What Is Hip Hop? And What Environmental Factors Helped To Propel This Phenomenal Music Into Existence?

5 Nov

In the late 1970’s, a new and distinctive sound arose from the streets of New York. The sound was hip hop, and nearly 20 years later, it has transcended the street parties and music clubs of New York to become a worldwide cultural phenomenon.

Simply put, hip hop music consists of a DJ mixing rhythmic passages of albums on a turntable while a rapper raps over the beats. But hip hop is a culture unto itself, equipped with its own language, lyrical style, visual arts (graffiti), dance moves and look. And although hip hop is the musical outgrowth of urban African-American culture, its popularity is not bound by geography or culture.

So what was happening during the 1960’s and 70’s in the Bronx, specifically the south Bronx, that made such unlikely characters, people, and events to come together and create this amazing music?  What environmental factors played a huge role in the birth of hip hop? A number of things took place inside The South Bronx that most people outside of it are totally unaware of.

The following video describes the mood and environment of the Bronx during the 1970’s and how certain factors, occurring specifically in The South Bronx, influenced the birth of hip hop. Let’s go back in time and see what was going on.

So stay tuned. Watch and read because you are about to find out what happened and how.

Where It All Started

For many years, The South Bronx was a pre-dominantly middle-class manufacturing center, the home of over 63 piano factories, employing thousands of people.  But from 1950-1979, the quality of life for Bronx residents sharply declined. Historians and sociologists have attributed many factors to this decline. One factor, they believe, is that the Robert Moses’ Cross-Bronx Expressway destroyed existing residential neighborhoods. Another factor may have been the development of high-rise housing projects. Third, there was a reduction in real-estate listings and property-related financial services (such as mortgages or insurance policies) offered in some areas of the Bronx.  This illegal discriminatory process is known as red-lining.

As a result, it became less profitable for landlords to maintain existing buildings with their existing tenants than to abandon or destroy those buildings.  Shortly thereafter, the Bronx became plagued by a wave of arson. The burning of buildings was mostly in The South Bronx and in West Farms. The most common explanation of what occurred was that landlords decided to burn their low property-value buildings and take the insurance money as profit. After the fiery destruction of many buildings in The South Bronx, the arsons slowed by the beginning of the 1980’s, but the after-effects were still felt into the 1990s.

Because of poverty, crime, drugs, gang violence, and a lack of basic services like law enforcement, firefighters, sanitation and health to name a few, lawlessness abounded. This was the environment in which many of the key players that created hip hop lived. The people didn’t have much. But the one thing they did have was their music.Their love of music led them to discover and create some great things with records. And because they had a lot of records, these pioneers invented an idea called sampling, which is the act of isolating a particular sound from one song and reusing it in another. They invented sampling along with the other key elements of hip hop through trial and error, mostly by fooling around with records at home.

The Pioneers of Hip Hop

Clive Campbell, a.k.a. DJ Kool Herc, laid down the first building block of hip hop in 1973. That was when he reportedly hosted a party in his building at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue with a sound system, or sound equipment used to DJ a party. The sound system was a guitar amp and two turntables.  Kool Herc also invented the now commonplace deejaying technique of breaks, or breakbeats. He would, for example, play James Brown’s “Give It Up or Turn It Loose” on two turntables, and would spin one of the records back to the break repeatedly. His innovation brought the breakbeat to the sound of this new movement, which later became known as hip hop.  Kool Herc’s technique was to drop a needle on a record, and then go back and forth from one turntable to the other.

DJ Afrika Bambaattaa, who formed the famous non-violent hip hop crew Universal Zulu Nation in the Bronx, used DJ Kool Herc’s breakbeats in his own deejaying. Bambaataa and other key players of this emerging new music, would take global sounds from West Indian music, salsa music, and great beats from rock records and other types of music.  Afrika Bambaattaa is best known for his 1982 song “Planet Rock,” which samples an electronic piano sound from the German group Kraftwerk.

