Related
Rap
Hip Hop Genres: Hip
Hop Rap
Rap
music as a musical form began among the youth of South
Bronx, New York in the mid 1970’s. Individuals such
Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash were some of the early
pioneers of this art form. Through their performances
at clubs and promotion of the music, rap consistently
gained in popularity throughout the rest of the 1970’s.
The first commercial success of the rap song “Rapper's
Delight” by the Sugar Hill Gang in 1979 helped bring
rap music into the national spotlight. The 1980’s
saw the continued success of rap music with many artists
such as Run DMC (who had the first rap album to go gold
in 1984), L.L. Cool J, Fat Boys, and west coast rappers
Ice-T and N.W.A becoming popular.
Today,
in the late 1990’s rap music continues to be a prominent
and important aspect of African- American culture. Rap
music was a way for youths in black inner city neighborhoods
to express what they were feeling, seeing, and living
and it became a form of entertainment. Hanging out with
friends and rapping or listening to others rap kept black
youths out of trouble in the dangerous neighborhoods in
which they lived. The dominant culture did not have a
type of music that filled the needs of these youth, so
they created their own. So, rap music originally emerged
as a way "for [black] inner city youth to express
their everyday life and struggles" (Shaomari, 1995,
17).
Rap
is now seen as a subculture that, includes a large number
of middle to upper white class youths, has grown to support
and appreciate rap music. Many youth in America today
are considered part of the rap subculture because they
share a common love for a type of music that combines
catchy beats with rhythmic music and thoughtful lyrics
to create songs with a distinct political stance. Rap
lyrics are about the problems rappers have seen, such
as poverty, crime, violence, racism, poor living conditions,
drugs, alcoholism, corruption, and prostitution. These
are serious problems that many within the rap subculture
believe are being ignored by mainstream America. Those
within the rap subculture recognize and acknowledge that
these problems exist. Those within this subculture consider
"the other group" to be those people who do
not understand rap music and the message rap artists are
trying to send. The suppresser, or opposition, is the
dominant culture, because it ignores these problems and
perhaps even acts as a catalyst for some of them.
“The
beats of rap music has people bopping and the words have
them thinking, from the tenement-lined streets of Harlem,
New York, to the mansion parties of Beverly Hills, California”
(Shomari, 1995, 45). Rap music, once only popular with
blacks in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia,
has grown to become America's freshest form of music,
giving off energy found nowhere else. While the vocalist(s)
tell a story, the sic jockey provides the rhythm, operating
the drum machine and "scratching". Scratching
is defined as “rapidly moving the record back and
forth under the needle to create rap's famous swishing
sound” (Small, 1992, 12). The beat can be traditional
funk or heavy metal, anything goes.
The
most important part of rap is "rapping," fans
want to hear the lyrics. During every generation, some
old-fashioned, ill-humored people have become frightened
by the sight of kids having a good time and have attacked
the source of their pleasure. In the 1950s, the target
was rock 'n' roll. Some claimed that the new type of music
encouraged wild behavior and evil thoughts. Today, rap
faces the same charges. Those who condemn this exciting
entertainment have never closely examined it. If they
had, they would have discovered that rap permits kids
to appreciate the English language by producing comical
and meaningful poems set to music.
Rappers
don't just walk on stage and talk off the top of their
heads. They write their songs, and they put a lot of though
into them. Part of rapping is quick wit. “Rappers
like L.L. Cool J grew up rapping in their neighborhood,
and they learned to throw down a quick rhyme when they
were challenged” (Nelson,Gonzales, 1991, 135). But
part of it is thoughtful work over many hours, getting
the words to sound just right so that the ideas come across
with style. As L.L. Cool J describes it, "I write
all my songs down by hand. Each song starts with a word,
like any other sentence, and becomes a manuscript."
(Nelson, Gonzales, 1991, 137).
Many
performers set a positive example for their followers.
Kurtis Blow rapped in a video for the March of Dimes'
fundraising drive to battle birth defects and he has campaigned
against teenage drinking as a spokesperson for the National
Council on Alcoholism. On the television show "Reading
Rainbow," Run-D.M.C. told viewers how books enabled
them to become "kings of rock." On another occasion,
group member Darryl "D.M.C." McDaniels said,
"Little kids like to follow me around the neighborhood.
I tell them to stay in school. Then I give them money
to get something in the deli." Run-D.M.C. is one
of the numerous rap combos advising kids to keep off drugs.
Doug E. Fresh and Grandmaster Flash have each made records
telling of the horrors of cocaine. On Grandmaster Flash's
hit "White Lines," he details how the drug can
ruin a life, and shouts, "Don't do it!"
