Hip-hop is the voice of a generation that refused to be silenced by urban poverty, a local phenomenon fueled with so much passion and truth it could not help but reach the entire world. Like every musical genre that came before, hip-hop has its pioneers, artists who were essential in defining and popularizing the art form
To understand the history of rap, you need to know two things:
1. Rap is talking in rhyme to the rhythm of a beat.
2. Hip-hop is a culture, a way of life for a society of people who identify, love, and cherish rap, break dancing, DJing, and graffiti.
Hip Hop means the whole culture of the movement.. when you talk about rap..Rap is part of the hip hop culture..The emceeing..The djaying is part of the hip hop culture. The dressing the languages are all part of the hip hop culture.The break dancing the b-boys, b-girls ..how you act, walk, look, talk are all part of hip hop culture.. and the music is colorless.. Hip Hop music is made from Black, brown, yellow, red, white.. whatever music that gives you the grunt.. that funk.. that groove or that beat.. It's all part of hip hop....
Hip Hop.. the whole chemistry of that came from Jamaica...
From a sociological perspective, Hip Hop has been one of the main contributing factors that helped curtail gang violence due to the fact that many adults found it preferrable to channel their anger and aggressions into these art forms which eventually became the ultimate expression of one's self
Rap music is an element of a larger culture that encompasses rap, baggy clothing, break-dancing, graffiti, vocabulary and a general lifestyle. This popular culture is generally referred to as hip-hop
Nowadays if you ask most people to give a definition of "rap", they're likely to state that it's the reciting of rhymes to the best of music. It's a form of expression that finds its roots imbedded deep within ancient African culture and oral tradition.
rap, because of its inclusive aspects, allowed one to accurately and efficiently inject their personality. If you were laid back, you could rap at a slow pace. If you were hyperactive or a type-A, you could rap at a fast pace. No two people rapped the same, even when reciting the same rhyme. There were many people who would try and emulate someone's style, but even that was indicative of a particular personality.
Hip hop is the culture from which rap emerged. Initially it consisted of four main elements; graffiti art, break dancing, dj (cuttin' and scratching) and emceeing (rapping). Hip hop is a lifestyle with its own language, style of dress, music and mind set that is continuously evolving. Nowadays because break dancing and graffiti aren't as prominent the words 'rap' and 'hip hop' have been used interchangeably.
Hip-hop, as it was then known, was a product of pure streetwise ingenuity; extracting rhythms and melodies from existing records and mixing them up with searing poetry chronicling life in the 'hood, hip-hop spilled out of the ghetto.
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However it should be noted that all aspects of hip hop culture still exists. They've just evolved onto new levels.