Hip Hop Research Paper

One cannot define the hip-hop genre without mentioning Kool Herc, a Jamaican American DJ who broke barriers and rebelled against the Disco era that undeniably had a hold the baby boomer generation until the 1980’s. Herc, along with the help of Coke La Rock, threw the first “unofficial” Hip Hop party in which they created a new style of music. By taking songs and implementing “breaks,” they developed a new culture of expression and style within the black community of New York. Undeniably, the creation of Hip Hop was made by blacks, for blacks, a way for the youth to counter current trends and delve into a style that encompassed their concern for expression and culture. As Hip Hop evolved, it has undeniably gained traction and developed into

“Hip Hop is funk and rock and soul and jazz. It’s gospel and toasts and nursery rhymes. It’s even disco. Hip Hop is also politics and technology because these are the forces that pushed it to become a culture.” This quote from Shadrach Kabango simplifies the complex question of what Hip Hop truly is, a mixture of styles and cultures that enables creative expression of any cultural background. From its creation in the Bronx, redefining black culture and revealing unvarnished messages, it was at first a backlash against the white, mainstreamed era of disco music. Igniting the style of funky beats and rhythms is Kool Herc, a man from the Bronx who in 1973 held the first revealed his Hip Hop style. Undeniably viewed as the father figure of Hip Hop, DJ Herc placed beats within songs that only included drums and bass through disc jockeying. This new vibe encouraged dancers to introduce break dancing, hence the term “break” and spark a new breed of music and atmosphere that would eventually permeate throughout the world. After the introduction of DJ Master Flash, the first person

In most cases, the masses inevitably abuse current fads, hanging them out to dry and quickly conforming to the next “big” thing thrown at them. However, for a time, Hip Hop had a sense of expressive authenticity lingering throughout it, in order to be accepted as authentic within the Hip Hop culture you had to be black with some talent, if not black, you had to be extraordinary. Within, Introduction: Hip Hop in History: Past, Present, and Future, a journal article written in 2005 says, “Hip Hop cannot be dismissing as merely a passing fad or as a youth movement that will soon run its course. Instead, Hip Hop must be taken seriously as a cultural, political, economic, and intellectual phenomenon deserving of scholarly study” (Alridge and Stewart). Realizing the future of Hip Hop, they realize that this is a genre and culture which will remain in society and evolve to other groups. Hip Hop is underestimated on its impact on culture and therefore more scientific work should be researched. Peter Rosenberg, a caucasian man from Maryland who is a host for Hot97 (and the first white man to be so) explains how it is okay at a club for everyone to be black with a few odds and end of other races, but at what point when white people eventually fill up the room does that ownership change? He