Hip Hop Music and its Impact on American Culture

Hip hop, the creation of electronic sound and enticing language is a style born from the African American and Hispanic cultures. It formed in New York City from block parties and the participation of the youth culture. This style of music began as a minimal change in rhythm to a globally popular culture consisting of graffiti art, dancing, and music. Hip hop was not only a type of tasteful music, but it also became a benchmark in history. When this style of music was created, it served as an outlet for those who did not have a voice, particularly the minority groups. These groups were given rights that they deserved just like everyone else. In the 1970’s is when hip hop began to spread, creating not just

Hip hop is one of the most prominent component in life and culture today. Today, it is often affiliated as being a musical genre and style that is debatably the leading factor in music today. But hip hop is far more than that. It is a culture and a way life. It has helped form most what we know today. It has greatly influenced many ways that we choose to define ourselves. Clothing styles, all forms of art media, storytelling, and many other canvases that we typically use in our everyday life has been tremendously impacted the culture form of hip hop, and this trend is on a steady constant growth.

Want to look back and see how much Hip hop has changed over the years? Hop in your car, turn on the radio and tune into 103.5 or 102.5 then tune into 101.1, feel old yet? Well thats because you are, and if you didn’t do what I said, or even care, the radio station 101.1 plays hip hop and Rnb hits from the 90’s and the early 00’s. If you compare the sound, lyrics, and even the style of music, the difference are quite drastic. But listen closely to the stations because the contrasts are quite telling of the standards of music in our current times.

Do you remember a time, during which hip hop music was a voice against African American oppression? Honestly, it is hard to tell nowadays. Even though hip hop was a concept coined my American artists, it is rooted in many cultures among different nations. It is one of the only nationalistic movements that have not lost its fundamental heritage throughout the test of time. Hip hop music has always been a voice for the voiceless, but in the past decade, the music genre has declined into commercialism. While these mainstream artists are cashing in their paychecks, young, talented artists, like the SaveMoney Crew are reinstating the consciousness in rap that has been missing for some time now. I believe that the majority of mainstream rap has changed for the worse because rappers are largely making music about meaningless things like extravagant purchases, hard core drugs, and sexual exploits, instead of using their position and influence to advocate against police brutality, discrimination, and the struggles inherent in a life of poverty like the underground movement spearheaded by the Savemoney Crew and other young, socially conscious rappers.

Picture this, you are teenager growing up in Los Angeles, on your way to school and you turn on the radio. “Yo thanks for tuning into to the hottest radio station in the streets of LA. Up next we got N.W.A. with their new single Appetite for Destruction.” That was common for nearly every person who lived in LA and enjoyed hip-hop music. During the early 90s and late 80s, West coast hip-hop was dominated by the gruesome realities of gangster rap and g-funk. Rap at the time was intense, authentic, and unbearable. Ultimately, this wave of “fuck you” sprouted from the injustices that plagued many impoverished communities. Individuals were angered from the oppressive acts that hindered any attempt to reach success, and gangster music within LA served as the platform to express the frustration under such terrible circumstances. Although the sound was revolutionary and taking over the entire nation, still Los Angeles needed a fresh of breath of air to display the artistic talent that came out of Los Angeles. New York could play with both sides of the hip-hop spectrum of light-heartedness to aggressiveness, but unfortunately for LA, they only had one sound. In New York, they had artists from Kid N Play to Public Enemy. If Los Angeles were ever going to snatch the throne from New York, they needed to do so quickly before the dawn of Golden Age ended.

What movement changed the world and created many traditions, movements, and even lifestyles? Hip-Hop. This is a name for four elements, created in the late seventies, which includes turntablism, emceeing, graffiti, and break dancing. Hip Hop attained widespread popularity in the 1980s and ’90s. Today, many view this as just “Rap,” but Hip Hop is not just music, it is a cultural movement that influenced America in positive ways. These influences can be seen in the traditions, fashion, art, music, and lifestyles of America. It is important to recognize the voice of an otherwise underrepresented group and how it influenced lifes.

