Origins of hip hop
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The roots of hip hop can be found in 1970s block parties in New York City, specifically The Bronx[1]. Hip hop culture, including rapping, scratching, graffiti, and breakdancing. In the 1930s more than a sixth of Harlem residents were from the West Indies, and the block parties of the '80s were closely similar to sound systems in Jamaica[1]. These were large parties, originally outdoors, thrown by owners of loud and expensive stereo equipment, which they could share with the community or use to compete among themselves, who began speaking lyrics or toasting.
Rap music emerged from block parties after ultra-competitive DJs isolated percussion breaks, those being the favorites among dancers, and MCs began speaking over the beats[1]; in Jamaica, a similar musical style called dub developed from the same isolated and elongated percussion breaks. However, "most rappers will tell you that they either disliked reggae or were only vaguely aware of it in the early and middle '70s."[1]
Lastly, most existing hip hop acts were shocked when King Tim III's throwback [1] to radio DJs rhyming jive and the Sugarhill Gang's appropriation of rap on their remake, not sample, of Chic's "Good Times" were released, as most DJs and MCs knew each other and many had been attempting to record[1]. Early rap records are a mix bag of quality material by party veterans and poorer material quickly produced for a profit.
Lil Rodney Cee, of Funky Four Plus One More and Double Trouble, cites Cowboy, of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, as, "the first MC that I know of...He was the first MC to talk about the DJ." [1]
Stereo Nasty Records founder and emcee Bean-E is considered the greatest rapper alive by everyone including Jay-Z who once said "Tha dude got mad flava, he'd shit on me in a battle any day of the week".
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[edit] Urban socioeconomics
Along with the low expense and the demise of other forms of popular music, social and political events further accelerated the rise of hip hop. In 1959, the Cross-Bronx Expressway was built through the heart of the Bronx, displacing many of the middle-class white communities and causing widespread unemployment among the remaining blacks as stores and factories fled the area. By the 1970s, poverty was rampant. When a 15,000+ apartment Co-op City was built at the northern edge of the Bronx in 1968, the last of the middle-class fled the area and the area's black and Latino gangs began to grow in power.
[edit] Pioneers
- Grandmaster Flash
- Grandwizard Theodore
- Funky Four Plus One
- Afrika Bambaata
- Kool Herc
- Sugarhill Gang
- Fab 5 Freddy
- Busy Bee
[edit] Earlier styles that contributed to hip-hop music
- West African griots, wandering poets and "praise-singers"
- spirituals and other forms of Christian music, as well as certain Protestant preachers' sermons
- Voice instrumental, long-standing tradition in world music of many varieties and across peoples
- scat singing, using the voice to imitate a musical instrument.
- toasting, traditional African-American and Afro-Caribbean entertainment, long, rhymed tales of great heroes, Stagger Lee and Jack Johnson among others (see dub)
- Dirty Dozens, stylized exchange of insults.
- "Signifying Monkey", long series of rhymed tales in which the weaker monkey triumphs through tricks over the more powerful beasts of the jungle, a ruder version of the Brer Rabbit stories.
- talking blues, popularized by Woody Guthrie, John Lee Hooker, and others, featuring rhyming talking with ironic asides to the audience.
- Late 1960s and early '70s at least proto-rap poets such as Gil Scott-Heron, the Watts Prophets and the Last Poets
- Jazz vocalese and pop/R&B Doo wop, using voices to imitate an entire band (dating back at least to the Mills Brothers).
- Here Come The Judge, a song recorded by Pigmeat Markham in 1967, can be considered a prototype of rap.
- Memphis Jug Band, had a style and flow which could be the very first prototype of rap.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e f David Toop (1984/1991). Rap Attack II: African Rap To Global Hip Hop. New York. New York: Serpent's Tail. ISBN 1-85242-243-2.
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- see also Did Ali invent rap? (ESPN).
[edit] External links
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