Grand Wizzard Theodore, a.k.a. Theodore Livingston, also incorporated breakbeats into his music in the Bronx. He added another technique to the hip hop toolbox called scratching. Grand Wizzard Theodore reportedly invented the technique in his bedroom.  Scratching involves DJs moving records back and forth while they are playing.  He discovered it by accident, when while talking to his mother one day, he started moving a playing record back and forth.  Grand Wizzard says he thought it would be a great percussive sound to add to this newly emerging music.

Then, there was Grandmaster Flash, or Joseph Sadler, who may be best known for his song “The Message,” which was made with The Furious Five. Grandmaster Flash began experimenting with turntables and records at home, and the results were astounding. He invented cutting, which is achieved by playing the same record at two turntables at the same time and cutting back and forth between the two turntables (and records) to repeat a phrase or sound. Another Grandmaster Flash innovation, was a technique called back spinning or pulling the record back, so you could make it repeat.

Not only did these DJ techniques invented in The South Bronx form the basis for the hip hop we know today, they also brought about the rise of a new kind of aggressive dancing called b-boying–known to most people by its more generic term, break dancing.

A new movement of street art and graffiti also came out of the beginnings of hip hop and gang culture in the Bronx in the late 1970’s. Once considered a nuisance, some graffiti art now hang on the walls of major art museums. And although the Bronx was much more violent in the 70’s and 80’s, many of the pioneers of hip hop consider the music that DJs put out back then was less violent than the music of hip hop today.  So the bustling energy that laid the groundwork for today’s hip hop culture came out of the gang culture in the 1970’s. Back then, gangs sprouted up all over the Bronx due to widespread urban decay, from heavy arson activity from slumlords seeking insurance money to the lack of basic services like law enforcement, firefighters, sanitation and health.

With the horrific environmental conditions of extreme poverty, drugs, and gang violence–these social factors combined, contributed to the birth of what became the hip hop culture. All of these ingredients combined led to the creation of what we now know as Hip Hop music.

Although they lived through such adverse environmental and economic conditions, many of the pioneers of Hip Hop music were compelled to bring this new music to the forefront of mainstream society because it allowed the voice of the poor and working class to be heard.

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Afrika Bambaataa – The Godfather of Hip Hop

22 Aug

Afrika Bambaataa–the godfather of hip hop–is responsible for first using the phrase “hip hop”–giving hip hop its name, and spreading the music around the world.

Kevin Donovan aka Afrika Bambaataa, born April 19, 1957, is undoubtedly considered one of the godfathers of hip hop.  Afrika Bambaataa was a DJ from the South Bronx during the 1970’s, who is often credited with naming the culture “hip hop”, a term frequently used by his friend Love Bug Starski aka Kevin Smith.  Love Bug Starski, who is currently an MC, musician and record producer, was a record boy and DJ from the Bronx, New York during the birth of hip hop in the early 1970’s. “Hip hop” was a common phrase used by MCs as part of a scat-inspired style of rhyming, and Afrika Bambaataa appropriated it for use in describing this new emerging culture, which included four elements: 1) the music of DJs, 2) the lyricism and poetry of emcees, 3) the dancing of b-boys and b-girls, and 4) graffiti art.

As a teenager in the mid-1970′s, Afrika Bambaataa was a founding member of The Bronx River Projects-area street gang The Savage Seven. Due to the explosive growth of the gang, it later became known as the Black Spades, and Bambaataa quickly rose to the position of warlord. As warlord, it was his job to build ranks and expand the turf of the Black Spades.   Bambaataa was not afraid to cross turfs to forge relationships with other gang members, and with other gangs.  As a result, the Spades became the biggest gang in the city in terms of both membership and turf.

Afrika Bambaataa and Kool Herc–the Father of Hip Hop

Afrika Bambaataa’s involvement with gangs was heavily influenced by his activist mother and uncle.  As a child, he was exposed to his mother’s extensive and eclectic record collection. He was also exposed to the black liberation movement, and witnessed debates between his mother and uncle regarding the conflicting ideologies in the movement.  Gangs in the area became the law in the absence of law, clearing their turf of drug dealers, assisting with community health programs and both fighting and partying to keep members and turf.

