Rap Music Descriptive Writing

In the persuasive essay, “Hip- Hop Planet”, the author, James McBride tries to persuade the readers to listen to hip-hop music. He explains how hip hop music is significant in history, and how it has taken over the music world.

As thorough and rewarding as Bradley’s close reading can be, it is this sole focus that becomes problematic in Book of Rhymes. He stays on the surface, privileging the discussion of linguistic elements over cultural impact. He begins his wordplay chapter with an anecdote about a friend who disapproves of the misogynistic and violent elements of the Notorious B.I.G.’s lyrics, a qualm addressed by Bradley in a customary manner: “It’s not what he’s saying, it’s how he’s saying it” (86). Bradley is partially correct; how he’s saying it is the aesthetically appealing aspect of hip hop, the reason millions of people around the world enjoy the music. But what he’s saying is the more compelling aspect. The environment that produced the attitudes reflected in hip hop, the source of Biggie’s misogyny and violent imagery, must be given its proper treatment in order to understand rap music on deeper levels than the beauty and complexity of its poetic structures.

In the global popularity scene, hip hop now rules, and is a dominant cultural form in many parts of the world. Rap gives voice to every culture that produces and circulates it, not just African-Americans. As a new force, rap levels the playing field, opening doors to new cultural players, and ripens for new corporate snakes to pounce on. Circulating ideas, images, sound, and style, it is becoming central to the new multimedia global culture and is an expression of a multicultural world with no borders and limits.

Rap music was creating a negative influence throughout the music industry for awhile, it’s agreeable that modern day rap today mostly involves drugs, gangs, violence, money, etc. Although, a lot of it also gives inspiration or at least has that goal being set when creating the music. Most

The study of hip hop music has been cited well throughout its growth over time. The purpose of this paper is intended to discuss hip hop culture and address cultural stereotypes associated with rap and hip-hop music, but also how its original lyrical intentions were forms of expression and art. It will begin by guiding the reader through how it originated, its influence with the African-Americans with its subculture and popularity in urban areas, its styles of evolving, the introduction of hip hop and rap to the public, the depiction it gave off with its criticisms from outsiders. An evaluation of hip hop artists songs by Sugar Hill and the Gang, Run DMC, Queen Latifah, and N.W.A. Including lyrics from the songs “Rappers Delight”, “King of Rock”, “Latifah’s Law”, and “Niggaz4Life”. In the conclusion it exposes how hip hop music is clearly for black Americans to express themselves freely and in fact did not cause violence.

Rap music officially started in 1978 in the Bronx, New York. According to the author, most Americans

Jay Z, Tupac, Kendrick lamar. All these people have the same thing in common. They call grew up in a ghetto. Jay Z donates to charity, Tupac was a shakespeare nut, and kendrick lamar donated almost $50,000 to his school he went to. Not for the publicity, he didn't want anyone to know about it. Where you're from doesn't define who you are.

1. Kelley, R. (1996). Kickin' reality, kickin' ballistics: Gansta rap and postindustrial Los Angeles. In W.E. Perkins (Ed). Droppi" science: Critical essays on rap music and hip hop culture (117-158) Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

It was twenty years ago that the rap group N.W.A with Ice Cube as its most vital lyricist released its album “Straight Outta Compton”. They called their music reality rap, everyone else called it gangsta and music history was made. Hip hop music came from the clubs and sidewalks of New York City as party music made with turntables and rhymes by performers who usually couldn’t afford music instruments. It was party music and then it came west and got a beat down by a swaggering collective that called itself N.W.A. They took the genre to the dangerous side of the street (Boucher,2008).

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.

The rap genre originated from some of the most underprivileged areas of New York in the 1970’s. What was once DJ’s talking over a beat they were playing to encourage more activity on the dance floor, turned in to a new genre of music called rap. The majority of earlier rap songs were fun inducing tracks, but in the 1980’s, Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five introduced social consciousness to the genre. They sparked a long lasting impact on rap as it started to evolve rapidly as time went on. The 90’s was home to “gangsta rap,” followed by a softer side of song writing pioneered by the likes of Outkast and Kanye West in the 2000’s. Today, rap music is very diverse and more accepting of different styles than it was before. However, throughout the entire history of rap music, the one thing that has stayed

Hip Hop culture has come from a inner city expression of life to a multi-billion dollar business. At the beginning of the new millennium it was the top selling genre in the pop charts. It had influences not only on music, but on fashion, film, television, and print. In 2004 Hip Hop celebrated its 30th year anniversary. It wasn’t big for the fact that it was still kicking. It was big because the once Black/Brown inner city culture had grown into a multi-billion dollar global phenomenon (Reeves). Hip Hop culture has provided a platform for all walks of life to speak their mind. Over the past 36 years it has provided us with both entertainment and controversy alike and had a huge impact on our nation’s history. `

Rap music, also known as hip-hop, is a popular art form. Having risen from humble origins on the streets of New York City during the mid-1970s, hip-hop has since become a multifaceted cultural force. Indeed, observers say, hip-hop is more than just music. The culture that has blossomed around rap music in recent decades has influenced fashion, dance, television, film and—perhaps what has become the most controversially—the attitudes of American youth. For many rappers and rap fans during it’s early time, hip-hop provided an accurate, honest depiction of city life that had been considered conspicuously absent from other media sources, such as television. With a growing number of rap artists within this period, using hip-hop as a platform to call for social progress and impart positive messages to listeners, the genre entered a so-called Golden Age

     Most rap songs that contain violence reflects incidents that occur in today’s society such as the Rodney King incident. “Rap music brings together a tangle of some of the most complex social, cultural, and political issues in contemporary American society.” Rap and hip-hop artists write songs that promote the killing of enemies as well as targeting institutions such as the church, government, and justice system (Ro 145) Most artists relive their own painful experiences over and over again though their music, delaying their own society’s process of recovery . for example, in 1989

Throughout history, music has been used to express the feelings of people or groups whom may have no other outlet to express themselves. The best example of this occurrence would be the lower class of America’s use of rap music. Rap music started out as a fun variation of disco with the purpose to make people dance and enjoy themselves, but it later transformed into one of the best outlets to express the struggles of poverty in the United States. The genre gained popularity when the song “Rapper 's Delight” hit the charts in the early eighties; rap evolved into a plethora of different styles from there, Gangster Rap formed with NWA in the late eighties, and rap really hit it’s zenith in the mid nineties. Modern rap began in the early starts of the twentieth century. Because of the storytelling that rappers do in the music, it gained notice in the inner city where the demographic could relate. Many young teen in the inner city environment built dream to be famous rappers just like their own favorite artists . Rap connects to me by its style, its purpose, and its political incorrectness.