Rap Music And Hip Hop Music

Rap is a genre in music that consists of rhyming or being poetic over a certain unique beat. The origin of rap is significantly different from any other form of music. The flow, change, subject of the music, and the instrumentals behind the rapping has all changed with time. Most people would underestimate the complexity of the music and the evolution it has undergone. The real roots of rap music began in the late 1980’s with the “Golden Age.” It was innovative and mostly based around the party scene. Gangsta Rap followed the Golden age and was very impactful on the young culture. After the Gangsta Rap era came the time in rap referred to as Crunk Rap which combined the country sound with the party lifestyle. Conscious

Nelson George states that “Gangsta rap is direct by- product of crack explosion. Unless you grasp that connection nothing else that happened in the hip hop’s journey to national scapegoat will make sense. This is not a chicken-or-the-egg riddle —first came rocks, then gangsta rap” (136). To prove his point he examines the connection between drug culture of the inner city areas and the hip hop music. The money collected from illegal drug deals spent on recordings of gangsta rap music. George says “Suspicion of women, loyalty to the crew, adoption of a stone face in confronting the world, hatred of authority—all major themes of gangsta rap-owe their presence of lyrics and impact on audiences to the large number of African-American men incarcerated in the ‘90s” (138). I agree with his statement that gangsta rap is a directed by- product of crack explosion, because social and racial issues for instance drug dealing influencing the lyrics of music and this explosion of heroin and crack in communities gave birth to gangsta rap.

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.

This genre dates back hundreds of years ago, when African-Americans were enslaved, when rap and hip-hop were known as the same thing. This has always been a part of African American culture and they had always made it they’re own. They used this form of music to express the pain and abuse they went through; it was used as an escape from they’re daily struggle they called “life”. “Thousands of years ago in Africa “griots” where story tellers who played handmade instruments while they told stories about family and current events…Griots were captured against their will and forced into slavery” (Mize, 2014).

In rap music it’s not hard to find the violent lyrics with most of the music speaks about gang violence, shootings, drugs, and more. An example of a song that influences violence is J. Coles song “A Tale of 2 Cities” with lyrics like “Picked up the paper and they say my nigga Eddie caught a body, I'm convinced anybody is a killer, all you gotta do is push 'em to the limps” in this part of the song Cole speaks about how his friend, who isn’t really a person who would commit a crime, murdered somebody; Cole isn’t surprised because he believes everybody is a killer if you push them to their limits. Another example in the song is “They robbin' niggas on the daily can you blame a nigga that ain't never had things? Guess not last night they pulled up on my nigga at the light like ugh, nice watch, run it” the first part of these lyrics Cole justifies the crime of robbing because they have nothing. In the second part Cole states that somebody came up to his friend and robbed him of his watch, on this part the sound of a gun being cocked in the background is heard and is continued with the chorus saying “hands in the air now” (Genius). These lyrics not only promote violence but justify why it was okay to do such crimes. The reasoning behind why artists talk about violence is that it’s a way of telling their story. Namir, a rapper in New York says “People have to realize that rappers are just like any other artist or musician. What makes an artist an artist is his artistic portrayal of his life and how he expresses his life through whatever art form that he does” (PBS). With people growing up in terrible environments and music being a way for them to cope the reasoning for the violent lyrics is the artist trying tell their

With the violent diction, many people were put off by it. “Although violence, sexism and obscene lyrics have always been a part of American popular culture, what made gangsta rap intimidating was its lyrics…The lyrics came instead from the minds of what many white Americans considered to be the most violent and threatening segment of America-‘young angry inner city black men”(Canton 245). Much like today, the incarceration rate for black men was incredibly high, which can be seen through the aftermath of the Watts Riot, the formation of the Black Panther Party as well as countless other civil movement events. Gangsta rappers’ goal was to appeal to the masses of their culture. As many of them at least knew someone that had been put in jail, making songs about what got them there pulled a strong audience. For example, prominent gangsta rap group, NWA combined the violent rhetoric and political charged diction in their song, “F*ck tha