Afrika Bambaataa’s ideological influences ran the gamut of the black political leaders of the time.  Although he was involved with gangs, he began to take on a different interest than causing trouble.  After winning an essay contest that earned him a trip to Africa, Afrika Bambaataa’s worldview changed.  He saw the film Zulu, which depicted the battle between British troops and the Zulu tribe in 1879. The British seem victorious before they were overwhelmed by the number of Zulus who spared their lives.   Bambaataa was so impressed with the solidarity exhibited by the Zulus in that film that during his trip to Africa, and the communities he visited, he was inspired to stop the violence and create a community in his own neighborhood. He later changed his name to Afrika Bambaataa Aasim, which means “affectionate leader.”

Afrika Bambaataa decided to form his own Zulu Nation to help assemble what he referred to as “the elements” of the culture into organization. The original crew was called The Organization, but after two years he changed it into the Zulu Nation.  The group was a break dance crew at first but then it grew to include rappers, deejays, and graffiti artists.   As a result, the Hip hop culture began spreading through the streets via house parties, block parties, gym dances and mix tapes.

Following is an example of one of the first breakbeat and beat-mixing soundtracks by DJ Kool Herc while rapping and performing at a club during the early stages of hip hop. Watch.

Audio & Slideshow Version

Video Version

Because of his mother, Afrika Bambaataa had a passion for buying records and his tastes were very diversified from rock to R&B to African sounds to Latin, calypso, and classical.  Although Kool Herc was the top DJ at the time, Afrika Bambaata knew he owned most of the same records as Kool Herc so he decided to start playing on his own. He wanted to be a DJ, so he started deejaying in 1970, and would later be known as the “Master of Records”.  

Afrika Bambaataa began his career as a record boy in 1971 as hip-hop first appeared in the Bronx, and eventually became a DJ at the Disco Fever club in 1978.  Along with other DJs such as DJ Kool Herc and Kool DJ Dee, he too began hosting hip hop parties. He vowed to use hip hop to draw angry kids out of gangs and formed the Universal Zulu Nation.  He released his first record on Paul Winley Records called “Zulu Nation Throwdown, Part 1″ in 1980. The group released the first 12″ at Tommy Boy “Jazzy Sensation” in 1981.

In 1982, hip hop artist Fab Five Freddy was putting together music packages in the largely white downtown Manhattan New Wave clubs, and invited Afrika Bambaataa to perform at one of them–the Mudd Club. It was the first time Bambaata had performed before a predominantly white crowd. Attendance for his parties downtown became so large that he had to move to larger venues, first to the Ritz, with Malcolm McLaren’s group “Bow Wow Wow”, then to the Peppermint Lounge, The Jefferson, Negril, Danceteria and the Roxy.

“Planet Rock”, a popular single produced by Arthur Baker and the keyboardist John Robie, was later released under the name Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force. The song borrowed musical motifs from German electronic music, funk, and rock. Different elements and musical styles were used together. The song became an immediate hit and stormed the music charts worldwide.  The song melded the main melody from Kraftwerk’s “Trans-Europe Express” with electronic beats based on their track “Numbers” as well as portions from records by Babe Ruth and Captain Sky, thus creating a new style of music altogether, called electro funk.

Afrika Bambaataa is one of the three originators of break-beat deejaying, and is respectfully known as the “Grandfather” and the Amen Ra of Universal Hip Hop Culture as well as the Father of The Electro Funk Sound.  He was instrumental in the early development of hip hop throughout the 1980s. Through co-opting the street gang–the Black Spades– into the music and culture-oriented Universal Zulu Nation, he is responsible for spreading the hip hop culture throughout the world.  On September 27, 2007, Afrika Bambaataa was nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

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DJ Kool Herc – The Father of Hip Hop: How It All Started

29 Jul

Kool Herc – The Father of Hip Hop

Clive Campbell, AKA “Kool Herc”, is considered to be the Father of Hip Hop.  Clive Campbell, was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1955.  In 1967, when Kool Herc was 12 years, he and his family emigrated to the Bronx, New York.  While attending Alfred E. Smith High School, he spent a lot of time in the weight room.  That fact, coupled with his height , coined him the nickname “Hercules” by his schoolmates.

