Hip hop or hip-hop is a culture and art movement that was created by African Americans, Latino

Americans and Caribbean Americans in the Bronx, New York City. The origin of the name is often
disputed. It is also argued as to whether hip hop started in the South or West Bronx. While the
term hip hop is often used to refer exclusively to hip hop music, hip hop is characterized four key
elements: "rapping", a rhythmic vocal rhyming style ; DJing, which is making music with record
players and DJ mixers ; b-boying/b-girling/breakdancing ; and graffiti. Other elements are: hip hop
culture and historical knowledge of the movement ; beatboxing, a percussive vocal style; street
entrepreneurship; hip hop language; and hip hop fashion and style, among others. The fifth
element, although debated, is commonly considered either street knowledge, hip hop fashion, or
beatboxing. Hip hop culture has spread to both urban and suburban communities throughout the
United States and subsequently the world. These elements were adapted and developed
considerably, particularly as the art forms spread to new continents and merged with local styles
in the 1990s and subsequent decades. Even as the movement continues to expand globally and
explore myriad styles and art forms, including hip hop theater and hip hop film, the four
foundational elements provide coherence and a strong foundation for hip hop culture. Hip hop
music follows in the footsteps of earlier African-American-rooted and Latino musical genres such
as blues, jazz, rag-time, funk, salsa, and disco to become one of the most practiced genres
worldwide.

In 1990, Ronald "Bee-Stinger" Savage, a former member of the Zulu Nation, is credited for coining
the term "Six elements of the Hip Hop Movement," inspired by Public Enemy's recordings. The "Six
Elements Of The Hip Hop Movement" are: Consciousness Awareness, Civil Rights Awareness,
Activism Awareness, Justice, Political Awareness, and Community Awareness in music. Ronald
Savage is known as the Son of The Hip Hop Movement.

In the 2000s, with the rise of new media platforms such as online music streaming services, fans
discovered and downloaded or streamed hip hop music through social networking sites beginning
with Blackplanet & Myspace, as well as from websites like YouTube, Worldstarhiphop,
SoundCloud, and Spotify.

Etymology

Keith "Cowboy" Wiggins, a member of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, has been credited
with coining the term in 1978 while teasing a friend who had just joined the US Army by scat
singing the made-up words "hip/hop/hip/hop" in a way that mimicked the rhythmic cadence of
marching soldiers. Cowboy later worked the "hip hop" cadence into his stage performance. The
group frequently performed with disco artists who would refer to this new type of music by calling
them "hip hoppers." The name was originally meant as a sign of disrespect but soon came to
identify this new music and culture.

The song "Rapper's Delight" by The Sugarhill Gang, released in 1979, begins with the phrase "I said
a hip, hop, the hippie the hippie to the hip hip hop, and you don't stop". Lovebug Starski — a
Bronx DJ who put out a single called "The Positive Life" in 1981 — and DJ Hollywood then began
using the term when referring to this new disco rap music. Bill Alder, an independent consultant,
once said, "There was hardly ever a moment when rap music was underground, one of the first so-
called rap records, was a monster hit ." The term gained further currency in September of that
year in The Village Voice, in a profile of Bambaataa written by Steven Hager, who also published
the first comprehensive history of the culture with St. Martins' Press.

History

1970s

In the 1970s, an underground urban movement known as "hip hop" began to form in the Bronx,
New York City. It focused on emceeing over house parties and neighborhood block party events,
held outdoors. Hip hop music has been a powerful medium for protesting the impact of legal
institutions on minorities, particularly police and prisons. Historically, hip hop arose out of the
ruins of a post-industrial and ravaged South Bronx, as a form of expression of urban Black and
Latino youth, whom the public and political discourse had written off as marginalized
communities. pioneered the use of DJing percussion "breaks" in hip hop music. Beginning at Herc's
home in a high-rise apartment at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, the movement later spread across the
entire borough. On August 11, 1973 DJ Kool Herc was the DJ at his sister's back-to-school party. He
extended the beat of a record by using two record players, isolating the percussion "breaks" by
using a mixer to switch between the two records. Kool Herc's sister, Cindy Campbell, produced and
funded the Back to School Party that became the "Birth of Hip Hop.". Herc's experiments with
making music with record players became what we now know as breaking or "scratching."

A second key musical element in hip hop music is emceeing . Emceeing is the rhythmic spoken
delivery of rhymes and wordplay, delivered at first without accompaniment and later done over a
beat. This spoken style was influenced by the African American style of "capping," a performance
where men tried to outdo each other in originality of their language and tried to gain the favor of
the listeners. The basic elements of hip hop—boasting raps, rival "posses", uptown "throw-
downs," and political and social commentary—were all long present in African American music.
MCing and rapping performers moved back and forth between the predominance of toasting
songs packed with a mix of boasting, 'slackness' and sexual innuendo and a more topical, political,
socially conscious style. The role of the MC originally was as a Master of Ceremonies for a DJ dance
event. The MC would introduce the DJ and try to pump up the audience. The MC spoke between
the DJ's songs, urging everyone to get up and dance. MCs would also tell jokes and use their
energetic language and enthusiasm to rev up the crowd. Eventually, this introducing role
developed into longer sessions of spoken, rhythmic wordplay, and rhyming, which became
rapping.

By 1979 hip hop music had become a mainstream genre. It spread across the world in the 1990s
with controversial "gangsta" rap. Herc also developed upon break-beat deejaying, where the
breaks of funk songs—the part most suited to dance, usually percussion-based—were isolated and
repeated for the purpose of all-night dance parties. This form of music playback, using hard funk
and rock, formed the basis of hip hop music. Campbell's announcements and exhortations to
dancers would lead to the syncopated, rhymed spoken accompaniment now known as rapping. He
dubbed his dancers "break-boys" and "break-girls," or simply b-boys and b-girls. According to Herc,
"breaking" was also street slang for "getting excited" and "acting energetically"

DJs such as Grand Wizzard Theodore, Grandmaster Flash, and Jazzy Jay refined and developed the
use of breakbeats, including cutting and scratching. The approach used by Herc was soon widely
copied, and by the late 1970s, DJs were releasing 12-inch records where they would rap to the
beat. Influential tunes included Fatback Band's "King Tim III," The Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's
Delight," and Kurtis Blow's "Christmas Rappin'," all released in 1979. The equipment consisted of
numerous speakers, turntables, and one or more microphones. By using this technique, DJs could
create a variety of music, but according to Rap Attack by David Toop "At its worst the technique
could turn the night into one endless and inevitably boring song". KC The Prince of Soul, a rapper-
lyricist with Pete DJ Jones, is often credited with being the first rap lyricist to call himself an "MC."

Street gangs were prevalent in the poverty of the South Bronx, and much of the graffiti, rapping,
and b-boying at these parties were all artistic variations on the competition and one-upmanship of
street gangs. Sensing that gang members' often violent urges could be turned into creative ones,
Afrika Bambaataa founded the Zulu Nation, a loose confederation of street-dance crews, graffiti
artists, and rap musicians. By the late 1970s, the culture had gained media attention, with
Billboard magazine printing an article titled "B Beats Bombarding Bronx", commenting on the local
phenomenon and mentioning influential figures such as Kool Herc. The New York City blackout of
1977 saw widespread looting, arson, and other citywide disorders especially in the Bronx where a
number of looters stole DJ equipment from electronics stores. As a result, the hip hop genre,
barely known outside of the Bronx at the time, grew at an astounding rate from 1977 onward.

