music allows anybody to control their destiny from the ground up, and has become a new medium for social commentary. Hip hop allows the underprivileged and discriminated to express their feelings, and

The hip-hop culture began in the streets of New York City during the 1970’s and has gone through tremendous changes up until now. Hip-Hop consists of four elements: rap, graffiti, break-dancing, and the disc jockey. In this paper, I intend to fully explain the evolution of rap music, from its infancy to the giant industry it is today.

Hip Hop music has always been tied to the music and sounds of the past. Sampling might be one of the most apparent nods to past legacies. Andrew Bartlett explored the concept of sampling in his “Airshafts, Loudspeakers and the Hip Hop Sample” article (Forman, 393). In his project, he highlighted authors that referred to sampling as “holding music at gunpoint” and a “mixing of colors” (393). Sampling is all of the above and a keystone in hip-hop. As an avid listener of the genre, many cadences and beats sound the same, and there is a reason why. Beside the stock sounds available to a majority of producers, particular sounds tend to be sampled more than others. One, if not the most, sampled sound in hip-hop is by a drummer on James Brown’s 1986

The hip hop industry is filled with many artist with different sounds all trying to bring about there own style of music. Unfortunately, some of these artist are unsatisfactory. Anyone who listens to hip hop music understands the variety of personalities within the hip hop industry.

Hip Hop music had been around for about twenty years in the United Sates, but it was usually heard at block parties and discos where DJs would loop breakbeats and MCs would add live vocals.

Although sampling can be found in numerous genres of music, it was ultimately the use of sampling in hip-hop music that “catapulted sampling into mainstream popular culture.” Modern day sampling started in the 1960’s when Jamaican disc jockeys (DJs) began to combine samples of already created sound recordings to produce numerous original rhythms and arrangements using phonograph turntables. Fast-forward to the late 1970’s, Jamaican born Dee- Jay Kool Herc brought his sample techniques to the South Bronx, New York. It was there that Dee-Jay Kool Herc began to create “breaks,” in which he took two copies of the same vinyl record and alternated between the two of them in order to create isolated rhythmic instrumental pieces of a song. Thereafter,

Hip-Hop as a subculture was established by Black Americans, the youth in particular because of their marginalization. Mainstream music was made mostly by White Americans for White Americans on topics they could relate to. Even though Hip-Hop started off as just a beat it transformed into something so much more. Jamaica born DJ Clive “Kool Herc” Campbell,  one of the most influential in pioneering the art of hip hop music, brought over many Jamaican traditions including their tradition of toasting, which laid the blueprint for the actual rapping on instrumentals. Toasting is impromptu, boastful poetry and speech over music.

Hip Hop has always had a reserved section of my heart, so I decided that I would learn how to produce Hip Hop beats. This process began with me learning how to use a Digital Audio Workshop (DAW) such as FL Studio 12. On this computer program, I would layer multiple instruments on top of each other, each with their own distinct sound and pattern in order to create an original “beat.” To accomplish this task, I had to teach myself how to play the piano and the drums. By learning how to play the piano, I was able to learn the musical scale, which I could apply to other instruments and synthesizers. However, the drums are the most important instrument in Hip Hop music because they often lay the hard and aggressive sound to juxtapose the melodic