hip-hop music

1) Hip hop music, also referred to as rap or rap music, is a style of popular music which came into existence in the United States during the mid-1970s, and became a large part of modern pop culture during the 1980s. It consists of two main components: rapping (MCing) and DJing (audio mixing and scratching). Along with hip hop dance (notably breakdancing) and urban inspired art, or notably graffiti, these compose the four elements of hip hop, a cultural movement that was initiated by inner-city youth, mostly African Americans in New York City, in the early 1970s. Typically, hip hop music consists of intensely rhythmic lyrical form making abundant use of techniques like assonance, alliteration, and rhyme. The rapper is accompanied by an instrumental track, usually referred to as a "beat", performed by a DJ, created by a producer, or one or more instrumentalists. This beat is often created using a sample of the percussion break of another song, usually a funk or soul recording. In addition to the beat other sounds are often sampled, synthesized, or performed. Sometimes a track can be instrumental, as a showcase of the skills of the DJ or producer. Hip hop began in The Bronx, located in New York City, when DJs began isolating the percussion break from funk and disco songs. The early role of the MC was to introduce the DJ and the music and to keep the audience excited. MCs began by speaking between songs, giving exhortations to dance, greetings to audience members, jokes and anecdotes. Eventually this practice became more stylized and became known as rapping. By 1979 hip hop had become a commercially popular music genre and began to enter the American mainstream. In the 1990s, a form of hip hop called gangsta rap became a major part of American music, causing significant controversy over lyrics which were perceived as promoting violence, terrorism, promiscuity, drug use and misogyny. Nevertheless, by the beginning of the 2000s, hip hop was a staple of popular music charts and was being performed in many styles across the world. Characteristics Hip hop is a cultural movement, of which music is a part. The music is itself composed of two parts: rapping, the delivery of swift, highly rhythmic and lyrical vocals, and DJing, to compose either through sampling, turntablism, instrumentation or beatboxing. Another important factor of hip hop music is the fashion that originated along with the music. These days the underground hip hop community is a growing force online, led by social network video sites like RapSpace.TV Modern Rap often contains lyrics which make it popular with the youth, primarily because of the choice of vocabulary and the issues it addresses, often relating to modern day problems and suffering which the listeners can relate to. Rhythmic structure Beats (though not necessarily raps) in hip hop are almost always in 4/4 time. At its rhythmic core, hip hop swings: instead of a straight 4/4 count (pop music) hip hop is based on an anticipated feel somewhat similar to the "swing" emphasis found in jazz percussion. Like the triplet emphasis in swing, hip hop's rhythm is subtle, rarely written as it sounds (4/4 basic; the drummer adds the hip hop interpretation) and is often played in an almost "late" or laid back way. This style was innovated predominantly in soul, disco and funk music, where beats and thematic music were repeated for the duration of tracks. In the 1960s and 1970s, James Brown talked, sang, and screamed much as MCs do today. This musical style provides the perfect platform for MCs to rhyme. Hip hop music generally caters to the MC for this reason, amplifying the importance of lyrical and delivering prowess. Instrumental hip hop is perhaps the lone exception to this rule. In this hip hop sub genre, DJs and producers are free to experiment with creating instrumental tracks. While they may mix in sampled rap vocals, they are not bound by traditional hip hop format. Instrumentation & production The instrumentation of hip hop derives from disco, funk, and R&B, both in the sound systems and records sampled and session musicians and their instrumentation used. Disco and club DJs' use of mixing originated from the need to have continuous music and thus smooth transitions between tracks. Hip hop Kool DJ Herc, in contrast, originated the practice of isolating and extending only the break—a short percussion solo interlude—by mixing between two copies of the same record. This was, according to Afrika Bambaataa, the "certain part of the record that everybody waits for—they just let their inner self go and get wild." (Toop,