Hip Hop: African-American Culture

Hip Hop is a form of music that was popularized by the African-American culture, and was said to have originated in the 1970’s, in New York. This genre spread very quickly because it was not just a music style, but included a very unique expression of lyrics, beats, dancing, and style of dress. Under the formation of Hip Hop, rap music was also invented as DJ’s and MC’s spoke to a beat using rhyming words. Hip Hop was very influential, so as time went on, the style of music spread, which eventually began to grow a new culture. As it evolved over time, the message and presentation of rap and Hip Hop songs also began to change. What began as a care-free genre to bring people together to have fun, slowly began to deteriorate as the Hip Hop industry …show more content…
Many have said that almost all of Hip Hop’s artist use lyrics that are offensive to women- mostly sexually-based lyrics. Messages about drugs, sex, and violence are also very common in this genre. The music videos that these artist use makes the messages in the songs even worse. Since Hip Hop is one of the most popular genres in today’s society, children watch and idolize Hip Hop artists. The things they see in videos (which most of the time is not the artist’s actual lifestyle) are made to popularized, which then leads to children wanting to do the thing they see in the videos, such as sell drugs, join gangs, rob people, etc. Though this negativity isn’t used in every rapper’s songs, it is used by a majority of rappers. When Hip Hop was first formed artists had less focus on videos and their image, because their main concern was trying to develop a good tape and get their music out. Today though, people focus on what is going on in videos, or what the artist wears and drives, so the focus is no longer actually on the music. These things create a lack of connection with the lyrics and music itself, and leads listeners to support an artist based on how they dress, what they drive, or how much money they appear to have. In the early formation of Hip Hop rap battles and rap disses were very common, and added a unique twist into the genre. Back then the competition was about the artist’s real life, such as …show more content…
It has become more negative, listeners have lost their personal connection with the actual music, and the competitive drive that the genre once had has slowly went away. Today’s rap artist relies heavily on the social media, videos, and paparazzi. The person who media shows is, in most cases, different than who the artist actually is, but their public image is how artists today become popularized. When Hip Hop first originated in the 1970’s, it wasn’t that popular, but its uniqueness made it spread quickly, and today Hip Hop is still alive, even though it has changed in many