From
it's inception, rap indured a lot of hostility from listeners--many,
but not all, White--who found the music too harsh, monotonous,
and lacking in traditional melodic values. However, millions
of others - often, though not always, young African-Americans
from underprivileged inner city backgrounds - found an
immediate connection with the style. Here was poetry of
the street, directly reflecting and addressing the day
to day reality of the ghetto in a confrontational fashion
not found in any other music or medium. “You could
dance to it, rhyme to it, bring it most anywhere on portable
cassette players, and, in the best rock 'n' roll tradition,
form your own band without much in the way of formal training”
(Small, 1992, 177). The basic workouts of early rappers
like Kurtis Blow and the Fat Boys can sound a bit tame
today.
Many
were still expecting the music to peter out before Run
D.M.C. came along. Rap was, and to a large degree still
is, a singles oriented medium, but these men from Queens
proved that rappers could maintain interest and diversity
over the course of entire full-length albums. Combining
hard beats and innovative production with material that
emphasized positive social activism without ignoring the
cruel realities of urban life, they found as much favor
with the critics as the street. Among the first rap groups
to climb the pop charts in a big way, they also were among
the first to make big inroads into the White and Middle-American
audiences when they teamed up with Aerosmiths's Stephen
Tyler and Joe Perry for the hit single "Walk This
Way."
The
mid- and late '80s saw rap continue to explode in popularity,
with the “birth” of superstars like LL Cool
J and Hammer (the latter is often accused of providing
a safe rap- pop alternative). Although most early rap
productions originated in New York City and its environs,
the music took hold as a national phenomenon, with strong
scenes developing in other East Coast cities like Philadelphia,
as well as West Coast strongholds in Los Angeles and Oakland.
Production techniques became increasingly sophisticated;
electronics, stop-on-a-dime-editing, and sampling from
previously recorded sources became prominent.
The
increased emphasis on electronic beats led to the popularization
of the term "hip-hop," a designation which is
by now used more or less interchangeably with rap. The
Beastie Boys, obnoxious white ex-punks from New York,
brought rap further into the Middle American mainstream
with their “vastly popular hybrids of hip-hop, hard
rock, and in your face braggadocio” (Nelson, Gonzales,
1991, 12). While rap had always forthrightly dealt with
urban struggle, the late '80s saw the emergence of a more
militant strain of the music. Sometimes advantaged neighborhoods
of South Central Los Angeles, although performers like
Philadelphia's Schoolly D probed that the genre was not
specific to the area. Boogie Down Productions laid down
a prototype that was taken to more extreme measures by
N.W.A., who reported on the crime, sex and violence of
the ghetto with an explicit verve that some viewed as
verging on celebration rather than journalism.
Enormously
controversial, and enormously popular with record buyers,
several N.W.A. members went on to stardom as solo acts,
including Ice Cube, Eazy-E, and Dr. Dre. The most popular
and controversial of the militant rappers, the New York
based Public Enemy, were perhaps the most political as
well. Their brand of activism, like that of Malcolm X's
two decades earlier, made a lot of people, including liberals,
pretty uncomfortable, with their emphasis upon Black Nationalism
and careless anti-Sematic, homophobic, and sexist references.
Groups such as Public Enemy ignited an ongoing debate
in the media. Activist-oriented critics and audiences
found a lot to praise in their music. At the same time,
they could not let the xenophobic tendencies of these
acts pass unnoticed, or ignore the frequent quasi-celebration
in much rap music of misogyny, drugs, and violence, and
the status to be gained in the urban community by the
practice thereof. Passionate advocates of civil liberties
and free speech wondered, sometimes aloud, whether rappers
were taking those privileges too far. Newly emerging gangsta
rappers like Snoop Doggy Dogg, Slick Rick, and 2Pac not
only take the violent subject matter of their lyrics to
new extremes (and to the top of the charts), but have
been accused of enacting their scenarios in real life,
landing in jail for manslaughter or fighting similarly
grave charges. These performers often unrepentantly contend
they are only reporting things as they happen in the 'hood,
of a culture that not only shoots people, but is being
shot at.
Many
critics find their line between art and reality too thin,
and hate to see them spreading their gospel from the top
of the charts (2Pac's 1995 album "Me Against the
World" debuted at No. 1 even as he was serving a
prison sentence), or serve as role models for international
youth. Gangsta rap may have gotten a lot of the headlines
in recent years, but the field of rap as a whole remains
diverse and not as dominated by the shoot-'em-out minidramas
of gangsta rap, as many would have you believe. De La
Soul took rap and hip-hop productions to new heights with
their 1989 debut Three Feet High & Rising, an almost
psychedelic sampling and editing of a wildly eclectic
pool of sources that would do Frank Zappa proud. Their
humorous and cheerful vibe inspired a mini-school of "Afrocentric"
acts most notably the Jungle Brothers and A Tribe Called
Quest. Arrested Development, Digable Planets, and Digital
Underground also pursued playful, heavily jazz- and funk-oriented
paths to immense success and high critical praise.