DJ Kool Herc's house parties gained popularity and later moved to outdoor venues in order to
accommodate more people. Hosted in parks, these outdoor parties became a means of expression
and an outlet for teenagers, where "instead of getting into trouble on the streets, teens now had a
place to expend their pent-up energy." Tony Tone, a member of the Cold Crush Brothers, stated
that "hip hop saved a lot of lives". Inspired by DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa created a street
organization called Universal Zulu Nation, centered around hip hop, as a means to draw teenagers
out of gang life, drugs and violence. "Young black Americans coming out of the civil rights
movement have used hip hop culture in the 1980s and 1990s to show the limitations of the
movement." Hip hop gave young African Americans a voice to let their issues be heard; "Like rock-
and-roll, hip hop is vigorously opposed by conservatives because it romanticizes violence, law-
breaking, and gangs". The new style influenced Harry, and Blondie's later hit single from 1981
"Rapture" became the first major single containing hip hop elements by a white group or artist to
hit number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100—the song itself is usually considered new wave and
fuses heavy pop music elements, but there is an extended rap by Harry near the end.

1980s

In 1980, Kurtis Blow released his self-titled debut album featuring the single "The Breaks", which
became the first certified gold rap song. In 1982, Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force
released the electro-funk track "Planet Rock". Instead of simply rapping over disco beats,
Bambaataa and producer Arthur Baker created an electronic sound using the Roland TR-808 drum
machine and sampling from Kraftwerk. "Planet Rock" is widely regarded as a turning point; fusing
electro with hip hop, it was "like a light being switched on," resulting in a new genre. The track
also helped popularize the 808, which became a cornerstone of hip hop music; Released in 1986,
Licensed to Ill by the Beastie Boys became the first rap LP to top the Billboard album chart.

Other groundbreaking records released in 1982 include "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and
the Furious Five, "Nunk" by Warp 9, "Hip Hop, Be Bop " by Man Parrish, "Magic Wand" by
Whodini, and "Buffalo Gals" by Malcolm McLaren. In 1983, Hashim created the influential electro
funk tune "Al-Naafiysh ", while Warp 9's "Light Years Away", "a cornerstone of early 80s beat box
afrofuturism", introduced socially conscious themes from a Sci-Fi perspective, paying homage to
music pioneer Sun Ra.

Encompassing graffiti art, MCing/rapping, DJing and b-boying, hip hop became the dominant
cultural movement of the minority-populated urban communities in the 1980s. The 1980s also
saw many artists make social statements through hip hop. In 1982, Melle Mel and Duke Bootee
recorded "The Message", a song that foreshadowed the socially conscious statements of Run-
DMC's "It's like That" and Public Enemy's "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos". During the 1980s, hip
hop also embraced the creation of rhythm by using the human body, via the vocal percussion
technique of beatboxing. Pioneers such as Doug E. Fresh, Biz Markie and Buffy from the Fat Boys
made beats, rhythm, and musical sounds using their mouth, lips, tongue, voice, and other body
parts. "Human Beatbox" artists would also sing or imitate turntablism scratching or other
instrument sounds.

The appearance of music videos changed entertainment: they often glorified urban
neighborhoods. The music video for "Planet Rock" showcased the subculture of hip hop musicians,
graffiti artists, and b-boys/b-girls. Many hip hop-related films were released between 1982 and
1985, among them Wild Style, Beat Street, Krush Groove, Breakin, and the documentary Style
Wars. These films expanded the appeal of hip hop beyond the boundaries of New York. By 1984,
youth worldwide were embracing the hip hop culture. The hip hop artwork and "slang" of U.S.
urban communities quickly found its way to Europe, as the culture's global appeal took root. The
four traditional dances of hip hop are rocking, b-boying/b-girling, locking and popping, all of which
trace their origins to the late 1960s or early 1970s.

Women artists have also been at the forefront of the hip hop movement since its inception in the
Bronx. Nevertheless, as gangsta rap became the dominant force in hip hop music, there were
many songs with misogynistic lyrics and many music videos depicted women in a sexualized
fashion. The negation of female voice and perspective is an issue that has come to define
mainstream hip hop music. The recording industry is less willing to back female artists than their
male counterparts, and when it does back them, often it places emphasis on their sexuality over
their musical substance and artistic abilities. Since the turn of the century, female hip hop artists
have struggled to get mainstream attention, with only a few, such as older artists like the female
duo Salt N' Pepa to more contemporary ones like Lil' Kim and Nicki Minaj, reaching platinum
status. and N.W.A whose second album Niggaz4Life became the first gangsta rap album to enter
the charts at number one. Gangsta rap also played an important part in hip hop becoming a
mainstream commodity. Considering albums such as N.W.A's Straight Outta Compton, Eazy-E's
Eazy-Duz-It, and Ice Cube's Amerikkka's Most Wanted were selling in such high numbers meant
that black teens were no longer hip hop's sole buying audience. As a result, gangsta rap became a
platform for artists who chose to use their music to spread political and social messages to parts of
the country that were previously unaware of the conditions of ghettos. National Geographic
recognizes hip hop as "the world's favorite youth culture" in which "just about every country on
the planet seems to have developed its own local rap scene." Through its international travels, hip
hop is now considered a "global musical epidemic".
According to The Village Voice, hip hop is "custom-made to combat the anomie that preys on
adolescents wherever nobody knows their name."

Hip hop sounds and styles differ from region to region, but there are also instances of fusion
genres. Hip hop culture has grown from the avoided genre to a genre that is followed by millions
of fans worldwide. This was made possible by the adaptation of music in different locations, and
the influence on style of behavior and dress. Not all countries have embraced hip hop, where "as
can be expected in countries with strong local culture, the interloping wildstyle of hip hop is not
always welcomed". This is somewhat the case in Jamaica, the homeland of the culture's father, DJ
Kool Herc. However, despite hip hop music produced on the island lacking widespread local and
international recognition, artists such as Five Steez have defied the odds by impressing online hip
hop taste-makers and even reggae critics.

Hartwig Vens argues that hip hop can also be viewed as a global learning experience. Author Jeff
Chang argues that "the essence of hip hop is the cipher, born in the Bronx, where competition and
community feed each other." He also adds, "Thousands of organizers from Cape Town to Paris use
hip hop in their communities to address environmental justice, policing and prisons, media justice,
and education.". While hip hop music has been criticized as a music that creates a divide between
western music and music from the rest of the world, a musical "cross pollination" has taken place,
which strengthens the power of hip hop to influence different communities. Hip hop's messages
allow the under-privileged and the mistreated to be heard.

Even when hip hop is transplanted to other countries, it often retains its "vital progressive agenda
that challenges the status quo."

Commercialization

In the early-to-mid 1980s, there wasn't an established hip hop music industry, as exists in the
2020s, with record labels, record producers, managers and Artists and Repertoire staff. Politicians
and businesspeople maligned and ignored the hip hop movement. Most hip hop artists performed
in their local communities and recorded in underground scenes. However, in the late 1980s, music
industry executives realized that they could capitalize on the success of "gangsta rap." They made
a formula that created "a titillating buffet of hypermasculinity and glorified violence." This type of
rap was marketed to the new fan base: white males. They ignored the depictions of a harsh reality
to focus on the sex and violence involved.

In an article for The Village Voice, Greg Tate argues that the commercialization of hip hop is a
negative and pervasive phenomenon, writing that "what we call hiphop is now inseparable from
what we call the hip hop industry, in which the nouveau riche and the super-rich employers get
richer". Even other musicians, like Nas and KRS-ONE have claimed "hip hop is dead" in that it has
changed so much over the years to cater to the consumer that it has lost the essence for which it
was originally created.

However, in his book In Search Of Africa, Manthia Diawara states that hip hop is really a voice of
people who are marginalized in modern society. He argues that the "worldwide spread of hip hop
as a market revolution" is actually global "expression of poor people's desire for the good life," and
that this struggle aligns with "the nationalist struggle for citizenship and belonging, but also
reveals the need to go beyond such struggles and celebrate the redemption of the black individual
through tradition." The problem may not be that female rappers do not have the same
opportunities and recognition as their male counterparts; it may be that the music industry that is
so defined by gender biases. Industry executives seem to bet on the idea that men won't want to
listen to female rappers, so they are given fewer opportunities.

