HIP HOP

         
           Hip hop is a musical genre which developed alongside hip hop culture, and is commonly based on concepts of looping, rapping, freestyling, DJing, scratching, sampling and beatboxing. The music is used to express concerns of political, social, and personal issues. Hip hop began in the Bronx inNew York City in the 1970s, primarily among African Americans, with Jamaican and Latino American immigrant influence. The term rap is often used synonymously with hip hop, but hip hopdenotes the practices of an entire subculture. Rapping, also referred to as MCing or emceeing, is a vocal style in which the artist speaks lyrically, in rhyme and verse, generally to an instrumental or synthesized beat. Beats, almost always in 4/4 time signature, can be created by looping portions of other songs, usually by a DJ, orsampled from portions of other songs by a producer. Modern beats incorporate synthesizers, drum machines, and live bands. Rappers may write, memorize, or improvise their lyrics and perform their works a cappella or to a beat.

  Origin of the term

               Creation of the term hip hop is often credited to Keith Cowboy, a rapper with Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five. Though Lovebug Starski, Keith Cowboy, and DJ Hollywood used the term when the music was still known as disco rap. It is believed that Cowboy created the term while teasing a friend who had just joined the U.S. Army, by scat singing the words "hip/hop/hip/hop" in a way that mimicked the rhythmiccadence of marching soldiers. Cowboy later worked the "hip hop" cadence into a part of his stage performance, which was quickly used by other artists such as The Sugarhill Gang in "Rapper's Delight".

Former Black Spades gang member Afrika Bambaataa is credited with first using the term to describe the subculture in which the music belonged; although it is also suggested that it was a derogatory term to describe the type of music. The first use of the term in print was in the Village Voice, by Steven Hager, later author of a 1984 history of hip hop.

     1970s

  Origins

               Within New York City, griot-like performances of poetry and music by artists such as The Last Poets, Gil Scott Heron and Jalal Mansur Nuriddin had a significant impact on the post-civil rights era culture of the 1960s and 1970s. Hip hop arose during the 1970s when block parties became increasingly popular in New York City, especially in the Bronx. Block parties incorporated DJs who played popular genres of music, especially funk and soul music. DJs, realizing its positive reception, began isolating the percussion breaks of popular songs. This technique was then common in Jamaican dub music and had spread to New York City via the substantial Jamaican immigrant community. A major proponent of the technique was the "godfather" of hip hop, the Jamaican-born DJ Kool Herc.

Dub music had become popular in Jamaica due to the influence of American sailors and Rhythm & Blues. Large sound systems were set up to accommodate poor Jamaicans who couldn't afford to buy records and dub developed at the sound systems. DJ Kool Herc was one of the most popular DJs in the early 70’s. Because the New York audience did not particularly like dub or reggae, Herc quickly switched to using funk, soul and disco records. Because the percussive breaks were generally short, Herc and other DJs began extending them using an audio mixer and two records.

Turntables techniques, such as beat mixing/matching, scratching (seemingly invented by Grand Wizard Theodore) and beat juggling eventually developed along with the breaks, creating a base that could be rapped over. This same techniques contributed to the popularization of remixes. Such looping, sampling and remixing of another's music, sometimes without the original artist's knowledge or consent, can be seen as an evolution of Jamaican dub music,and would become a hallmark of the hip hop style.

     1980s

          Heavy usage of the new generation of drum machines such as the Oberheim DMX and Roland 808 models was a characteristic of many 1980 songs. To this day the 808 kickdrum is traditionally used by hip hop producers. Over time sampling technology became more advanced; however earlier producers such as Marley Marl used drum machines to construct their beats from small excerpts of other beats in synchronisation. Later, samplers such as the E-mu SP-1200 allowed not only more memory but more flexibility for creative production. This allowed the filtration and layering different hits, and with a possibility of re-sequencing them into a single piece.

With the emergence of a new generation of samplers such as the AKAI S900 in the late 1980s, producers did not require the aid of tape loops. Public Enemy's first two albums were created with the help of large tape loops. The process of looping break into a breakbeat now became more common with a sampler, now doing the job which so far had been done manually by the DJ. In 1989, DJ Mark James under the moniker "45 King", released "The 900 Number", a breakbeat track created by synchronizing samplers and vinyl.

The content of hip hop evolved as well. The early styles presented in the 1970s soon were replaced with metaphorical lyrics over complex, multi-layered instrumentals. Artists such as Melle Mel, Rakim, Chuck D, and KRS-Onerevolutionized hip hop by transforming it into a more mature art form. The Message (1982) by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five is widely considered the birth of "serious" rap.

     1990s

               In 1992, Dr. Dre released The Chronic. As well as helping to establish West Coast gangsta rap as more commercially viable than East Coast hip hop, this album founded a style called G Funk, which soon came to dominate West Coast hip hop. The style was further developed and popularized by Snoop Dogg's 1993 album Doggystyle. The Wu-Tang Clan shot to fame around the same time. Being from New York's Staten Island, the Wu-Tang Clan brought the East Coast back into the mainstream at a time when the West Coast mainly dominated rap. Other major artists in the so-called East Coast hip hop renaissance included The Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z, and Nas. (See the article on the East Coast-West Coast hip hop rivalry.) Record labels based out of Atlanta, St. Louis, and New Orleans gained fame for their local scenes. The midwest rap scene was also notable, with the fast vocal styles from artists such as Bone Thugs-n-Harmony and Twista. By the end of the decade, hip hop was an integral part of popular music, and many American pop songs had hip hop components.

     2000s

               In the year 2000, The Marshall Mathers LP by Eminem sold over ten million copies in the United States and was the fastest selling album of all time Nelly's debut LP, Country Grammar, sold over nine million copies. The United States also saw the success of alternative hip hop in the form of moderately popular performers like The Roots, Dilated Peoples, Gnarls Barkley and Mos Def, who achieved unheard-of success for their field. Southern hip hop in the 2000s gave birth to crunk music. Hip hop influences also found their way increasingly into mainstream pop during this period.

Popular (mainstream and underground) hip hop artists during the 2000s included:

West Coast: B-Real, Blu, The Coup, Crooked I, Del tha Funkee Homosapien, DJ Quik, Guerilla Black, The Game, Hieroglyphics, Ice Cube,Jurassic 5, Kurupt, Kottonmouth, The Grouch, Jake One, Lilo, Kay, Kush, Blue Scholars

Dirty South: T.I, Bobby Ray, Chamillionaire, Three 6 Mafia , Hurricane Chris, UGK , Paul Wall, Trick Daddy,, Scarface, 8Ball & MJG, South Park Mexican, Big Moe, Z-Ro Lil Scrappy, Unk,Gorilla Zoe,

Midwest: Atmosphere, Common, Black Milk, Insane Clown Posse, Esham, Slum Village, Eminem, Proof, Kon Artis, Royce da 5'9",  Chip Tha Ripper

East Coast: Charles Hamilton, Talib Kweli, MF Doom, Immortal Technique, Memphis Bleek, Cassidy, Swizz Beatz, Cam'ron, Jadakiss,  Tony Yayo, 50 Cent.