Kool Herc’s first deejay job was his sister’s birthday.  1520 Sedgwick Avenue.  This was the address  where he and his family lived, and the recreation room in the building was where he would throw many of his first parties as a DJ.  Unbeknownst to him at the time, this would be the start of the hip hop music industry.

The Birthplace of Hip Hop

Kool Herc would deejay many parties in the recreation room of this building where he lived.

Throwing parties at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue lasted for a while until his parents started to come in early, and find a house full of kids, tearing up the new furniture that his mother had just put some money down on. The kids were still looking for a place to release this energy.’ Herc’s sister asked him to help out by playing music in the recreation room of his family’s housing block, 1520 Sedgewick Towers.  ”OK, I throw my hand at it, and she rented the recreation room, I think for twenty-five dollars at the time. We could charge it at twenty-five cents for girls, fifty cents for fellas. It was like, “Kool Herc, man. He’s giving a party, westside man. Just be cool, that’s what I’m saying, come and have a good time. Just don’t ditch the programme.”

Becoming skilled at deejaying, Kool Herc became aware that although he knew which records would keep the crowd moving, he was more interested in the break section of the song.  At this point in a song, the vocals would stop and the beat would just ride for a short period.  His desire to capture this moment for a longer period of time would be a very important one for Hip Hop.

To extend the break section of a song, Herc would purchase two copies of the same record and play them on separate turntables next to each other.  He would play the break beat on one record then throw it over to the other turntable and play the same part.  Doing this over and over, he could rock any house in New York–not to mention it being an early form of looping that would later be made easier through electronic sampling.  Herc would dig in crates and look everywhere to find the perfect break beat for his parties.  He didn’t care what type of music it was because he only needed a small section of a song for his purposes.

By 1969, Herc was deejaying regularly at local clubs, but noticed that the crowds he joined frequently objected to New York’s  cocky DJs. ‘I used to hear the gripes from the audience on the dancefloor. Even myself, ’cause I used to be a breaker (breakdancer). Why didn’t the guy let the record play out? Or why cut it off there? So with that, me gathering all this information around me, I say: “I think I could do that”. So I started playing from a dance floor perspective. I always kept up the attitude that I’m not playing it for myself, I’m playing for the people out there.’

DJs needed to establish an identity or niche in this highly competitive market. So Herc was determined to find records that no one else owned, to distinguish himself from the pack. For example, he talked his father into buying him James Brown’s Sex Machine LP in 1969. ‘A lot of people wanted that record and couldn’t really find it. So a lot of people used to come to the party to hear that.’ Herc did his research, checking out what was being played on local jukeboxes to test a song’s popularity and picking up rarities at Downstairs Records on 42nd Street and the Rhythm Den. ‘This is where your recognition, your rep comes from. You have a record nobody else got, or you’re the first one to have it. You’ve got to be the first, can’t be the second.’

While violence has become rap’s defining characteristic in the 90s, hip hop actually started out as a means of ending black-on-black crime two decades earlier.  People living in the Bronx during the early 70s had much to live in fear of. ‘The gangs came and terrorized the whole neighborhood, the boroughs. Everybody just ran back into their house. There was no more clubs. If you did do a house party, it had to be: “I have to know you. Don’t bring nobody who I don’t know to my house.”

In the following video, Kool Herc describes how he invented the idea of playing two breakbeats together, what he calls the merry-go-round.   The merry-go-round involved him mixing sections of James Brown’s ‘Give It Up Or Turn It Loose’ into Michael Viner’s ‘Bongo Rock’ and back out into Babe Ruth’s ‘The Mexican’. His audiences loved it.

The merry-go-round became the blueprint for hip hop… The first to react to the innovations, naturally enough, were Herc’s party-goers. Breakdancers, or B-Boys, began to interpret Herc’s idiosyncratic style with routines of their own. Some historians trace the development of Breakdancing to the African martial arts form, capoeta, brought to America by slaves a century before.