As the hip hop genre has changed since the 1980s, the African-American cultural "tradition" that
Diawara describes has little place in hip hop's mainstream artists music. The push toward
materialism and market success by contemporary rappers such as Rick Ross, Lil Wayne and Jay Z
has irked older hip hop fans and artists. They see the genre losing its community-based feel that
focused more on black empowerment than wealth. The commercialization of the genre stripped it
of its earlier political nature and the politics and marketing plans of major record labels have
forced rappers to craft their music and images to appeal to white, affluent and suburban
audiences.

After realizing her friends were making music but not getting television exposure other than what
was seen on Video Music Box, Darlene Lewis, along with Darryl Washington and Dean Carroll,
brought hip hop music to the First Exposure cable show on Paragon cable, and then created the
On Broadway television show. There, rappers had opportunities to be interviewed and have their
music videos played. This pre-dated MTV or Video Soul on BET. The commercialization has made
hip hop less edgy and authentic, but it also has enabled hip hop artists to become successful.

As top rappers grow wealthier and start more outside business ventures, this can indicate a
stronger sense of black aspiration. As rappers such as Jay-Z and Kanye West establish themselves
as artists and entrepreneurs, more young black people have hopes of achieving their goals. The
lens through which one views the genre's commercialization can make it seem positive or
negative.

White and Latino pop rappers such as Macklemore, Iggy Azalea, Machine Gun Kelly, Eminem,
Miley Cyrus, G-Eazy, Pitbull, Lil Pump, and Post Malone have often been criticized for
commercializing hip hop and cultural appropriation. Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry, although not
rappers, have been accused of cultural appropriation and commercializing hip hop. Katy Perry, a
white woman, was criticized for her hip hop song "Dark Horse". Taylor Swift was also accused of
cultural appropriation.

Culture

DJing and turntablism, MCing/rapping, breakdancing, graffiti art and beatboxing are the creative
outlets that collectively make up hip hop culture and its revolutionary aesthetic. Like the blues,
these arts were developed by African American communities to enable people to make a
statement, whether political or emotional and participate in community activities. These practices
spread globally around the 1980s as fans could "make it their own" and express themselves in new
and creative ways in music, dance and other arts.

DJing

DJing and turntablism are the techniques of manipulating sounds and creating music and beats
using two or more phonograph turntables and a DJ mixer that is plugged into a PA system. One of
the first few hip hop DJs was Kool DJ Herc, who created hip hop in the 1970s through the isolation
and extending of "breaks" . In addition to developing Herc's techniques, DJs Grandmaster Flowers,
Grandmaster Flash, Grand Wizzard Theodore, and Grandmaster Caz made further innovations with
the introduction of "scratching", which has become one of the key sounds associated with hip hop
music.

Traditionally, a DJ will use two turntables simultaneously and mix between the two. These are
connected to a DJ mixer, an amplifier, speakers, and various electronic music equipment such as a
microphone and effects units. The DJ mixes the two albums currently in rotation and/or does
"scratching" by moving one of the record platters while manipulating the crossfader on the mixer.
The result of mixing two records is a unique sound created by the seemingly combined sound of
two separate songs into one song. Although there is considerable overlap between the two roles,
a DJ is not the same as a record producer of a music track. The development of DJing was also
influenced by new turntablism techniques, such as beatmatching, a process facilitated by the
introduction of new turntable technologies such as the Technics SL-1200 MK 2, first sold in 1978,
which had a precise variable pitch control and a direct drive motor. DJs were often avid record
collectors, who would hunt through used record stores for obscure soul records and vintage funk
recordings. DJs helped to introduce rare records and new artists to club audiences.

In the early years of hip hop, the DJs were the stars, as they created new music and beats with
their record players. While DJing and turntablism continue to be used in hip hop music in the
2010s, the star role has increasingly been taken by MCs since the late 1970s, due to innovative,
creative MCs such as Kurtis Blow and Melle Mel of Grandmaster Flash's crew, the Furious Five,
who developed strong rapping skills. However, a number of DJs have gained stardom nonetheless
in recent years. Famous DJs include Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa, Mr. Magic, DJ Jazzy Jeff,
DJ Charlie Chase, DJ Disco Wiz, DJ Scratch from EPMD, DJ Premier from Gang Starr, DJ Scott La
Rock from Boogie Down Productions, DJ Pete Rock of Pete Rock & CL Smooth, DJ Muggs from
Cypress Hill, Jam Master Jay from Run-DMC, Eric B., DJ Screw from the Screwed Up Click and the
inventor of the Chopped & Screwed style of mixing music, Funkmaster Flex, Tony Touch, DJ Clue,
Mix Master Mike, Touch-Chill-Out, DJ Red Alert, and DJ Q-Bert. The underground movement of
turntablism has also emerged to focus on the skills of the DJ. In the 2010s, there are turntablism
competitions, where turntablists demonstrate advanced beat juggling and scratching skills.

MCing

Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics with a strong rhythmic accompaniment".
Rapping typically features complex wordplay, rapid delivery, and a range of "street slang", some of
which is unique to the hip hop subculture. While rapping is often done over beats, either done by
a DJ, a beatboxer, it can also be done without accompaniment. It can be broken down into
different components, such as "content", "flow", and "delivery". Rapping is distinct from spoken
word poetry in that it is performed in time to the beat of the music. The use of the word "rap" to
describe quick and slangy speech or witty repartee long predates the musical form. MCing is a
form of expression that is embedded within ancient African and Indigenous culture and oral
tradition as throughout history verbal acrobatics or jousting involving rhymes were common
within the Afro-American and Latino-American community.

Graffiti
Graffiti is the most controversial of hip hop's elements, as a number of the most notable graffiti
pioneers say that they do not consider graffiti to be an element of hip hop, including Lady Pink,
Seen, Blade, Fargo, Cholly Rock, Fuzz One, and Coco 144. Lady Pink says, "I don't think graffiti is hip
hop. Frankly I grew up with disco music. There's a long background of graffiti as an entity unto
itself," and Fargo says, "There is no correlation between hip hop and graffiti, one has nothing to do
with the other." Hip hop pioneer Grandmaster Flash has also questioned the connection between
hip hop and graffiti, saying, "You know what bugs me, they put hip hop with graffiti. How do they
intertwine?"

In America in the late 1960s, before hip hop, graffiti was used as a form of expression by political
activists. In addition, gangs such as the Savage Skulls, La Familia Michoacana, and Savage Nomads
used graffiti to mark territory. JULIO 204 was a Puerto Rican graffiti writer, one of the first graffiti
writers in New York City. He was a member of the "Savage Skulls" gang, and started writing his
nickname in his neighborhood as early as 1968. In 1971 the New York Times published an article
about another graffiti writer, TAKI 183. According to the article Julio had been writing for a couple
of years when Taki began tagging his own name all around the city. Taki also states in the article
that Julio "was busted and stopped." Writers following in the wake of Taki and Tracy 168 would
add their street number to their nickname, "bomb" a train with their work, and let the subway
take it—and their fame, if it was impressive, or simply pervasive, enough—"all city". Julio 204
never rose to Taki's fame because Julio kept his tags localized to his own neighborhood.

One of the most common forms of graffiti is tagging, or the act of stylizing your unique name or
logo. Tagging began in Philadelphia and New York City and has expanded worldwide. Spray
painting public property or the property of others without their consent can be considered
vandalism, and the "tagger" may be subject to arrest and prosecution for the criminal act.
Whether legal or not, the hip hop culture considers tagging buildings, trains, bridges and other
structures as visual art, and consider the tags as part of a complex symbol system with its own
social codes and subculture rules. Such art is in some cases now subject to federal protection in
the US, making its erasure illegal.

