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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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In “Prophets of The Hood”, by Imani Perry, she discusses and expresses her thoughts on the complexity of politics and poetics in Hip Hop. The novel describes Perry’s true meaning of Hip Hop. Throughout the novel, the author reveals four elements that make Hip Hop “black american music”. Two out the four elements that were discuss are political location of black americans and black oral and literary tradition. I agree with Perry’s idea that political location of black americans and the discourse of english in african americans creates black english/ebonics in hip hop that makes it their music.

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697 Words | 3 Pages

Hip-hop additionally broke racial barriers and admiring crowds became diverse. Key figures were responsible for the rapid popularization of the art form. Sugar Hill Gang would of course start the commercialization of hip-hop with the release of rap's first mainstream song. The baby boomers outsiders were central in bringing hip hop to the world. Henry Chalfant played a large role in bringing the culture to the public through his photojournalism.

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847 Words | 4 Pages

They also argue that hip-hop motivates people to end the racial crises surrounding their society. Throughout “Hip-Hop and Shakespeare”, Akala argues that hip-hop is dignifying because it informs its listeners that everyone has the ability to become an intellectual person. In “Hip-Hop Planet”, McBride illustrated that hip-hop is moving because it persuades people to eliminate racial conflicts. Both authors help the reader to reflect hip-hop’s genuine purpose and meaning. Hip-hop is a positive impact because it publicizes the dilemmas a nation faces and inclines people to make a difference .

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It is easy to see the parallels between hip-hop and traditional African oral culture. Hip-hop artists use their music to tell stories and convey their opinions on different social and political issues. This is easily compared to tribal griots teaching history and telling stories in Africa. Since its creation, rap has been looked down upon due to the content. Traditionally, hip-hop music has lyrics filled with violence, drugs, and misogyny because most rappers portray the life of a “gangster”.

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Hip Hop is seen as something inspiring, but most people see it as a way to speak out the truth about a problem. As in “Hip Hop planet” being able say the truth can sometimes worsen any situation because sometimes what we say can promote violence and whatever happens after is not in our control. The essay is about how hip hop has changed into speaking out the issues that need to be taken care of in order to maintain a proper society. McBride talked about how rappers use violent lyrics to degrade women and gays and because of this it shows how the music has evolved into something entirely different that no one would have ever expected to have changed. In James McBride's essay “Hip Hop Planet,” he argues that hip hop has a negative influence on American Culture despite people thinking of it as inspirational and how people live through different experiences in life despite of your race.

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There are many artists throughout the 1960’s and 70’s who claimed to be the founding artist that created hip-hop. Taking a look back at that time in our musical history there is one name that stands out above all others when it comes to the creation of hip-hop, and that name is Clive Campbell also known as Kool Herc born April 16th, 1955. Many say that hip-hop was born the day that the Jamaican born artist stepped foot in Bronx, New York. As he grew up in New York he was surrounded by the sounds and sights of the neighborhood parties called dancehalls, and the smooth sounds produced by the DJ’s, known as toasting.

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Hip-hop culture has been the topic of various academic, social, and political discourses. Rap music, in particular, has made its way to mainstream media which is evident in the numerous films and movies that centers on what was once a part of an underground culture. Scholars explain that the popularity of hip-hop in both music and films are partly due to its potential to disseminate information, address an issue, and promote social change. Tinson and McBride (2013), for example, note that hip-hop is a “…form of critical education at the intersection of, and inseparable from political engagement” (1). Scholars further note that hip-hop’s current state “…requires frequent accounting of its engagement with the social, political, and cultural climate

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It first started as the way in which many African American expressed their feelings about political consciousness, raising awareness around the community to avoid ignorance. And then, it was the summary of the American Dream for low-level citizens, where wealth represented everything for them. Hip-hop represented how society changed their values

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Hip hop, one of the most influential and globally recognized music genres, has a rich history starting in the Bronx of New York City. But who were the pioneers who gave birth to this revolutionary music style? And did they ever imagine how big hip-hop would turn out, impacting fashion, music, dance and so much more? Nonetheless, let's dive into what made hip-hop, hip-hop. Hip-hop is a subculture that started in the bronx of New York City in early 1970.

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681 Words | 3 Pages

Hip hop is a type of music that started in the 1970s. It began in Jamaican-American, African-American, and Latino-American urban areas in some of the larger cities of the United States. Hip hop uses a style of singing called rapping. The singer or group chants or says words with a rhythm that rhymes. The lyrics of hip hop songs are often about the life of urban people in the big cities.

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Nowadays, everyone wears the identity with pride. The genre was a testament to triumphing over hardships, to having enough confidence in oneself not to let the world drag you down, and to rising above the struggle, even when things seem hopeless. Violence in rap did not begin as an affective agent that threatened to harm America 's youth; rather, it was the outcry of an already-existing problem from youth whose world views have been shaped by the inequalities and prejudice they have experienced. The relentless wave of heroic new rappers arriving on the scene formed the golden age of hip hop in the 1980s, a newfound voice which rose from the impoverished ghettos during the 1980s and inspiring a generation of black youth to fight the police brutality they faced on a daily basis.

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921 Words | 4 Pages

Hip Hop was the wildfire that started in the South Bronx and whose flames leapt up around the world crying out for change. James McBride’s Hip Hop Planet focuses on his personal interactions with the development of Hip Hop culture and his changing interpretations of the world wide movement. Many of his encounters and mentions in the text concern young black males and his writing follows an evolution in the representation of this specific social group. He initially portrays them as arrogant, poor, and uneducated but eventually develops their image to include the positive effects of their culture in an attempt to negate their historical misrepresentation.

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1006 Words | 5 Pages

The Impact of Hip-Hop Ever since its birth in the 1970s in West Bronx, Hip Hop has been known as “Gangsta” music and most commonly associated with black culture. Since its creation it has become a fast growing genre of music and has growing fame all over the world. The popularity of it has increased to all races, age and gender. However the growing popularity of hip hop has come with several controversies among scholars. Some scholars argue that the growing popularity of the genre is very helpful to low income families who can use this as their outlet into going to Universities, on the other side some believe associating the genre to black culture is bad for the culture as a whole and they should not be associated together.

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1797 Words | 8 Pages

The block parties, graffiti art, rapping, disc jockeying and diverse forms of dancing built Hip Hop by the black youth. They expressed their feelings, thoughts, but most importantly the problems they had to face, which were related to their race, gender and social positions. The rights that were given to black people during and after the Civil Rights Movement left the following generations at a lack of how to continue the fight for black rights. Hip Hop gave them this platform and with the usage of black nationalism, Hip Hop can explore the challenges that confront American-Americans in the post-Civil Rights Movement era. In the 1990’s Hip Hop lived its prime, sub genres started to appear and famous groups, MCs led the whole community, providing a voice to a group of people trying to deliver their message.

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740 Words | 3 Pages

Hip Hop has been a cultural icon in America since the early 1970s. Through the years, it’s changed over time. It all started with people carrying big radios and wearing Adidas to tight jeans and “mumble rappers”. Hip hop started as “just another type of music,” but as time went on, it has turned into a way for people to be vocal about their opinions. All of a sudden, people just thought hip hop was about sex and drugs.

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