Hip Hop Research Paper

Blues is music of black American folk origin, typically in a twelve-bar sequence. It developed in southern US toward the end of the 19th century, finding a wider audience in the 1940s as blacks migrated to the cities. This urban blues gave rise to rhythm and blues and rock and roll. The first recording by an African American singer was Mamie Smith's 1920 rendition of Perry Bradford's "Crazy Blues". But the origins of the blues were some decades earlier, probably around 1890. Hip-hop is a style of popular music of US black and Hispanic origin, featuring rap with an electronic backing. The first recording by an African American singer was Mamie Smith's 1920 rendition of Perry Bradford's "Crazy Blues". But the origins of the blues were some decades

Dismissing hip-hop without ever having stopped to listen and give the style a fair chance. Obviously, everyone is free to support or dis whatever music they want but at risk sounding as absurd as those who once dismissed urban electric bands such as “the blues in decadence” a picture of a violent and decadent society.” Most of the artists rap about what is familiar to them, and that tends to be the hard lives they have lived in the ghettoes of major American cities. This does not include vulgar language, sex, drugs, and death. This keeping it real to them, because this is what they see as being real. Rappers have lived hard lives just like the blues people. The music may sound different, but many of the messages can be interpreted from the lyrics. Many hip hop songs are built on bits and pieces of previous works. From the many examples out there, consider Jay-Z's "Dead Presidents" whose chorus contains a vocal sample from Nas' "The World Is Yours." In hip hop. I think a similar relationship exists between the vocals and the beat. Hip hop is the best vocals fit fluidly into the instrumental track and become almost merged with it, much like vocals in blues. Jay-Z describes his rapping process this way, "I'll try to figure out what is the track saying, the emotion of the track and then I'll try to find a pocket… just to find where to sit as an instrument." Although the relationship between the vocals

First the most obviously is that both of these genres are rooted in the social experience of blacks in America. Although they have since been adopted by people of varied races, ethnicities and nationalities, both matured as art forms during eras of American history that were characterized by significant struggles for blacks in particular. The blues were born in the post-slavery environment of the South ruled by Jim Crow laws and hip hop took off in response to the realities of inner city life in the 1980's which were greatly affected by the crack cocaine epidemic and its associated rise in crime. Artists in both genres use music as an outlet to respond to their respective social conditions. Both the blues and hip hop are typified by a special relationship between parts of the instrumental music and the voice of the artist. In the blues, normally this instrument is the guitar, and electric blues especially is built on the interplay between an artist's voice and the "voice" of their guitar. B.B. King puts it this way, "When I sing, I play it in my mind; the minute I stop singing orally, I start to sing by playing Lucille [his guitar]." In both genres, styles are categorized by the geographic regions in which they originated. In blues there are, among many other styles, delta blues, piedmont blues, Chicago blues and west coast blues. Similarly, hip hop styles are also often defined