Bubble lettering held sway initially among writers from the Bronx, though the elaborate Brooklyn
style Tracy 168 dubbed "wildstyle" would come to define the art. The early trend-setters were
joined in the 1970s by artists like Dondi, Futura 2000, Daze, Blade, Lee Quiñones, Fab Five Freddy,
Zephyr, Rammellzee, Crash, Kel, NOC 167 and Lady Pink. Graffiti is understood as a visual
expression of rap music, just as breaking is viewed as a physical expression. The 1983 film Wild
Style is widely regarded as the first hip hop motion picture, which featured prominent figures
within the New York graffiti scene during that period. The book Subway Art and the documentary
Style Wars were also among the first ways the mainstream public were introduced to hip hop
graffiti. Graffiti remains part of hip hop, while crossing into the mainstream art world with exhibits
in galleries throughout the world.

Breakdancing

Breaking, also called B-boying/B-girling or breakdancing, is a dynamic, rhythmic style of dance

which developed as one of the major elements of hip hop culture. Like many aspects of hip hop
culture, breakdance borrows heavily from many cultures, including 1930s-era street dancing,
Brazilian and Asian Martial arts, Russian folk dance, and the dance moves of James Brown, Michael
Jackson, and California funk. Breaking took form in the South Bronx in the 1970s alongside the
other elements of hip hop. Breakdancing is typically done with the accompaniment of hip hop
music playing on a boom box or PA system.

According to the 2002 documentary film The Freshest Kids: A History of the B-Boy, DJ Kool Herc
describes the "B" in B-boy as short for breaking, which at the time was slang for "going off", also
one of the original names for the dance. However, early on the dance was known as the "boing" .
Dancers at DJ Kool Herc's parties saved their best dance moves for the percussion break section of
the song, getting in front of the audience to dance in a distinctive, frenetic style. The "B" in B-boy
or B-girl also stands simply for break, as in break-boy or -girl. Before the 1990s, B-girls' presence
was limited by their gender minority status, navigating sexual politics of a masculine-dominated
scene, and a lack of representation or encouragement for women to participate in the form. The
few B-girls who participated despite facing gender discrimination carved out a space for women as
leaders within the breaking community, and the number of B-girls participating has increased.
Breaking was documented in Style Wars, and was later given more focus in fictional films such as
Wild Style and Beat Street. Early acts “mainly Latino Americans” include the Rock Steady Crew and
New York City Breakers.

Beatboxing

Beatboxing is the technique of vocal percussion, in which a singer imitates drums and other
percussion instruments with her or his voice. It is primarily concerned with the art of creating
beats or rhythms using the human mouth. The term beatboxing is derived from the mimicry of the
first generation of drum machines, then known as beatboxes. It was first popularized by Doug E.
Fresh. As it is a way of creating hip hop music, it can be categorized under the production element
of hip hop, though it does sometimes include a type of rapping intersected with the human-
created beat. It is generally considered to be part of the same "Pillar" of hip hop as DJing—in other
words, providing a musical backdrop or foundation for MC's to rap over.

Beatboxers can create their beats just naturally, but many of the beatboxing effects are enhanced
by using a microphone plugged into a PA system. This helps the beatboxer to make their
beatboxing loud enough to be heard alongside a rapper, MC, turntablist, and other hip hop artists.
Beatboxing was popular in the 1980s with prominent artists like the Darren "Buffy, the Human
Beat Box" Robinson of the Fat Boys and Biz Markie displaying their skills within the media. It
declined in popularity along with b-boying in the late 1980s, but has undergone a resurgence since
the late 1990s, marked by the release of "Make the Music 2000." by Rahzel of The Roots.

Beatmaking/producing

Although it is not described as one of the four core elements that make up hip hop, music
producing is another important element. In music, record producers play a similar role in sound
recording that film directors play in making a movie. The record producer recruits and selects
artists, plans the vision for the recording session, coaches the performers on their songs, chooses
audio engineers, sets out a budget for hiring the artists and technical experts, and oversees the
entire project. The exact roles of a producer depend on each individual, but some producers work
with DJs and drum machine programmers to create beats, coach the DJs in the selection of
sampled basslines, riffs and catch phrases, give advice to rappers, vocalists, MCs and other artists,
give suggestions to performers on how to improve their flow and develop a unique personal style.
Some producers work closely with the audio engineer to provide ideas on mixing, effects units,
micing of artists, and so on. The producer may independently develop the "concept" or vision for a
project or album, or develop the vision in collaboration with the artists and performers.

In hip hop, since the beginning of MCing, there have been producers who work in the studio,
behind the scenes, to create the beats for MCs to rap over. Producers may find a beat they like on
an old funk, soul, or disco record. They then isolate the beat and turn it into a loop. Alternatively,
producers may create a beat with a drum machine or by hiring a drumkit percussionist to play
acoustic drums. The producer could even mix and layer different methods, such as combining a
sampled disco drum break with a drum machine track and some live, newly recorded percussion
parts or a live electric bass player. A beat created by a hip hop producer may include other parts
besides a drum beat, such as a sampled bassline from a funk or disco song, dialogue from a spoken
word record or movie, or rhythmic "scratching" and "punches" done by a turntablist or DJ.

An early beat maker was producer Kurtis Blow, who won producer of the year credits in 1983,
1984, and 1985. Known for the creation of sample and sample loops, Blow was considered the
Quincy Jones of early hip hop, a reference to the prolific African American record producer,
conductor, arranger, composer, musician and bandleader. One of the most influential beat makers
was J. Dilla, a producer from Detroit who chopped samples by specific beats and would combine
them together to create his unique sound. Those who create these beats are known as either beat
makers or producers, however producers are known to have more input and direction on the
overall the creation of a song or project, while a beat maker just provides or creates the beat. As
Dr. Dre has said before "Once you finish the beat, you have to produce the record." The process of
making beats includes sampling, "chopping", looping, sequencing beats, recording, mixing, and
mastering.

Most beats in hip hop are sampled from a pre-existing record. This means that a producer will take
a portion or a "sample" of a song and reuse it as an instrumental section, beat or portion of their
song. Some examples of this are The Isley Brothers' "Footsteps in the Dark Pts. 1 and 2" being
sampled to make Ice Cube's "Today Was a Good Day". Another example is Otis Redding's "Try a
Little Tenderness" being sampled to create the song "Otis", released in 2011, by Kanye West and
Jay-Z.

"Chopping" is dissecting the song that you are sampling so that you "chop" out the part or parts of
the song, be that the bassline, rhythm guitar part, drum break, or other music, you want to use in
the beat. Looping is known as melodic or percussive sequence that repeats itself over a period of
time, so basically a producer will make an even-number of bars of a beat repeat itself or "loop" of
a full song length. This loop provides an accompaniment for an MC to rap over.

The tools needed to make beats in the late 1970s were funk, soul, and other music genre records,
record turntables, DJ mixers, audio consoles, and relatively inexpensive Portastudio-style
multitrack recording devices. In the 1980s and 1990s, beat makers and producers used the new
electronic and digital instruments that were developed, such as samplers, sequencers, drum
machines, and synthesizers. From the 1970s to the 2010s, various beat makers and producers
have used live instruments, such as drum kit or electric bass on some tracks. To record the finished
beats or beat tracks, beat makers and producers use a variety of sound recording equipment,
typically multitrack recorders. Digital Audio Workstations, also known as DAWs, became more
common in the 2010s for producers. Some of the most used DAWs are FL Studio, Ableton Live, and
Pro Tools.

DAWs have made it possible for more people to be able to make beats in their own home studio,
without going to a recording studio. Beat makers who own DAWs do not have to buy all the
hardware that a recording studio needed in the 1980s, because 2010-era DAWs have everything
they need to make beats on a good quality, fast laptop computer.

