Understanding Kanye West
The Plight of a Genius Musician
Hello, I’ve left this on a table hoping someone would pick this up and read it. I have recently grown tired of all the hate Kanye West is receiving for just being himself. So hopefully if you stick around long enough to read this whole thing, I hope I’ll have convinced you to change your views and even become a fan of Kanye.
To even begin to understand Kanye West, we have to lay down a lot of background information first. So let’s start with the history of rap music because I feel like not enough people understand it and believe that Kanye is ruining it.
Rapping or emceeing is one of the four main components of hip hop with the other three being breakdancing, DJing and graffiti writing. The birth of hip hop can be traced to 1970s New York where block parties were becoming more and more popular. DJs would play beats by using turntables to extend breaks. Rapping, became the most popular of the four elements. It was a vocal style to which the rapper speaks along to a beat. Rap itself has roots of West African story telling. This didn’t really die out but early rap was not considered music. Early rap music discussed issues affecting young African Americans and this is still seen today in a lot of modern rap. …show more content…
This is what makes the music so powerful and also at the same time taboo. Common themes include gangs, police brutality, poverty, bragging, misogyny, promiscuity, vulgarity (this one is almost a given for any mainstream rapper), representing your city and hustling. This was especially evident in the 80s with rappers like Ice-T and notorious rap group N.W.A. (Niggaz Wit Attitudes). Rapping as a form began to become more complex as we move towards the 90s. Rakim really pushed the art forward after he began to using compound rhyming and a very laidback delivery, a style of his very
The Plight of a Genius Musician
Hello, I’ve left this on a table hoping someone would pick this up and read it. I have recently grown tired of all the hate Kanye West is receiving for just being himself. So hopefully if you stick around long enough to read this whole thing, I hope I’ll have convinced you to change your views and even become a fan of Kanye.
To even begin to understand Kanye West, we have to lay down a lot of background information first. So let’s start with the history of rap music because I feel like not enough people understand it and believe that Kanye is ruining it.
Rapping or emceeing is one of the four main components of hip hop with the other three being breakdancing, DJing and graffiti writing. The birth of hip hop can be traced to 1970s New York where block parties were becoming more and more popular. DJs would play beats by using turntables to extend breaks. Rapping, became the most popular of the four elements. It was a vocal style to which the rapper speaks along to a beat. Rap itself has roots of West African story telling. This didn’t really die out but early rap was not considered music. Early rap music discussed issues affecting young African Americans and this is still seen today in a lot of modern rap. …show more content…
This is what makes the music so powerful and also at the same time taboo. Common themes include gangs, police brutality, poverty, bragging, misogyny, promiscuity, vulgarity (this one is almost a given for any mainstream rapper), representing your city and hustling. This was especially evident in the 80s with rappers like Ice-T and notorious rap group N.W.A. (Niggaz Wit Attitudes). Rapping as a form began to become more complex as we move towards the 90s. Rakim really pushed the art forward after he began to using compound rhyming and a very laidback delivery, a style of his very