What do you know about hip-hop? Part 2

Stylistic diversification

Pete DJ Jones, Eddie Cheeba, DJ Hollywood and Love Bug Starski were disco-flavored early hip hop DJs. Others hip hop musicians focused on rapid-fire rhymes and more complex rhythmic schemes. Afrika Bambaataa, Paul Winley, Grandmaster Flash and Bobby Robinson were members of this group. During the transition into the early 1980s, many felt that hip hop was a novelty fad that would soon die out. This was to become a constant accusation for at least the next fifteen years.

The first hip hop recording was probably the New Jersey-based Sugar Hill Gang's Rapper's Delight in 1979. By the 1980s, all the major elements and techniques of the genre were in place. Though not yet mainstream, hip hop was by now well known among African Americans, even outside of New York City; it could be found in cities as diverse as Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Baltimore, Dallas, Kansas City, San Antonio, TX, Miami, Seattle, St. Louis, New Orleans, and Houston.

Despite the genre's spreading popularity, Philadelphia was, for many years, the only city whose contributions to hip hop were valued as greatly as New York City's by fans and critics. Hip hop music was popular there at least as far back as the late 1970s (the first Philadelphia hip hop record was "Rhythm Talk", by Jocko Henderson in 1979), and the New York Times dubbed Philadelphia the "Graffiti Capital of the World" in 1971. A Philadelphia-area radio DJ, Lady B, was the first female solo hip hop artist to record music ("To the Beat Y'All", 1980). Later Schoolly D, another Philadelphia-based artist, helped invent what became known as gangsta rap.


1980s

The 1980s saw intense diversification of hip hop which developed into a more complex form. As technology evolved so did the practice of looping break into breakbeats; the emergence of samplers and sequencers allowed the beats to be manipulated with greater precision and granularity and recombined in more complex new ways than was possible with vinyl alone. In 1984, Marley Marl accidentally caught a drum machine snare hit in the sampler; this innovation was vital in the development of electro and other later types of hip hop. In 1989, DJ Mark James under the moniker "45 King", released "The 900 Number", a breakbeat track created by synchronizing samplers and vinyl.

The content evolved as well. The tales of 1970s MCs were replaced by highly metaphoric lyrics rapping over complex, multi-layered beats. Some rappers even became mainstream pop performers, including Kurtis Blow, whose appearance in a Sprite commercial made him the first hip hop musician to be considered mainstream enough to represent a major product. Another popular performer among mainstream audiences was LL Cool J, who was a success from the release of his first LP, Radio.

Hip hop was almost entirely unknown outside of the United States prior to the early 1980s. During that decade, it began its spread to every inhabited continent and became a part of the music scene in dozens of countries. In the early part of the decade, breakdancing became the first aspect of hip hop culture to reach Germany, Japan and South Africa, where the crew Black Noise established the practice before beginning to rap later in the decade. Meanwhile, recorded hip hop was released in France (Dee Nasty's 1984 Paname City Rappin') and the Philippines (Dyords Javier's "Na Onseng Delight" and Vincent Dafalong's "Nunal"). In Puerto Rico, Vico C became the first Spanish rapper, and his recorded work was the beginning of what became known as reggaeton.



Turntablism

While early hip hop arose through the decline of funk and disco while still employing their musicianship, there was the rise of artists who employed the use of the turntable as an instrument in itself. Hip hop turntablist DJs use turntable techniques such as beat mixing/matching, scratching, and beat juggling to create a base that can be rapped over. Turntablism is generally focused more on turntable technique and less on mixing. Each scratch of the turntable is considered unique due to the complex waveforms produced and employing digital sampling is considered an affront to a true Turntablist. Prominent artists included the Invisibl Skratch Piklz, The X-Ecutioners, and the Beat Junkies.

What do you know about hip-hop? Part 1

Hip hop music is a music genre typically consisting of a rhythmic vocal style called rap which is accompanied with backing beats. Hip hop music is part of hip hop culture, which began in the Bronx, in New York City in the 1970s, predominantly among African Americans and Latino Americans. The term rap music is often used synonymously with hip hop music.

