...11/08/13 Hip Hop Made Me Do It! From the vulgar and raw lyrics of NWA to the simply educating lyrics of Jay-Z hip hop has been the blame for many issues that occur in our society. These issues do not only range within the field of crimes, but hip hop has also been the blame for cultural and gender relations. Hip hop is probably the youngest genre of music and has yet been so impactful in its short amount of time. But is it reasonable to place the blame on this popular form of expression? Is the excuse ‘hip hop made me do it’ firm, respected, and truthful? Why hip hop? It is not only the black community where hip hop is the blame for such things as drugs and violence but cross culturally people find hip hop as the excuse. Hip hop seems to be seen as the most impactful and widely endorsed. While the other forms of media seem to be overlooked or not as important. There are “action movies” that always seem to include some amazingly cool shootout where a hero emerges from the smokes. There are the constant military commercials encouraging youth to “fight” for their country. The also popular blame is video games. A couple of the most popular video games include Grand Theft Auto (GTA) and Call of Duty (COD). In order to beat GTA you must successfully commit crimes and get away with them while COD wants you to get the most kills (especially when playing live). During a hip hop debate that aired on BET in 2012 Michael Eric Dyson opens up with a statement on hip hop stating “Does...
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...ip hop (stylized as Hip-Hop) is a broad conglomerate of artistic forms that originated within a marginalized subculture in the South Bronx and quickly spread through other parts of New York City such as Harlem among African American and Latino American youth during the late 1970s.[2][3][4][5] It is characterized by four distinct elements, all of which represent the different manifestations of the culture: rap music (oral), turntablism or "DJing" (aural), breaking (physical) and graffiti art (visual). Even while it continues in contemporary history to develop globally in a flourishing myriad of diverse styles, these foundational elements provide stability and coherence to the culture.[2] The term is frequently used mistakenly to refer in a confining fashion to the mere practice of rap music.[citation needed] The origin of the hip hop subculture stems from the block parties of the Ghetto Brothers, when they plugged the amps for their instruments and speakers into the lampposts on 163rd Street and Prospect Avenue and used music to breakdown racial barriers, and from DJ Kool Herc at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, where Herc mixed samples of existing records with his own shouts to the crowd and dancers. Kool Herc is credited as the "father" of hip hop. DJ Afrika Bambaataa of the hip hop collective Zulu Nation outlined the pillars of hip hop culture, to which he coined the terms: MCing or "Emceein", DJing or "Deejayin", B-boying and graffiti writing or "Aerosol Writin".[6][7][8][9][10] ...
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...Anaya Ragland April 30, 2012 English Composition II Dr. Janardanan Research Analysis Essay The Influence of Hip Hop on Today’s Youth “After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” This profound statement from English writer, Aldous Huxley, demonstrates the importance that music obtains in today’s society. Simply, music is a form of expression, not limited to any specific genre. Although this expression is not limited to one genre, there is one that seemingly obtains the title of most controversial. The Rap/Hip-Hop genre has been harshly criticized for the topics of discussion in which many songs entail, and the various projected images. Everything has its pros and cons; many people have lost sight of its purpose. Student of Dartmouth College, Rebecca Heller states, "Many people don't realize that hip-hop began by bringing communities and neighborhoods together on the streets of the South Bronx." Hip-Hop is not only a tool of personal expression, but it is also a tool of communal empowerment. Tricia Rose, author of Black Noise, writes that “it is a black cultural expression that prioritizes black voices from the margins of urban America” (2). Hip-Hop is a social movement. It is a way for the African-American community to identify, as the search for identification is a struggle. “Hip hop emerges from a complex cultural exchanges and larger social and political conditions of disillusionment and alienation” (59). In today’s society...
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...Essay Question 2 Gender has shaped Hip-hop since the very beginning by influencing Hip-hop narratives and redefining gender roles; it comes to no surprise that gender has also influenced MCs and their work. In fact gender identifications have been so impactful they help determine an artist’s success in the music industry. MCing is known to be a male dominated art form and it is very difficult for females to become successful without having to conform to the preconceived notions about women in the music industry. In the Hip-hop world many male artists have created stereotypes for both men and women and their place in the Hip-hop music (NHP 06-11-2012). For some male artists these stereotypes have made success more achievable while, on the other hand, these stereotypes have made it harder for female MCs to rise to success. There’s no denying that Hip-hop stereotypes are an important component of Hip-hop performance (NHP 06-13-2012) in fact many artists today feel the need to utilize these stereotypes in order to get ahead in the game. For example, Big Sean is one talented MC in mainstream Hip-hop that doesn’t refrain from having half naked women dancing around in his music videos. His videos emphasize the most popular stereotypes which refer to women as “hoes”, “bitches” and “gold-diggers” (NHP 06-13-2012). Although these names are degrading and disrespectful to women, it is quite unfortunate that they have become acceptable in the music industry. It is also unfortunate that...