Rap music is defined as popular music advanced by disc jockeys and urban blacks in the late 1970s. This kind of music consists of a repeated beat pattern that provides the background for rapid, urban language, accompanied by a vocalist. Hip-Hop music is a genre that originated in the United States by inner-city African Americans in the 1970s which consists of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted. The Difference between rap and hip-hop music defined by EBONY is that hip-hop is a culture while rapping is one of four elements contained therein—the others being breakdancing, DJing and graffiti. The perception of rap music/hip-hop music by academic scholars is often accurate, in the portrayal that types of rap/hip-hop musicians often exhibit violent, misogynistic, antisocial, and materialistic content and behavior. Writer’s Johnetta B. Cole, Tia Tyree, Michelle Jones, Matthew Oware, and have all discussed the topic of rap music, and the ways in which it exhibits violent, misogynistic, antisocial, and materialistic content and behavior.

When I got a little bit older, a littler bit smarter, and a little bit wiser, I started to question myself and my identity, as well as Hip-Hop and the identity portrayed within the mainstream media. It seemed as though everything had to have a hardcore exterior. To be understanding, sensitive, or romantic seemed to be weak, while credibility was earned by talking about guns, drugs, pimping women, and dirty money. In an article regarding two underground DVDs called Straight Outta Hunters Point and Hood 2 Hood, Darren Keast put this idea best, "The storytellers are driven by the same motivation – proving that their block is the hardest, and that they are the hardest on the block." This is precisely what is portrayed in most mainstream rap – a market flood of bragging and boasting about doing illegal or despicable activities.

Rap Culture's Influence on Black Communities Rap music, originated in the United States in the 1970s. Since the beginning of the rap era, rap stars have had a distinctive style that susceptible listeners have mimicked as rap has become increasingly popular. Rap stars set trends that their fans emulate, they contribute a lot to what is seen as fashionable to the youth. This leads to the exploitation of the black community and unrealistic body goals. From Rap Stars to Fashion Icons Rap originally was used to express the feelings of African Americans who were oppressed and often lived in crime-ridden neighborhoods and came from lamentable environments.

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

Making its start in the 1970’s in New York , rap has taken the world by storm as a way to express individuals emotions and give a inside look at one's life through rhythm and rhymes. The genre of rap is an outlet for emotion and struggle for many individuals . Creating lines that tells stories about one's life and paints a visual and scenes in the listeners minds of the situations and problems that the artist has encountered . Rap has made many strides and changes from 1970-2017. There are so many similarities and differences in the age of old school rap and new school rap . So much as changes going artist to their lyrics and things will always such as the culture of rap .

The majority of todays youth listen to a form of music known as rap/hip-hop, rap being the style in which the artists uses his words while hip-hop refers more to the beats which is then often accompanied by a rap from a rapper, they go hand in hand with each other to make this genre. When you hear today’s music in this genre you hear artists talking about materialistic things they value such as; cars, money, drugs, women, and often-about crimes they have committed. They do still talk about the struggle of coming from the ghetto or hood (poverty stricken areas) and of gang violence but it’s not quite what it use to be. When looking at when rap and hip-hop first came around in the seventies you can see a very different meaning being convoyed through the music, there seems to be more of a focus of the struggle of being poor, gang life and overcoming racism and helping out the youth who live the lives these rappers use to live. While talking about how things need to be changed so that the youth doesn’t have to commit crimes or make decisions based on trying to make it out of the hood and to stop struggling. There has clearly been a evolution in lyric and what the rappers want to be heard from their music, but it wasn’t sudden we must take a look at the decades compared to the style of rap at that time to understand the change.

Rap music has been a part of this world since the 1960’s, and it has gone through hundreds of different stages in its time. However, the number one thing that people think of when they hear rap music is crime, violence, alcohol, drugs and other negative influences. Despite these common beliefes on what rap music is about, it can be an extremely positive influence. Educating the youth and community about the bad things happening around us and how they’re affecting people. It can also be used to give people ideas on how they can help better these negative happenings. Generally rap music, whether you believe it is negative or positive, can be agreed that it is one thing by all people, and that is,

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.