Beats are such an integral part of rap music that many producers have been able to make
instrumental mixtapes or albums. Even though these instrumentals have no rapping, listeners still
enjoy the inventive ways the producer mixes different beats, samples and instrumental melodies.
Examples of these are 9th Wonder's "Tutenkhamen" and J Dilla's "Donuts". Some hip hop records
come in two versions: a beat with rapping over it, and an instrumental with just the beat. The
instrumental in this case is provided so that DJs and turntablists can isolate breaks, beats and
other music to create new songs.

Language

The development of hip hop linguistics is complex. Source material include the spirituals of slaves
arriving in the new world, Jamaican dub music, the laments of jazz and blues singers, patterned
cockney slang and radio deejays hyping their audience using rhymes. Hip hop has a distinctive
associated slang. It is also known by alternate names, such as "Black English", or "Ebonics".
Academics suggest its development stems from a rejection of the racial hierarchy of language,
which held "White English" as the superior form of educated speech. Due to hip hop's commercial
success in the late 1990s and early 2000s, many of these words have been assimilated into the
cultural discourse of several different dialects across America and the world and even to non-hip
hop fans. The word diss for example is particularly prolific. There are also a number of words
which predate hip hop, but are often associated with the culture, with homie being a notable
example. Sometimes, terms like what the dilly, yo are popularized by a single song and are only
used briefly. One particular example is the rule-based slang of Snoop Dogg and E-40, who add
-izzle or -izz to the end or middle of words.

Hip Hop lyrics have also been known for containing swear words. In particular, the word "bitch" is
seen in countless songs, from NWA's "A Bitch Iz a bitch" to Missy Elliot's "She is a Bitch." It is often
used in the negative connotation of a woman who is a shallow "money grubber". Some female
artists have tried to reclaim the word and use it as a term of empowerment. Regardless, the hip
hop community has recently taken an interest in discussing the use of the word "bitch" and
whether it is necessary in rap. Not only the particular words, but also the choice of which language
in which rap is widely debated topic in international hip hop. In Canada, the use of non-standard
variants of French, such as Franglais, a mix of French and English, by groups such as Dead Obies or
Chiac has powerful symbolic implications for Canadian language politics and debates on Canadian
identity. In the United States rappers choose to rap in English, Spanish, or Spanglish, depending on
their own backgrounds and their intended audience.

Social impact

Effects
Hip hop has made a considerable social impact since its inception in the 1970s. "Hip hop has also
become relevant to the field of education because of its implications for understanding language,
learning, identity, and curriculum." Orlando Patterson, a sociology professor at Harvard University,
helps describe the phenomenon of how hip hop has spread rapidly around the world. Patterson
argues that mass communication is controlled by the wealthy, the government, and major
businesses in Third World nations and countries around the world. He also credits mass
communication with creating a global cultural hip hop scene. As a result, the youth are influenced
by the American hip hop scene and start their own forms of hip hop. Patterson believes that
revitalization of hip hop music will occur around the world as traditional values are mixed with
American hip hop music, This is due to the fact that the culture reflected the social, economic and
political realities of the disenfranchised youth. In the 2010s, hip hop lyrics are starting to reflect
original socially conscious themes. Rappers are starting to question the government's power and
its oppressive role in some societies. Rap music has been a tool for political, social, and cultural
empowerment outside the US. Members of minority communities—such as Algerians in France,
and Turks in Germany—use rap as a platform to protest racism, poverty, and social structures.

Linguistics

Hip hop lyricism has gained a measure of legitimacy in academic and literary circles. Studies of hip
hop linguistics are now offered at institutions such as the University of Toronto, where poet and
author George Eliot Clarke has taught the potential power of hip hop music to promote social
change. Some academics, including Ernest Morrell and Jeffrey Duncan-Andrade, compare hip hop
to the satirical works of great "Western canon" poets of the modern era, who use imagery and
create a mood to criticize society. As quoted in their work "Promoting Academic Literacy with
Urban Youth Through Engaging Hip Hop Culture":

Censorship

Hip hop music has been censored on radio and TV due to the explicit lyrics of certain genres. Many
songs have been criticized for anti-establishment and sometimes violent messages. The use of
profanity as well as graphic depictions of violence and sex in hip hop music videos and songs
makes it hard to broadcast on television stations such as MTV, in music video form, and on radio.
As a result, many hip hop recordings are broadcast in censored form, with offending language
"bleeped" or blanked out of the soundtrack, or replaced with "clean" lyrics. The result – which
sometimes renders the remaining lyrics unintelligible or contradictory to the original recording –
has become almost as widely identified with the genre as any other aspect of the music, and has
been parodied in films such as Austin Powers in Goldmember, in which Mike Myers' character Dr.
Evil – performing in a parody of a hip hop music video " by Jay-Z) – performs an entire verse that is
blanked out. In 1995, Roger Ebert wrote:

In 1990, Luther Campbell and his group 2 Live Crew filed a lawsuit against Broward County Sheriff
Nick Navarro, because Navarro wanted to prosecute stores that sold the group's album As Nasty
As They Wanna Be because of its obscene and vulgar lyrics. In June 1990, a U.S. district court judge
labeled the album obscene and illegal to sell. However, in 1992, the United States Court of Appeals
for the Eleventh Circuit overturned the obscenity ruling from Judge Gonzalez, and the Supreme
Court of the United States refused to hear Broward County's appeal. Professor Louis Gates
testified on behalf of The 2 Live Crew, arguing that the material that the county alleged was
profane actually had important roots in African-American vernacular, games, and literary
traditions and should be protected.

Gangsta rap is a subgenre of hip hop that reflects the violent culture of inner-city American black
youths. The genre was pioneered in the mid-1980s by rappers such as Schoolly D and Ice-T, and
was popularized in the later part of the 1980s by groups such as N.W.A. Ice-T released "6 in the
Mornin'", which is often regarded as the first gangsta rap song, in 1986. After the national
attention that Ice-T and N.W.A created in the late 1980s and early 1990s, gangsta rap became the
most commercially lucrative subgenre of hip hop.

N.W.A is the group most frequently associated with the founding of gangsta rap. Their lyrics were
more violent, openly confrontational, and shocking than those of established rap acts, featuring
incessant profanity and, controversially, use of the word "nigga". These lyrics were placed over
rough, rock guitar-driven beats, contributing to the music's hard-edged feel. The first blockbuster
gangsta rap album was N.W.A's Straight Outta Compton, released in 1988. Straight Outta Compton
would establish West Coast hip hop as a vital genre, and establish Los Angeles as a legitimate rival
to hip hop's long-time capital, New York City. Straight Outta Compton sparked the first major
controversy regarding hip hop lyrics when their song "Fuck tha Police" earned a letter from FBI
Assistant Director Milt Ahlerich, strongly expressing law enforcement's resentment of the song.

Controversy surrounded Ice-T's song "Cop Killer" from the album Body Count. The song was
intended to speak from the viewpoint of a criminal getting revenge on racist, brutal cops. Ice-T's
rock song infuriated government officials, the National Rifle Association and various police
advocacy groups. Consequently, Time Warner Music refused to release Ice-T's upcoming album
Home Invasion because of the controversy surrounding "Cop Killer". Ice-T suggested that the furor
over the song was an overreaction, telling journalist Chuck Philips "... they've done movies about
nurse killers and teacher killers and student killers. Arnold Schwarzenegger blew away dozens of
cops as the Terminator. But I don't hear anybody complaining about that." Ice-T suggested to
Philips that the misunderstanding of "Cop Killer" and the attempts to censor it had racial
overtones: "The Supreme Court says it's OK for a white man to burn a cross in public. But nobody
wants a black man to write a record about a cop killer." After the attack on the World Trade Center
on September 11, 2001, Oakland, California group The Coup was under fire for the cover art on
their album Party Music, which featured the group's two members holding a guitar tuner and two
sticks as the Twin Towers exploded behind them despite the fact that it was created months
before the actual event. The group, having politically radical and Marxist lyrical content, said the
cover meant to symbolize the destruction of capitalism. Their record label pulled the album until a
new cover could be designed.