His first professional DJ job was at the Twilight Zone in 1973.  He wanted to get into another place called the Hevalo, but wasn’t allowed to at the time. His fame grew.  In addition to his break beats, Herc also became known as the man with the loudest system around.  When he decided to hold a party in one of the parks, it was a crazy event.  And a loud one.  At this time Afrika Bambaataa and other competing DJ’s began trying to take Herc’s crown.  Jazzy Jay of the Zulu Nation recalls one momentous meeting between Herc and Bam.

“Herc was late setting up and Bam continued to play longer than he should have.  Once Herc was set up he got on the microphone and said “Bambaataa, could you please turn your system down?”  Bam’s crew was pumped and told Bam not to do it.  So Herc said louder, “Yo, Bambaataa, turn your system down-down-down.”  Bam’s crew started cursing Herc until Herc put the full weight of his system up and said, “Bambaataa-baataa -baataa, TURN YOUR SYSTEM DOWN!” And you couldn’t even hear Bam’s set at all.  The Zulu crew tried to turn up the juice but it was no use.  Everybody just looked at them like, “You should’ve listened to Kool Herc.”

Finally his fame peaked and at last, in 1975, he began working at the Hevalo in the Bronx.  He helped coin the phrase b-boy (break boy) and was recently quoted as saying he was “the oldest living b-boy.”

Eventually, spinning records became an an all-intensive thing and Herc

Kool Herc and Coke La Rock

realized he didn’t have as much time to talk to the crowd and get them going.  He needed someone else to help out and act as the Master of Ceremonies for him.  And thus, for all practical purposes, Coke La Rock became the first hip hop MC ever.

Although he is not part of the hip hop vocabulary of most of those who listen to it today, Kool Herc is the father of this underground sound from New York that has found its way in becoming a worldwide phenomenon.

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One Teacher, His Students and Hip Hop

22 Jun

A day in a classroom with a Teachers and Students who discuss Old School Hip Hop n R&B

As a teacher, I am always looking for ways to connect and / or relate to my students. There are a few topics that almost always break generation gaps. In my opinion, the two topics are sports and music. Ask 100 students to talk about sports and you will get dozens upon dozens of different answers. The replies will range from a favorite player to a preferred position on a team. However, a large percentage of students will reply that they don’t like sports. Ask 100 students if they like music and you will get 99 or 100 positive replies.

Today, I stumbled upon an awesome website to use in my classroom. On http://nocursingmusic.com, you will find exactly what you would expect on a website titled “No Cursing Music.” DJ Doc provides visitors to his website over 40 hours of mixed old school Rap, Hip Hop and R&B music. One hundred percent of the tracts are without any cursing or profanity. From my online searches, this is the only website where you can listen to this many tracks for free. Visitors are able to select tracks from three options. DJ Doc has carefully uploaded 36 one hour tracks and 4 half hour mixes.

There are countless current Rap, Hip Hop and R&B artists saying that these “Old School” artists provided them inspiration. As a teacher, I can play one of these clips and then introduce the “Old School” tracks. With a blessing from current artists, these tracks will be heard with open ears. As a teacher, I’m on a limited budget. There is not any other place online to listen to these tracks with no charge. As a parent, this website has me excited to share my roots with my daughter.

You seriously won’t ever go back to Youtube after you stop by No Cursing Music. This is the only website to offer fans zero talking and zero profanity recordings for Rap, Hip Hop and R&B. This website isn’t only teacher friendly but it is parent friendly. You can listen to these tracks with your children. There is nothing more powerful than providing your children different experiences as they develop and grow.

The final reason that I fell in love with No Cursing Music and DJ Doc is that I can jump on the website at anytime. Due to the nature of DJ Doc’s website, is that it is “always on.” Visitors can use their smart phones, laptops, desktops, iPhones, Kindles or any other device that can access the Internet. You can jump on from home, at work or any place with WiFi access. DJ Doc took the all of the cursing out of the tracks. Thus, the website will not be blocked even by the strictest Internet filters. Please don’t take my word for how awesome No Cursing Music is! Head on over to http://nocursingmusic.com right now!