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...In hip hop women are constantly being judged based off their looks, and what kind of body they have. They are often exploited in hip hop artists (mostly male) music videos just to shake their big butts in a tiny bikini fully exposed. Sometimes it seems that males treat these woman like objects instead of human beings. Nowadays it’s considered the norm for these girls to dance around basically naked which is unfortunate, but what’s even worse is that some of these women are completely okay with doing this just to get their names out there for possible jobs in the future. It’s not only music videos that exploit these women, it even started back in the day when hip hop was started to get into the gangsta rap phase. The movie “Boyz In The Hood” is a perfect example of women’s bodies were exploited in hip hop culture. Also Rivera’s article Butta Pecan Mamis is another great article explaining the exploitation of women’s body through hip hop. In the movie “Boyz in the Hood” women and their bodies were exploited during a lot of parts in the movie. Doughboy who was played by Ice Cube was one of the main people to exploit women and their bodies. When he just got out of jail his mother threw him a welcome back party and everyone in the neighborhood was there. All of the guys would be on one side and the girls on the other, but the men would talk about them saying what they would do to them if they had the chance. Or who gets more “bitches” than the other as if they are not people...
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...Hip Hop plays a big role in the young generation today as it did back in the day. Hip Hop started in The Bronx, New York a war torn country at the time. It kept children from hanging out in the streets and getting into trouble. The first documented hip-hop party was on August 11, 1973 and was hosted by Dj Kool Herc. There are four elements in hip-hop, they are dancing, rap, Dj and graffiti. Dance is a series of movements that match the speed and the rhythm of a certain piece of music. Rap is a form of music which a person swiftly rhymes poetry over a beat. A DJ is a disc jockey or the person who plays recorded music for the audience and sometimes talks over the track as it plays; they speak to the audience to keep the party hyped. The last element of hip hop is graffiti, and that is the writings or drawings scribbled, scratched, or sprayed on a wall or any surface in a public place. This was the element of hip-hop that was misinterpreted by the mainstream media and most hated by the whites. In 1989 the Berlin Wall fell, some thought that would bring everyone closer, like unite the people, but it didn’t. The 90’s were the birth of gangster rap, which the main focus was on the West Coast. After viewing this video I now know that hip hop is all colors and races, and was the voice of the young generation in the early 70’s just as it is today 40 years later, the rap game has evolved a lot since then, but its still the same...
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...History of Rap Rap Music, a genre of R&B that includes rhythmic poetry put over a musical background. The background consists of beats combined with digitally isolated sound bites from other recordings. The first recording of rap was made in 1979 and the genre began to take notice in the U.S. in the mid-1980s. Though the name rap is often used back and forth with hip hop. The name hip-hop comes from one of the earliest phrases used in rap on the song “Rapper’s Delight” by Sugarhill Gang. “I said a hip hop, hippie to the hippie, the hip, hip a hop, and you don't stop, a rock it to the bang bang boogie, say, up jump the boogie, to the rhythm of the boogie, the beat.”. In addition to rap music, the hip-hop subculture also formed other methods of expression like break dancing, graffiti art, a unique slang vocabulary, and fashion sense. Rap started in the mid-1970s in the South Bronx area of New York City. The birth of rap is, in many ways, like the birth of rock and roll. Both originated in the African American community and both were first recorded by small, independent record labels and marketed towards, mostly to a black audience. And in both cases, the new style soon attracted white musicians that began performing it. For rock and roll it was a white American from Mississippi, Elvis Presley. For rap it was a young white group from New York, the Beastie Boys. Their release “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)” (1986) was one of the first two rap records to reach...