Product placement and endorsements

Critics such as Businessweek's David Kiley argue that the discussion of products within hip hop
culture may actually be the result of undisclosed product placement deals. In 2005, a proposed
plan by McDonald's to pay rappers to advertise McDonald's products in their music was leaked to
the press. and many other companies have used the hip hop community to make their name or to
give them credibility. One such beneficiary was Jacob the Jeweler, a diamond merchant from New
York. Jacob Arabo's clientele included Sean Combs, Lil' Kim and Nas. He created jewelry pieces
from precious metals that were heavily loaded with diamond and gemstones. As his name was
mentioned in the song lyrics of his hip hop customers, his profile quickly rose. Arabo expanded his
brand to include gem-encrusted watches that retail for hundreds of thousands of dollars, gaining
so much attention that Cartier filed a trademark-infringement lawsuit against him for putting
diamonds on the faces of their watches and reselling them without permission. Arabo's profile
increased steadily until his June 2006 arrest by the FBI on money laundering charges.

While some brands welcome the support of the hip hop community, one brand that did not was
Cristal champagne maker Louis Roederer. A 2006 article from The Economist magazine featured
remarks from managing director Frederic Rouzaud about whether the brand's identification with
rap stars could affect their company negatively. His answer was dismissive: "That's a good
question, but what can we do? We can't forbid people from buying it. I'm sure Dom Pérignon or
Krug would be delighted to have their business." In retaliation, many hip hop icons such as Jay-Z
and Sean Combs, who previously included references to "Cris", ceased all mentions and purchases
of the champagne. 50 Cent's deal with Vitamin Water, Dr. Dre's promotion of his Beats by Dr. Dre
headphone line and Dr. Pepper, and Drake's commercial with Sprite are successful deals. Although
product placement deals were not popular in the 1980s, MC Hammer was an early innovator in
this type of strategy. With merchandise such as dolls, commercials for soft drinks and numerous
television show appearances, Hammer began the trend of rap artists being accepted as
mainstream pitchpeople for brands.

Media

Hip hop culture has had extensive coverage in the media, especially in relation to television; there
have been a number of television shows devoted to or about hip hop, including in Europe . For
many years, BET was the only television channel likely to play hip hop, but in recent years the
channels VH1 and MTV have added a significant amount of hip hop to their play list. Run DMC
became the first African American group to appear on MTV. With the emergence of the Internet, a
number of online sites began to offer hip hop related video content.

Magazines

Hip hop magazines describe hip hop's culture, including information about rappers and MCs, new
hip hop music, concerts, events, fashion and history. The first hip hop publication, The Hip Hop Hit
List was published in the 1980s. It contained the first rap music record chart. It was put out by two
brothers from Newark, New Jersey, Vincent and Charles Carroll . They knew the art form very well
and noticed the need for a hip hop magazine. DJs and rappers did not have a way to learn about
rap music styles and labels. The periodical began as the first Rap record chart and tip sheet for DJs
and was distributed through national record pools and record stores throughout the New York City
Tri-State area. One of the founding publishers, Charles Carroll noted, "Back then, all DJs came into
New York City to buy their records but most of them did not know what was hot enough to spend
money on, so we charted it." Jae Burnett became Vincent Carroll's partner and played an
instrumental role in its later development.

Another popular hip hop magazine that arose in the 1980s was Word Up magazine, an American
magazine catering to the youth with an emphasis on hip hop. It featured articles on what is like to
be a part of the hip hop community, promoted up-coming albums, bringing awareness to the
projects that the artist was involved in, and also included posters of trending celebrities within the
world of Hip Hop. The magazine was published monthly and mainly concerning rap, Hip Hop and
R&B music. Word Up magazine was highly popular, it was even mentioned in the popular song by
The Notorious B.I.G - Juicy "it was all a dream, use to read WordUp magazine". Word Up magazine
was a part of pop culture.

New York tourists from abroad took the publication back home with them to other countries to
share it, creating worldwide interest in the culture and new art form. It had a printed distribution
of 50,000, a circulation rate of 200,000 with well over 25,000 subscribers. The "Hip Hop Hit List"
was also the first to define hip hop as a culture introducing the many aspects of the art form such
as fashion, music, dance, the arts and most importantly the language. For instance, on the cover
the headliner included the tag "All Literature was Produced to Meet Street Comprehension!"
which proved their loyalty not only to the culture but also to the streets. Most interviews were
written verbatim which included their innovative broken English style of writing. Some of the early
charts were written in the graffiti format tag style but was made legible enough for the masses.

The Carroll Brothers were also consultants to the many record companies who had no idea how to
market hip hop music. Vincent Carroll, the magazine's creator-publisher, went on to become a
huge source for marketing and promoting the culture of hip hop, starting Blow-Up Media, the first
hip hop marketing firm with offices in NYC's Tribeca district. At the age of 21, Vincent Carroll
employed a staff of 15 and assisted in launching some of the culture's biggest and brightest stars .
Later other publications spawned up including: Hip Hop Connection, XXL, Scratch, The Source and
Vibe. Many individual cities have also produced their own local hip hop newsletters, while hip hop
magazines with national distribution are found in a few other countries. The 21st century also
ushered in the rise of online media, and hip hop fan sites now offer comprehensive hip hop
coverage on a daily basis.

Fashion

Clothing, hair and other styles have been a big part of hip hop's social and cultural impact since the
1970s. Although the styles have changed over the decades, distinctive urban apparel and looks
have been an important way for rappers, breakdancers and other hip hop community members to
express themselves. As the hip hop music genre's popularity increased, so did the effect of its
fashion. While there were early items synonymous with hip hop that crossed over into the
mainstream culture, like Run-DMC's affinity for Adidas or the Wu-Tang Clan's championing of
Clarks' Wallabees, it wasn't until its commercial peak that hip hop fashion became influential.
Starting in the mid- to late 1990s, hip hop culture embraced some major designers and established
a new connection with classic fashion. Brands such as Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Tommy
Hilfiger all tapped into hip hop culture and gave very little in return. Moving into the new
millennium, hip hop fashion consisted of baggy shirts, jeans, and jerseys. As names like Pharrell
and Jay-Z started their own clothing lines and still others like Kanye West linked up with designers
like Louis Vuitton, the clothes got tighter, more classically fashionable, and expensive.

As hip hop has a seen a shift in the means by which its artists express their masculinity, from
violence and intimidation to wealth-flaunting and entrepreneurship, it has also seen the
emergence of rapper branding. The modern-day hip hop artist is no longer limited to music serving
as their sole occupation or source of income. By the early 1990s, major apparel companies "
realized the economic potential of tapping into hip hop culture ... Tommy Hilfiger was one of the
first major fashion designer who actively courted rappers as a way of promoting his street wear".
By joining forces, the artist and the corporation are able to jointly benefit from each other's
resources. Hip Hop artists are trend-setters and taste-makers. Their fans range from minority
groups who can relate to their professed struggles to majority groups who cannot truly relate but
like to "consume the fantasy of living a more masculine life". The rappers provide the "cool, hip"
factor while the corporations deliver the product, advertising, and financial assets. Tommy Hilfiger,
one of the first mainstream designers to actively court rappers as a way of promoting his street
wear, serves a prototypical example of the hip hip/fashion collaborations:

Artists now use brands as a means of supplemental income to their music or are creating and
expanding their own brands that become their primary source of income. As Harry Elam explains,
there has been a movement "from the incorporation and redefinition of existing trends to actually
designing and marketing products as hip hop fashion".