The
work of rap is a highly macho (some would say sexist)
environment, but some female performers arose to provide
a much needed counterpoint from various perspectives:
the saucy (the various Roxannes), the pop (Salt-N-Pepa),
and the feminist (Queen Latifah). It is a measure of rap's
huge influence that the style has infiltrated mainstream
soul and rock as well. Producer Teddy Riley gave urban-contemporary
performers like Bobby Brown a vaguely hip edge with his
brand of "New Jack Swing," White alternative
rockers like G. Love and most notably Beck devised a strange
hybrid of rap, blues, and rock. Vanilla Ice probed that
Whitbread pop-rap could top the charts, though he was
unable to sustain his success.
More
than most genres' rap/hip-hop has become a culture with
its own sub-genres and buzzwords what can seem almost
impenetrable to the novice. Despite this proliferation
of schools of production and performance, many rap records
can appear virtually indistinguishable from each other
to a new listener. And there's no getting around the fact
that a lot of them are. “The market is saturated
with repetitive beats and monotonously uncompromising
slices of urban street life, to the point that they've
lost a lot of both their musical novelty and shock value”
(Rose, 1994, 56).
Rap
music has lost none of its momentum as we head into the
last half of the 1990's. Scenes continue to proliferate,
not just on the coasts, but in Atlanta, Houston, and such
unlikely locales as Paris. It may appeal more to inner-city
adolescents than anyone else may, but gangsta rap may
be bigger than anything else in R&B music may commercially,
and there are more multiplatinum rap/hip-hip acts than
you can count. Shinehead, Shabba Ranks, and less heralded
performers like Sister Carol have fused reggae and rap.
And the jazz and rap worlds are being brought closer together
than ever through the efforts of “Gang Starr and
their lead Guru, US3, and the landmark Stolen Moments:
Red, Hot + Cool compilation, which united many of the
top names of hip-hop and jazz” (Rose, 1994, 67).
Rap
is still a new music form. It is expanding every day,
and the sound has grown wide enough to include scores
of future stars. Some rap is rock-based, some is funk,
and some is very close to the original "street"
sound. A few of the present stars will definitely have
a noticeable impact on the future of rap. Themes that
are found more and more in rap lyrics are: pride in an
African heritage and the call for harmony between men
and women. Queen Latifah and MC Lyte are working hard
to open doors to women in the music business. Rap fans
are also starting to accept more white artists. 3rd Bass
and Vanilla Ice are new white rap acts with promise. The
time is near when all of America will be bopping to rap.
Rap has already shown signs of crossing over to a new
audience. A Grammy category was added for rap music in
1989. D.J. Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince were the first
winners for their single, "Parents Just Don't Understand."
In 1990 Young MC took home the prize for "Bust a
Move." And with real proof that rap is reaching more
people, Tone Loc became the first rapper ever to reach
number one on the pop charts. He did it with his hit single
"Wild Thing" in 1989.
Of
course, there are still plenty who are afraid of rap and
won't listen to it's message. Along with the birth and
growth of rap comes censorship. This has become a big
issue within the music industry, and rap music is at the
center of the controversy. Some people want to put warning
labels on certain rappers' albums and newspapers and magazines
have been printing articles about the bad influence that
some rappers have on kids. What is it about the music
that people find so troubling? Some rappers use strong
language. Others are accused of writing racist lyrics,
or lyrics that are insulting to women. As with all kinds
of music, the more popular it becomes, the more likely
you are to find both good and bad sides. But the positive
side of rap greatly outweighs the negative. And its positive
messages seem to be spreading. The number of new rappers
that grows everyday will bring about new forms of rap
and constant changes on the “old school” versions
of the music. With these new versions and variations comes
new fans and renewed faith from old fans. Regardless of
how many rap artists land in jail or end up dead, this
music will live on. The fans will make sure of it.
Bibliography
Nelson,
Havelock and Michael A. Gonzales. Bring the Noise: A Guide
to Rap Music and Hip-Hip Culture. New York: Harmony Books,
1991. Rose, Tricia. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture
in Contemporary America. Hanover, Wesley University Press,
1994. Shomari, Hashim A. (William A. Lee, III). From the
Underground: Hip-Hop Culture as an Agent of Social Change.
Mt. Vernon, NY: X-Factor Publications, 1995. Small, Michael.
Break It Down: The Inside Story from the New Leaders of
Rap. Secaucus, New Jersey: Carol Publishers, 1992.