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...My first experience of Hip-Hop music was “White America” by Eminem. At that time, I was 15, and my school senior who came back from Australia recommended to me. As soon as I listened to the song, I fell in love to the song. Before that time, my image of Hip-Hop was a music performed by African American people, so I remembered that I was very surprised to the fact that Eminem was not. In my knowledge the difference between Hip-Hop music and Pop music was that each words were linked with fast tempo in Hip-Hop musics. I felt like I listened to “the language game of black language games”(Henry Louis, pxxlll). Also, I felt Hip-Hop music had more clear message in a lyric than Pop music. As I learned about what Hip-Hop is all about from the course, I realized that the Hip-Hop music I am listening to now is not really a Hip-Hop music. From the course I found out that Hip-Hop is an art of self-assertiveness or the soul yearns for freedom from restrictions by African American people. Before Hip-Hop music appeared, everything was dominated by white people. Public had treated African American as symbol of evil for a long time even in media. For example, the movie “ Planet of the Apes”(1968) is the one well portrayed the relationship between white and African American people. In the movie, apes hated humans without reasons and lynched humans to death. In the text “THE HIP HOP WARS”, the author quoted “ I ain’t never shot nobody, I ain’t never stabbed nobody, I’m forty-five years old and...
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...What exactly is hip hop? When reading an article about hip hop written by James McBride, he informs us how hip hop has the purpose of sending us a message. He expresses his feelings towards hip hop, and explains the influence it has worldwide, Agreeing with James’ claim, hip hop sends a message through the generations, outbreak, and history. Throughout the generations hip hop keeps sending a message to teens. Hip hop started in people’s teen years and teens were most influenced by this outrage. Their style, and actions are all influenced by hip hop. Even though people nowadays have a different mindset of what hip hop actually is, it still has and stays having a huge affect on teens now. Hip hop sends a message through its outrage it had back in the day. The way it caused people to be out in the streets, making beats. Also it had an influence on DJ’s , as said in the article a DJ at a club used turntable and mixed two beats together causing the crowd to go mad wild. During the 1980’s it started to become a more of an impact and had a huge outbreak. The influence of hip hop has some history to its beginning. It started in the Bronx and people like Biggie Smalls became a huge inspiration to the people. It was an “overwhelming force” said McBride in his article. There had not been such a huge outbreak since swing jazz in 1930’s. The history was whta started this huge influence. Through the generations, outbreak, and history hip hop has had it does have an influence on...
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...WHAT IS HIP HOP? By: Mohammed Al-Salem Hip Hop is a cultural movement that developed in New York in the 1970’s, primarily for the African-American and Latino population. Hip Hop consists of four elements; MCing, deejaying, graffiti art and breaking (b-boy/b-girl). The cultural pillars that Hip Hop is founded on are comedy, rivalry, nursery rhymes, storytelling, poetry, and rhyming tendencies in humans. Hip Hop was born in the South Bronx at a summer block party. The father of Hip Hop, DJ Clive “Kool Herc” Campbell is a Jamaican that built upon the Jamaican tradition of toasting. Toasting is rapping the impromptu poetry over music, with this tradition in mind DJ Kool Herc created the blueprint for Hip Hop music as he began to isolate the instrumental portion of the record, creating the break beat; an isolation of one particular section of a musical composition to have a vamp for an MC or b-boy/b-girl. He then added another turntable and bought two copies of the same record to elongate the break beat – this technique is the foundation of Hip Hop and eventually led to the deejaying styles of a pair of legendary deejays, Afrika Bambaataa and Grand Master Flash. Since the first rap record in 1979, “Rapper’s Delight” by Sugar Hill Gang, Hip Hop as a culture has grown immensely and is continuously spreading around the world influencing so many lives. However, before Hip Hop music even existed there were music genres like jazz, rhythm and blues, soul and funk that have...
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...Arjun Vyas Professor Ron Westray MUSI 2520B January 10th 2012 Hip-Hop has been and will continue to be one of the most powerful cultural movements of the modern world. It is best acknowledged for its influence on the music industry. Before hip-hop developed publicly, it was a local marvel that had blown out generally in underprivileged areas all over New York City. Ever since then Hip-Hop has been able to influence people to act differently. The popularity of Hip-Hop has been subjugated by business individuals to create profit. Of all the performers on MTV, rappers receive the most attention for their ability to extend their ability to express their views in bold manners. Hip-hop has developed significantly since the end of the 1980’s when it was considered to be the CNN for black youth by Chuck D. It was inevitable for Hip-Hop to arise from the underground sound and become more commercialized at one point or another. However, whether this movement was a negative or positive phenomenon is argued about by many. Commercialization is usually the application of business in order to profit or to exploit. This method has remained one of the objectives of people in the hip-hop culture. Hip-hop gives people the opportunity to show their talent of rapping, break-dancing, DJing and graffiti to earn money and live what was considered an ideal lifestyle. The culture of Hip-Hop is entering the mainstream via the use of music and proper publicizing. A few people make it and become...