Kwaito is a political and party-driven genre, as performers use the music to express their political
views, and also to express their desire to have a good time. Kwaito is a music that came from a
once hated and oppressed people, but it is now sweeping the nation. The main consumers of
Kwaito are adolescents and half of the South African population is under 21. Some of the large
Kwaito artists have sold more than 100,000 albums, and in an industry where 25,000 albums sold
is considered a gold record, those are impressive numbers. Kwaito allows the participation and
creative engagement of otherwise socially excluded peoples in the generation of popular media.
South African hip hop has made an impact worldwide, with performers such as Tumi, HipHop
Pantsula, Tuks Senganga.

In Jamaica, the sounds of hip hop are derived from American and Jamaican influences. Jamaican
hip hop is defined both through dancehall and reggae music. Jamaican Kool Herc brought the
sound systems, technology, and techniques of reggae music to New York during the 1970s.
Jamaican hip hop artists often rap in both Brooklyn and Jamaican accents. Jamaican hip hop
subject matter is often influenced by outside and internal forces. Outside forces such as the bling-
bling era of today's modern hip hop and internal influences coming from the use of anti-
colonialism and marijuana or "ganja" references which Rastafarians believe bring them closer to
God.

Author Wayne Marshall argues that "Hip hop, as with any number of African-American cultural
forms before it, offers a range of compelling and contradictory significations to Jamaican artist and
audiences. From "modern blackness" to "foreign mind", transnational cosmopolitanism to militant
pan-Africanism, radical remixology to outright mimicry, hip hop in Jamaica embodies the myriad
ways that Jamaicans embrace, reject, and incorporate foreign yet familiar forms."

In the developing world, hip hop has made a considerable impact in the social context. Despite the
lack of resources, hip hop has made considerable inroads.

Many hip hop artists from the developing world come to the United States to seek opportunities.
Maya Arulpragasm, a Sri Lanka-born Tamil hip hop artist claims, "I'm just trying to build some sort
of bridge, I'm trying to create a third place, somewhere in between the developed world and the
developing world.". Another music artist using hip hop to provide a positive message to young
Africans is Emmanuel Jal, a former child soldier from South Sudan. Jal is one of the few South
Sudanese music artists to have broken through on an international level with his unique form of
hip hop and a positive message in his lyrics. Jal has attracted the attention of mainstream media
and academics with his story and use of hip hop as a healing medium for war-afflicted people in
Africa and he has also been sought out on the international lecture fora such as TED.

Many K-Pop artists in South Korea have been influenced by hip hop and many South Korean artists
perform hip hop music. In Seoul, South Korea, Koreans b-boy.

Education

Scholars argue that hip hop can have an empowering effect on youth. While there is misogyny,
violence, and drug use in rap music videos and lyrics, hip hop also displays many positive themes
of self-reliance, resilience, and self-esteem. These messages can be inspiring for a youth living in
poverty. A lot of rap songs contain references to strengthening the African American community
promoting social causes. Social workers have used hip hop to build a relationship with at-risk
youth and develop a deeper connection with the child. Hip hop has the potential to be taught as a
way of helping people see the world more critically, be it through forms of writing, creating music,
or social activism. The lyrics of hip hop have been used to learn about literary devices such as
metaphor, imagery, irony, tone, theme, motif, plot, and point of view.

Organizations and facilities are providing spaces and programs for communities to explore making
and learning about hip hop. An example is the IMP Labs in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Many
dance studios and colleges now offer lessons in hip hop alongside tap and ballet, as well as KRS-
ONE teaching hip hop lectures at Harvard University.

Hip hop producer 9th Wonder and former rapper-actor Christopher "Play" Martin from hip hop
group Kid-n-Play have taught hip hop history classes at North Carolina Central University and 9th
Wonder has also taught a "Hip Hop Sampling Soul" class at Duke University. In 2007, the Cornell
University Library established a Hip Hop Collection to collect and make accessible the historical
artifacts of hip hop culture and to ensure their preservation for future generations.

The hip-hop community has been a major factor in educating its listeners on HIV/AIDS, a disease
that has affected the community very closely. One of the biggest artists of early hip-hop Eazy-E, a
member of N.W.A had died of AIDS in 1995. Since then many artists, producers, choreographers
and many others from many different locations have tried to make an impact and raise awareness
of HIV in the hip-hop community. Many artists have made songs as sort of PSA's to raise
awareness of HIV for hip-hop listeners, some songs that raise awareness are Salt N Pepa – Let's
Talk About AIDS, Coolio – Too Hot and more. Tanzanian artists such as Professor Jay and the group
Afande Sele are notable for their contributions to this genre of hip-hop music and the awareness
they have spread for HIV. American writer, activist and hip-hop artist Tim'm T. West who was
diagnosed with AIDS in 1999, formed queer hip-hop group Deep Dickollective who got together to
rap about the HIV pandemic among queer black men and LGBTQ activism in hip-hop. A non-profit
organization out of New York City called Hip Hop 4 Life, strives to educate the youth, especially the
low income youth about social and political problems in their areas of interest, which includes hip
hop. Hip Hop 4 Life has held many events around the New York City area to raise awareness for
HIV and other problems surrounding these low income children and their communities.

Values and philosophy

Essentialism

Since the age of slavery, music has long been the language of African American identity. Because
reading and writing were forbidden under the auspices of slavery, music became the only
accessible form of communication. Hundreds of years later, in inner-city neighborhoods plagued
by high illiteracy and dropout rates, music remains the most dependable medium of expression.
Hip Hop is thus to modern day as Negro Spirituals are to the plantations of the old South: the
emergent music articulates the terrors of one's environment better than written, or spoken word,
thereby forging an "unquestioned association of oppression with creativity is endemic" to African
American culture".

As a result, lyrics of rap songs have often been treated as "confessions" to a number of violent
crimes in the United States. It is also considered to be the duty of rappers and other hip hop artists
to "represent" their city and neighborhood. This demands being proud of being from
disadvantaged cities neighborhoods that have traditionally been a source of shame, and glorifying
them in lyrics and graffiti. This has potentially been one of the ways that hip hop has become
regarded as a "local" rather than "foreign" genre of music in so many countries around the world
in just a few decades. Nevertheless, sampling and borrowing from a number of genres and places
is also a part of the hip hop milieu, and an album like the surprise hit Kala by Anglo-Tamil rapper
M.I.A. was recorded in locations all across the world and features sounds from a different country
on every track.

According to scholar Joseph Schloss, the essentialist perspective of Hip Hop conspicuously
obfuscates the role that individual style and pleasure plays in the development of the genre.
Schloss notes that Hip Hop is forever fossilized as an inevitable cultural emergent, as if "none of
hip-hop's innovators had been born, a different group of poor black youth from the Bronx would
have developed hip-hop in exactly the same way". In his book, Phonographies, Weheliye describes
the political and cultural affiliations that hip hop music enables. In contrast, Greg Tate states that
the market-driven, commodity form of commercial hip hop has uprooted the genre from the
celebration of African-American culture and the messages of protest that predominated in its early
forms. Tate states that the commodification and commercialization of hip hop culture undermines
the dynamism of the genre for African-American communities.

These two dissenting understandings of hip hop's scope and influence frame debates that revolve
around hip hop's possession of or lack of authenticity. Anticipating the market arguments of Tate
and others, both Gilroy and Weheliye assert that hip hop has always had a different function than
Western popular music as a whole, a function that exceeds the constraints of market capitalism.
Weheliye notes, "Popular music, generally in the form of recordings, has and still continues to
function as one of the main channels of communication between the different geographical and
cultural points in the African diaspora, allowing artists to articulate and perform their diasporic
citizenship to international audiences and establish conversations with other diasporic
communities." For Paul Gilroy, hip hop proves an outlet of articulation and a sonic space in which
African Americans can exert control and influence that they often lack in other sociopolitical and
economic domains.

