Hip hop (also spelled hip-hop or hiphop) is both a music genre and a cultural movement developed in New York starting in the 1970s, predominantly by African Americans and Latinos. Since first emerging in New York City in the 1970s, hip hop has grown to encompass an entire lifestyle that consistently incorporates diverse elements of ethnicity, technology, art and urban life. There are four fundamental elements in hip hop:
Hip hop dance: Breakdance and various forms of street dance;
Hip hop art: Urban inspired art, often as graffiti;
Hip hop music: DJing, beats and beatmaking, and hip hop production;
Rapping: MCing and urban inspired poetry.
Contents:
1 History of Hip hop
1.1 Hip hop music and DJing
1.2 Evolution of the MC
1.3 Origin of the term "Hip Hop"
1.4 Hip Hop Embraces Technology
2 Legacy
3 See also
4 References
History of Hip hop
Hip hop music and DJing
During the early 70s, Clive Campbell, a Jamaican DJ who went by the name " Kool Herc," arrived in New York City. Herc introduced the Jamaican tradition of "toasting," or boasting impromptu poetry and sayings over Reggae, Disco and Funk records, during parties in the Bronx, New York. Herc also was the originator of break-beat deejaying, where the breaks of funk songs—being the most danceable part, often featuring percussion—were isolated and repeated for the purpose of all-night dance parties. Later DJs such as Grandmaster Flash refined and developed the use of breakbeats, including cutting.
Herc's idea was soon widely copied, and by the late 70's a myriad of DJ's were releasing 12" cuts where they would rap to the beat. Popular tunes included Kurtis Blow's "The Breaks", and The Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight".
Evolution of the MC:
Rapping then developed as MCs would talk over the music to promote their DJ, promote other dance parties, or take light-hearted jabs at other lyricists. This soon developed into the rapping that appears on earlier basic hip-hop singles, with MCs talking about problems in their areas and issues facing the community as a whole. Melle Mel, a rapper/lyricist with The Furious Five is often credited with being the first rap lyricist to call himself an "MC."
By the late 1970s myriad DJs were releasing 12" cuts where MCs would rap to crowd-moving beats. Popular tunes included Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five's "Supperrappin'," Kurtis Blow's " The Breaks," and The Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight". In 1982, Melle Mel and Duke Bootee recorded " The Message" (officially credited to Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five), a song that foreshadowed socially conscious hip hop.
Origin of the term "Hip Hop"
Coinage of the term hip hop is often credited to Keith Cowboy, a rapper with Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five. Though Lovebug Starski, Keith Cowboy, and DJ Hollywood used the term when the music was known as disco rap, it is believed that Cowboy created the term while teasing a friend who had just joined the US Army, by scat singing the words "hip/hop/hip/hop" in a way that mimicked the rhythmic cadence of marching soldiers.
Cowboy later worked the "hip hop" cadence into a part of his stage performance, which was quickly copied by other artists; for example the opening of the song "Rapper's Delight" by The Sugarhill Gang. Former Black Spades gang member Afrika Bambaataa is credited with first using the term to describe the subculture that hip hop music belongs to, although it is also suggested that the term was originally derisively used against the new type of music.
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