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How Did Hip Hop Influence Popular Culture

Decent Essays

From a concrete bed, a rose grew—Hip Hop. One of the most influential art forms in popular culture today, arose from a place where little seemed to escape. Hip Hop emerged from the South Bronx around the 1970s (Alridge and Stewart 190). In a collision between gangs, drugs, and poverty, a new form of self-expression was created. Artists would rhyme lyrics over a DJ scratching beats and music, creating what is now called rap. Since its beginnings, “Hip Hop has encompassed not just a musical genre, but also a style of dress, dialect and language…” (Alridge and Stewart 190). Hip Hop did not just bring music to the ears of listeners, but with it, a new culture emerged. It became a way of life for its listeners. Hip Hop influenced, the lives of urban youth, and …show more content…

These brands became possible because of the extreme levels of success, as explained by Tasha Lewis & Natalie Gray: In the 1990s, the arrival of some of hip-hop’s music executives and artists, like Russell Simmons, Sean “Diddy” Combs and Jay-Z, to great levels of wealth and entrepreneurship allowed for the creation of apparel brands that fed the demand for the Hip Hop fashion aesthetic that had long been creatively mixed with designer labels and urban fashion trends by its wearers (230). Theses entrepreneurs arrived on the scene with clothing brands like Cross Colours and Karl Kanai. Before these brands, no retail stores were specifically catering to hip-hop consumers. When these brands arrived, Hip Hop culture was woven together and the term ‘urban’ was coined to describe Hip Hop culture and brands. A sense of community formed. The brands that outfitted urban customers were created by people from similar backgrounds. Hip Hops biggest and most influential stars, like Jay-Z and Tupac, were wearing urban brands (figure 1). To supply the demand, more brands, like Fubu began to appear, as they

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