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The Club Culture Essay

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The Club Culture

The club culture-hundreds of thousands of young people across the country, covered in sweat and rhythmically throbbing to a beat- has long been filled with stigmas and stereotypes; the idea that hip-hop music is only for people of African descent, or solely for the "impoverished youth" as Dale Kleinschmidt, an ex-DJ and amateur break dancer from Dallas, puts it, has been a common view associated with the hip-hop scene by the masses. Dale got interested in break dancing because, as he says, "he wanted to look cool." In the beginning, the idea of being able to break dance was funny to him- he had already been involved in the dance scene, but he had never been a b-boy, he just DJed. A lot of Dale's interest in the dance …show more content…

"...provided you're not a jerk to anyone else, it's very easy to be respected...." The kids themselves have high respect for anyone involved- what it basically comes down to is a bunch of kids trying to find something to do on a Friday night. "...if nothing else, it seems that most of the kids I would break dance with were just bored..."

The four elements of hip-hop, as Dale, and many other people, would say are as follows: MCing, DJing, tagging, and dancing. Of the four, Dale feels that he is most learned in the aspects of dancing and DJing. Before Dale ever got involved in the hip-hop culture specifically he was out DJing trance records- a form of techno. "...I think that what you'll find is that it's the same group of kids going to two different places, depending on what their mood is like..." Techno, a form of music based on electronics, is similar to hip-hop because the share some of the same elements- more specifically break dancing and DJing. While tagging- essentially spray painting your name on a wall- and MCing- rapping or singing over the music the DJ is playing- seem to be unique to hip-hop culture, both techno and hip-hop seem to be built around dancing. The music played in both scenes is always loud and driven by bass.

Dale got interested in DJing when he was in high school. At first he had wanted his

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