In "Phonographies", Weheyliye explains how new sound technologies used in hip hop encourage
"diasporic citizenship" and African-American cultural and political activities. Gilroy states that the
"power of music in developing black struggles by communicating information, organizing
consciousness, and testing out or deploying ... individual or collective" forms of African-American
cultural and political actions.

Traditional vs. progressive views

Old-school hip hop performer DJ Kool Herc, along with traditional hip hop artists Afrika Bambaataa
and Grandmaster Caz, originally held views against mainstream rap. However, recent interviews
indicate they have changed their ways to a certain extent. However, rappers like KRS-One still feel
a strong disapproval of the rap industry, especially through mainstream media.

In b-boying, most supporters have begun to slowly involve more industry sponsorship through
events on the World BBoy Series and through the UDEF powered by Silverback Open. Other b-boys
have begun to accept using the term breakdance, but only if the term b-boying is too difficult to
communicate to the general public. Regardless of such, b-boys and b-girls still exist to showing lack
of support to jams and events that they feel represent the culture as a sport, form of
entertainment and as well through capitalism. Battle Rap as an industry has also been strongly
supported by old-school/ golden-era legends such as Herc, Kid Capri and KRS-One.

Reception

Commercialization and stereotyping

In 2012, hip hop and rap pioneer Chuck D, from the group Public Enemy criticized young hip hop
artists from the 2010s, stating that they have taken a music genre with extensive roots in
underground music and turned it into commercialized pop music. In particular, seminal figures in
the early underground, politically motivated music, such as Ice-T, have criticized current hip hop
artists for being more concerned with image than substance. Critics have stated that 2010s hip
hop artists are contributing to cultural stereotyping of African-American culture and are poseur
gangsters. Critics have also stated that hip hop music promotes drug use and violence.

Hip hop has been criticized by rock-centric critics who state that hip hop is not a true art form and
who state that rock and roll music is more authentic. These critics are advocating a viewpoint
called "rockism" which favors music written and performed by the individual artist and is against
2000s -era hip hop, which these critics argue give too large a role to record producers and digital
sound recording. Hip hop is seen as being too violent and explicit, in comparison with rock. Some
contend that the criticisms have racial overtones, as these critics deny that hip hop is an art form
and praising rock genres that prominently feature white males.

Marginalization of women

The hip hop music genre and its subculture has been criticized for its gender bias and its negative
impacts on women in African-American culture. Gangsta rap artists such as Eazy-E, Snoop Dogg,
and Dr. Dre have, primarily in the 90's, rapped lyrics that portray women as sex toys and inferior to
or otherwise dependent upon men. Between 1987 and 1993, over 400 hip hop songs had lyrics
that described violence toward women including rape, assault, and murder. These anti-women hip
hop lyrics have led some male listeners to make physical threats toward women and they have
created negative stereotypes of young urban African-American women.
Hip hop music frequently promotes masculine hegemony and it depicts women as individuals who
must rely on men. Videos often portray idealized female bodies and depict women as being the
object of male pleasure.

The misrepresentation of women, primarily woman of color, as objects rather than other human
beings and the presence of male dominance in hip hop extends back to the birth of the genre.
However, many female artists have also emerged in shedding light on both their personal issues
and the misrepresentations of women in hip-hip and culture. These artists include but are not
limited to Queen Latifah, TLC and MC Lyte. Despite the success of them and others, female
rappers remain proportionally few in the mainstream industry.

Very few female artists have been recognized in hip hop, and the most popular, successful and
influential artists, record producers and music executives are males. Women who are in rap
groups, such as Lauryn Hill of the Fugees, tend to have less advantages and opportunities than
male artists.

Female artists have received significantly less recognition in hip hop. Only one female artist has
won Best Rap album of the year at the Grammy Awards since the category was added in 1995. In
addition, African American female hip hop artists have been recognized even less in the industry.
Salt-N-Pepa felt when they were establishing themselves as a successful group, they had to prove
doubters wrong, stating that "being women in hip hop at a time when it wasn't that many women,
we felt like we had more to prove."

Marginalization of Latinas

Latinas, especially Cuban, Dominican and Puerto Rican women, are degraded and fetishized in hip
hop.

White women and Asian women are also fetishized in hip hop but not as much as Latinas, who are
referred to as "Spanish". Latinas, especially Puerto Rican models and Dominican models, are often
portrayed as an object of sexual desire in hip hop videos.

Homophobia and transphobia

As well, the hip hop music community has been criticized with accusations of homophobia and
transphobia. Hip hop song lyrics contain offensive, homophobic slurs and sometimes violent
threats towards queer people, such as rapper DMX's "Where the Hood At," rapper Eazy-E's
"Nobody Move," rap group Brand Nubian's "Punks Jump Up to Get Beat Down". Many rappers and
hip hop artists have advocated homophobia and/or transphobia. These artists include Ja Rule, who
in an interview claimed,"We need to go step to MTV and Viacom, and let's talk about all these
fucking shows that they have on MTV that is promoting homosexuality, that my kids can't watch
this shit," pansexual androgynous rapper and singer Angel Haze, lesbian rapper Siya, gay
rapper/singer Kevin Abstract, and genderqueer rapper Mykki Blanco.

Legacy

Having its roots in reggae, disco, funk and soul music, hip hop has since expanded worldwide. Its
expansion includes events like Afrika Bambaataa's 1982 releasing of Planet Rock, which tried to
establish a more global harmony. In the 1980s, the British Slick Rick became the first international
hit hip hop artist not native to America. From the 1980s onward, television made hip hop global.
From Yo! MTV Raps to Public Enemy's world tour, hip hop spread to Latin America and became a
mainstream culture. Hip hop has been cut, mixed and adapted as it the music spreads to new
areas.

Early hip hop may have reduced inner-city gang violence by providing an alternative means of
expression to physical violence. However, with the emergence of commercial and crime-related
gangsta rap during the early 1990s, violence, drugs, weapons, and misogyny, were key themes.
Socially and politically conscious hip hop has long been disregarded by mainstream America in
favor of its media-baiting sibling, gangsta rap.

Black female artists such as Queen Latifah, Missy Elliott, and MC Lyte have made great strides
since the hip hop industry first began. By producing music and an image that did not cater to the
hyper-sexualized stereotypes of black women in hip hop, these women pioneered a revitalized
and empowering image of black women in hip hop. Though many hip hop artists have embraced
the ideals that effectively disenfranchize black female artists, many others choose to employ forms
of resistance that counteract these negative portrayals of women in hip hop and offer a different
narrative. These artists seek to expand ways of traditional thinking through different ways of
cultural expression. In this effort they hope to elicit a response to female hip hop artists not with a
misogynist lens but with one that validates women's struggle.

For women, artists such as Missy Elliott, Lil' Kim, Young M.A. and others are providing mentorship
for new female MCs. In addition, there is a vibrant scene outside the mainstream that provides an
opportunity for women and their music to flourish.

See also

List of hip hop music festivals

List of hip hop genres

List of hip hop albums considered to be influential

List of hip hop musicians

List of deceased hip hop artists

Hip hop and social injustice

CORE Music Foundation

Pop culture

References

Bibliography

Def Jam Inc. New York: Random House, 2005

Brown, Jake. Suge Knight: The Rise, fall, and Rise of Death Row Records. Phoenix: Colossus Books,
2002.
Huntington, Carla Stalling. Hip Hop Dance; Meanings and Messages. Jefferson, North Carolina:
McFarland & Company Publishers, Inc.

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Further reading

Chang, Jeff. Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop. Basic Books, 2008.

Fitzgerald, Tamsin. Hip-Hop and Urban Dance. Heineman Library, 2008.

External links