Rapping, also referred to as MCing or emceeing, is a vocal style in which the performer speaks rhythmically and in rhyme, generally to a beat, recently, however, a difference has developed between "rapping" and "MCing". "MCing" has been used to describe those artists who possess and exercise superior lyrical ability and prowess. Beats are traditionally generated from portions of other songs by a DJ, or sampled from portions of other songs by a producer, though synthesizers, drum machines, and live bands are also used, especially in newer music. Rappers may perform poetry which they have written ahead of time, or improvise rhymes on the spot with or without a beat. Though rap is usually an integral component of hip hop music, DJs sometimes perform and record alone, and many instrumental acts are also defined as hip hop.

Origin of the term

Coinage of the term hip hop is often credited to Keith Cowboy, a rapper with Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five. Though Lovebug Starski, Keith Cowboy, and DJ Hollywood used the term when the music was still known as disco rap, it is believed that Cowboy created the term while teasing a friend who had just joined the U.S. Army, by scat singing the words "hip/hop/hip/hop" in a way that mimicked the rhythmic cadence of marching soldiers. Cowboy later worked the "hip hop" cadence into a part of his stage performance, which was quickly copied by other artists; for example the opening of the song "Rapper's Delight" by The Sugarhill Gang. Former Black Spades gang member Afrika Bambaataa is credited with first using the term to describe the subculture that hip hop music belongs to, although it is also suggested that the term was originally derisively used against the new type of music. The first use of the term in print was in the Village Voice by Steven Hager, later author of a 1984 history of hip hop.
Characteristics of hip hop music

Hip hop music may be based around either live or produced music, with a clearly defined drum beat (almost always in 4/4 time signature), presented either with or without vocal accompaniment. Production may add looped musical segments on top, from either sampled or originally sequenced music.


Roots of hip hop

The roots of hip hop are found in African American and West African music. The griots of West Africa are a group of traveling singers and poets, whose musical style is reminiscent of hip-hop and who are part of an oral tradition dating back hundreds of years. Within New York City, griot-like performances of poetry and music by artists such as The Last Poets and Jalal Mansur Nuriddin had a great impact on the post-civil rights era culture of the 1960s and 1970s. Hip hop arose during the 1970s when block parties became common in New York City, especially the Bronx. Block parties were usually accompanied by music, especially funk and soul music. The early DJs at block parties began isolating the percussion breaks to hit songs, realizing that these were the most dance-able and entertaining parts; this technique was then common in Jamaica and had spread via the substantial Jamaican immigrant community in New York City, especially the "godfather" of hip hop, Jamaican, DJ Kool Herc.

Dub music had arisen in Jamaica due to the influence of American sailors and radio stations playing R&B. Large sound systems were set up to accommodate poor Jamaicans, who couldn't afford to buy records, and dub developed at the sound systems (refers to both the system and the parties that evolved around them). Herc was one of the most popular DJs in early 70s New York, and he quickly switched from using reggae records to funk, rock and, later, disco, since the New York audience did not particularly like reggae. Because the percussive breaks were generally short, Herc and other DJs began extending them using an audio mixer and two records. Mixing and scratching techniques eventually developed along with the breaks. (The same techniques contributed to the popularization of remixes.) Such looping, sampling and remixing of another's music, sometimes without the original artist's knowledge or consent, can be seen as an evolution of Jamaican dub music, and would become a hallmark of the hip hop style.

DJs and "MCs" would often add call and response chants, often comprising of a basic chorus, to allow the performer to gather his thoughts (such as "one, two, three, y'all, to the beat, y'all").

Later, the MCs grew more varied in their vocal and rhythmic approach, incorporating brief rhymes, often with a sexual or scatological theme, in an effort at differentiating themselves and entertaining the audience. These early raps incorporated similar rhyming lyrics from African American culture, such as the dozens. While Kool Herc & the Herculoids were the first hip hoppers to gain major fame in New York, more MC teams quickly sprouted up. Frequently, these were collaborations between former gang members, such as Afrikaa Bambaataa's Universal Zulu Nation (now a large, international organization).

Melle Mel, a rapper/lyricist with The Furious Five is often credited with being the first rap lyricist to call himself an "MC." During the early 1970s, breakdancing arose during block parties, as b-boys and b-girls got in front of the audience to dance in a distinctive, frenetic style. The style was documented for release to a world wide audience for the first time in documentaries and movies such as Style Wars, Wild Style, and Beat Street.

Although there were many early MCs that recorded solo projects of note, such as DJ Hollywood, Kurtis Blow and Spoonie Gee, real notoriety didn't appear until later with the rise of soloists with really big stage presence and drama, such as LL Cool J. Most early hip hop was dominated by groups where collaboration among the members was integral to the show.