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Hip Hop Influence On American Culture

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Within the loud streets of New York lived the creative minds who conjured the genre as what we know today as Hip Hop. The culture of the South Bronx area was alive and well in the 1970’s and still lives on today. Music was alive and well. During this time, the Bronx witnessed the destruction of the area from a fire which is believed to have been linked to economic collapse. Everyone was impacted. Out of the ashes arose the voices of people who were of African and Latino descent. Hip Hop began when DJ’s from this area started to sampling music (taking one sound and using it to create a new song). It was only a matter of time before the genre began it’s evolution. In 1973, DJ Kool Herc (Cool Campell) was the first pioneer to create the foundation …show more content…

Ratcliff described the two sides of hip hop, the ”performer-intellectuals” and the “activist-scholars”. Intellectuals by definition are people who are bring to attention conflicts or issues within the economy and other fields. With hip hop, there are mainstream performers who rhyme about the usual subjects such as acquiring money, the objectification of women and so on. Then there are “performer-intellectuals” that are aware of the white privilege and racist challenges well and alive in the society. The performers come in the forms of rappers, b-boys, graffiti artists, DJ’s and many alike. “Activist- scholars” are the ones who derived from the hip hop culture and have studied the culture from what Ratcliff calls “an insider-participant perspective”(Ratcliff,10). The insider perceptive is sociological concept where one has been apart of a even of culture and can identify themselves as a participant in such. Hip hop has long been at war with the current society culturally hegemonated by the white social class. Many argue that the art form promotes violence, sex and a lust for money. However, many rappers who are “performer-intellectuals” switch the status quo and their rhymes entail the struggles and self criticism they face. They understand the power behind the art and utilize it as a weapon. The scholars give a more detailed and analytic defense to the arguments dealing with hip

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