Hip hop was a musical reaction to disco music, a genre which was predominantly played by white people, many hip hop artists felt alienated by this style of music. The music grew out of local gatherings mainly in the Bronx areas of New York called “Block Parties”.
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At these events, people from the local neighbourhood would gather and have an outdoor party, with music playing, perhaps a DJ or a local band, it was a time where the people of the area could get together to discuss local issues and generally have fun. The DJ began to hold an importance within hip hop music, the DJ was charged with keeping the music and atmosphere of the party going, this led to the use of two turntables, so that there were no pauses for record changes, the invention of new techniques such as mixing and scratching, the invention of which is credited to Grand Wizard Theodore, soon followed. DJ’s would push the record backward and forward in time to the drumbeat sometimes whilst leaving another track playing on a separate turntable, which created a percussive sound known as scratching. [1]
The block parties had music, but they needed someone to lead them and to become the “voice” of the party, this is how the role of the MC was born. The MC would keep the audience interested in the party, talk about the DJ’s or bands that would be playing and generally keep the party going, eventually this lead to the MC being involved in the music itself with poetical rhymes being spoken in time to the music played by the DJ. This was the Beginning of rap, a feature of hip hop which is perhaps even more popular today than then. One of the most important MC’s to come from this scene is Grandmaster Flash. [2]
The Early influences of hip hop came from records the DJ’s would play, old funk and soul, and classic “break beats” all played a major part in the formation of hip hop’s signature sound, and this in turn led to the popularity of sampling within hip hop. artists as varied as James Brown to Kraftwerk are often listed as hip hop influences and heavily sampled within the music. [3]
Lyrically, hip hop has many different areas of subject matter, often raps had very little serious content, they were simply to keep the crowd engaged at block parties, although later as the popularity increased, many hip hop artists rapped about the hardships of life in the Bronx areas of New York, which of course, the fans of the music could relate to on all levels, one important example of this is “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash. Some rap content dealt with the feelings of racism towards black people, and a feeling of unfair treatment from white people, bands such as public enemy portrayed empowering statements of defiance towards racism, this was important, because it gave black people a music with a message they could relate to, similar kinds of sentiments can still be found in modern hip hop.
Hip Hop began to grow in popularity in the mid 80s and bands such as Run DMC, famous for their collaboration with Aerosmith, began to receive some notice and the commercial popularity of hip hop began to increase. Artists such as Public Enemy, N.W.A, De La Soul and Beastie Boys were the significant artists as the scene began to explode. Major singles and albums such as “Fight The Power” by Public Enemy, “Straight Outta Compton” by N.W.A and “Me Myself and I” by De La Soul were all commercial hip hop hits. [4] This increase in popularity became a soapbox for black artists to air their opinions on society through their music, which was important at a time when racial equality was not as established as it is today.
Hip hop culture inspired a whole new type of fashion, sports wear became very popular amongst hip hop artists, and acceptable to wear as streetwear, the addidas tracksuit became a common sight amongst the hip hop crowd, alongside large gold jewellery, necklaces and rings, bulky “sneakers” and sports shoes were also part of the style.
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Some rappers took accessories to the extreme with a prime example being MC Flava Flav and his large clock necklace. [5]
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Hip hop has gone on to hugely shape the modern music scene, rap and hip hop are some of the biggest styles of popular music. Many new subgenres of hip hop now exist: from gangsta rap, a style often criticised by the media for promoting violence, to more subtle loosely labelled “r ‘n’ b” often featuring female vocalists and similar styles of sampling and rapping to the original hip hop artists. Many artists list 80’s hip hop as an influence including infamous gansta rap artist 2Pac, influenced by Grandmaster Flash[6], and U.S. rapper Eminem, who has taken influence from The Beastie Boys and N.W.A [7] .Hip hop is a constantly expanding genre of music which shows no signs of slowing down, if anything, it’s popularity seems to increase as time goes on.
[1] http://tom-owen.co.uk/hiphophistory/turntablism.html
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microphone_Controller
[3] http://blog.oup.com/2006/08/in_the_beginnin/
[4] http://uk.real.com/music/genre/80s_Hits/
[5] http://80srewind.net/80s/80sfashion.htm
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupac_Shakur#Influences
[7] http://www.theeminemblog.com/2004/05/02/eminems-major-musical-influences/