“Examples abound of hip hop permeating the entertainment world and beyond, from television and film, various musical genres, clothing styles, dance styles, marketing trends, the use of language, and more.” (Kitwana 109) Can something actually exist that undermines Middle American and family values threatening the assumed superior culture? There may just be such an inferior culture. This culture being hip-hop.

Hip hop is a culture 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 was 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 pop music such as disco and reggae. Hip hop and rap music has become very popular and a successful genre in music. The style of dressing called urban clothes is also involved with the hip hop culture. They wore big baggy pants, large t-shirts, and Timberland leather work boots. In the 2000’s the United States and Canada popular music style was hip hop music (Kavanagh).

The music videos that show a disturbing mix of rap and hip hop dance styles and profane language leaves us many people wondering if hip hop is harming our generation. Some things that said through hip hop and rap are a young person’s desire. The hip hop culture is an instant route to take to live the considered “good life” to our young generation. Many of us

Hip-Hop Culture and race have had a complicated relationship in the past two decades. It has been commonly referred to as “black music” and a reflection of black culture. However, recent studies done by the Mediamark Research Inc. showed that 60% of rap music buyers are white. With the emergence of white, Latino, Asian, and other rappers with diverse backgrounds on the Hip Hop scene it is important recognize the changing color of the genre and the stereotype it holds as “black music”. Black culture has also been subject to appropriation because of the popularization of Hip-hop music. However, much of the discourse on the topic confuses cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation, and states that hip-hop music is strictly for African Americans or that it doesn’t belong to anyone at all. Hip-Hop is a black art form that transcends cultural boundaries and can be appreciated through the lenses of different cultures as long as those who enjoy it acknowledge its roots. The genre’s growing number of non-black rappers is not due to the appropriation of the genre by other cultures but as an expansion of it due to it’s growing popularity across the world.

As the decade of the 1970’s came to an end, a new Black music emerged like much of the others - wrapped in social realities of an genuinely Black experience. Rap/Hip Hop bursted on the seams relating many of the same political messages and ideologies heard decades before. Echoing the Black Power movement and using the musical culture as a way to rebuild Black communities constantly under attack, rap brought real life stories of an urban, younger

Hip hop has, since its creation, been a form of music that has been very prominent in the African American community. However in the two essays, one written by Baruti Kopano, the second by Carlos Morrison and Ronald Jackson II, they make the argument that white community is appropriating hip hop and African American culture through certain actions.

Hip-Hop is an extensive and a broad conglomerate of various artistic forms that ultimately originated in the South Bronx and then quickly spread throughout the rest of New York City among African-Americans and other African-American youth mainly from the Caribbean and from Jamaica during the 1970’s. Over the course of decades and recent years, controversy surrounding Hip-Hop and rap music has been the vanguard of the media. From the over hype of the East and West Coast rivalry to the deaths of Tupac, Biggie, and even Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin, it seems that political and broadcasting groups have been injudicious to place essentially the blame on rap and Hip-Hop music for a superficial trend in youth violence.

It has been 30 years since Hip-Hop was first “introduced” to the world. Whether it be fashion or politics, this musical genre/culture plays a huge role in everyday life and has generated billions of dollars across the globe. In this paper I will be discussing when, where, and how Hip-Hop was created, “old school Hip-Hop, “Hip-Hop’s Golden Age”, “Hardcore rap” “Gangsta rap”, “G-Funk”, 21st century Hip-Hop, and how Hip-Hop affects society.

Hip Hop in the most popular genre of music between all African American communities, not just in America, but worldwide. Hip Hop has expanded itself into music, fashion, advertisement, movies, and it’s given many rappers, and those associated with the genre, the chance to influence their communities, societies and their culture in general, but commercial Hip Hop in the U.S. has branded Hip Hop in a negative way. (The Young and The Hip-Hop, Hip Hop Culture Center in Harlem, 2012, Web, Oct. 27, 2014) This is all due to the negative imagery and negative lyrics like the term nigga, negative implications of Hip Hop include exploiting black adolescent girls, promoting unhealthy lifestyles, and implying that the open use of the word nigga is not harmful. Hip Hop has become a global phenomenon where it has evolved from a genre of music to a lifestyle for the African American community.