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...MUS360 TR 4PM Research Paper The genre of music called “Hip Hop,” originated back in the 1960’s with the help of a Jamaican native and Dj, named Kool Hurc aka, Clive Cambell. Since the evolution of hip hop, the style of music has become one of the main branches of an artistic culture that consists of b-boying (break dancing), graffiti, and MC-ing. All of which have tremendously influenced many aspiring artists, their physical images, the ever-changing sound of hip hop, and other elements that relate to the hip hop culture. A lot of people claim that hip hop and rap can only be about violence, aggression, sex, and money in order to sell or be popular. Another view on hip hop and rap is that it’s too violent, and inappropriate to audiences. That it’s not even music but just a bunch of crap, when in reality, it’s like poetry. The lyrics that artists write come from personal experiences, and perceptions of what they see in the world they live in. Hip hop and rap is more than just music. One of the primary sources I found is a review/article published in “The New York Times” called “The Uncluttered Hip-hop of De La Soul”, written by Peter Watrous, in which Watrous critiques the performance and the group De La Soul at a show. This review of Del La Soul is relevant to the history of hip hop course because it makes a point in which gives an argument for positive recognition of not only De La Soul, but other hip hop groups with similar style of music. These groups don’t write about...
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...Hip-hop on the silver screen has in the modern era been awarded a significant portion of blockbuster film soundtracks, showcased in films such as The Fast and The Furious series and, perhaps more relevant to this coursework: Straight Outta Compton. In order for one to make a proper distinction between the concepts of a “hip-hop film” and “hip-hop in film”, one must first understand the basic semantics of the argument proposed. The core difference lies in that the “hip-hop film” implies an overarching theme of hip-hop culture prevalent within the film, foretelling the potential viewer that the film may include forms of expression like breaking, DJing, graffiti work, and MCing. A film like Straight Outta Compton is a perfect example of a “hip-hop...
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...Culture and Evolution of Hip-Hop Even though rap is more widely accepted today in the United States, it remains an undermined style of music. Nonetheless, rap still gains momentum making its way overseas, and infiltrating the farthest reaches of the world. Hip-hop is considered the culture that is lived, and rap has been considered one of the four elements making up the hip-hop lifestyle which also include breakdancing, DJing, and graffiti. The two words are commonly used colloquially, both reffering to the music genre that encompases the rapping and lifestyle. While breakdancing and graffiti are no longer prevalent, the shared cultural experiences, gang violence, drug use, money, and womanization makes up most of the current hip-hop lifestyle....
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...Comparing Jazz Dance and Hip-Hop Dance The purpose of this paper is to compare Jazz dance styles and Hip-Hop dance styles. The author will discuss the forms of the two dances styles as well as the past and present interpretations of the dances. There are many forms of Jazz dance including Swing, Cakewalk, Black Bottom, Charleston, and Lindy Hop. Although many of these forms of dance are commonly danced to jazz music, many performers also use Hip-Hop music for this type of dance. Jazz dance technique focuses on stylistic leaps and executing sharp moves. Common jazz moves include the catwalk, the ball change, the straddle split leap and the moonwalk. Maintaining good posture is an important element in jazz dance in order to maintain balance and poise while dancing. In order to complete jazz dance steps, a jazz dancer must be flexible, have a strong core and defined muscle tone in the legs. Both Jazz dance and modern dance techniques are based on the basics of the old ballet tradition. To excel in jazz dance, the dancer must master ballet techniques (Personal Communication, T. Weber, July 11, 2012). The dance steps in Jazz dance are not perfectly set to the music and usually do not coordinate with the beat of the music. The steps are more flowing and sometimes elegant. During a Jazz dance the dancer portrays an attitude. The attitude would depend on the dance. For example, the dance tells a story. If the dancers are dancing to tell a story of love, then they may use...
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