Chris Smith, MEd.
Middle School Teacher

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Profanity-Free Hip Hop and R&B for Your Listening Pleasure

13 Jun

There is no greater resource for all the great music that you love than the internet. What the internet has been lacking a website where you can go for the best in hip hop and R&B without all of the cursing. Here you can find over 40 hours of nonstop music to enjoy without ever having to worry about hearing any profanity. All the songs that featured any profanity have had those words bleeped out. This has created a place you can go to for your music listening pleasure without having to be embarrassed by rough language.  Read on to discover all the benefits of enjoying music on this website.

A non-cursing hip hop and R&B website is an innovation. This is something that many have waited for a very long time but has not been available until now.  Other places online that play hip hop and R&B do not seem to mind the offence that profanity can cause the listeners. For the first time a complete collection of R&B and hip hop music has been presented free of all the controversial language that has stopped many from enjoying some of the songs they love.

Here you get the very best of hip hop and R&B. Every piece of music here has been carefully hand-picked for your listening pleasure. All you have to do is let the music play and you get to hear some of the finest R&B and hip hop musing around. Besides, with over 40 hours of nonstop music, boredom is a thing of the past.  You can constantly have fresh songs flowing through your speakers. Turn the music up when you are working, having a good time, or just trying to relax. The songs played here are sure to be enjoyed.

With absolutely no profanity you do not have to worry about others being offended by the music you listen to. There is no need to worry when there are children around. You can still enjoy your music  while in a family- friendly atmosphere. This music on this site is an absolute pleasure to listen to and that pleasure is even greater because there is no cause for embarrassment.

Other websites may have no interest in providing you with profanity  free music, but that is okay because you have a great resource of non-cursing music right here. You do not even have to miss out on your favorite songs that happen to have some profanity because it all has been taken out , leaving only good music.  Some of the best songs in hip hop and R&B can be found right on this website.  What makes it even better is the fact that it’s free! BANG BANG!

The Birth of Hip Hop

25 May

The birth of Rap is sometimes attributed to the righteous street poetry of the Last Poets and the Watts Prophets, but it didn’t begin to take full shape — and earn its tag — until after the Sugarhill Gang released “Rapper’s Delight” in 1979. Since then, rap spread from its New York epicenter throughout the remainder of the U.S. (with each region taking on its own specific flavor) and then to countless countries.

The most successful rap acts where groups like Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, Kurtis Blow and Whodini, wore outlandish, glam rock inspired outfits on stage, while their music sampled disco and funk. Run DMC’s successful merging of heavy metal riffs and hip hop beats and street-inspired style brought rap music and hip hop culture to the mainstream.

Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five

Rap music was formed during the 1970s when block parties became increasingly popular in New York City, particularly among African American and Latino youth residing in the Bronx.  Block parties incorporated DJs who played popular genres of music, especially funk and soul music. Due to the positive reception, DJs began isolating the percussion breaks of popular songs. This technique was then common in Jamaican dub music.  Because the percussive breaks in funk, soul and disco records were generally short, DJ Kool Herc and other DJs began using such techniques with two turntables to extend the breaks.

Hip hop music eventually emerged out of rap as party DJs  made improvisations to existing music. Although hip hop music predates the introduction of rapping into hip hop culture, the majority of the genre is accompanied by rap vocals.

Turntablist techniques, such as scratching (attributed to Grand Wizzard Theodore), beat mixing/matching, and beat juggling eventually developed along with the breaks, creating a base that could be rapped over, in a manner similar to signifying, as well as the art of toasting, another influence found in Jamaican dub music.

Rap and Hip Hop’s core components are beats and rhymes, but that simplicity belies the wide range of sounds that have sprung from them. Instrumentalists, a sampled breakbeat, or a drum machine can form the backbone of a track, while an arrangement can be spaciously spare or chaotically dense, and a

LL Cool J is considered to have the greatest longevity in Rap music. His career as a rapper spans more than two decades — beginning during the early stages of rap and surviving through the emergence of hip hop music.

chorus,  can range from atonal shouting to a sweet melody. Detractors were still calling rap a fad in 1985, when LL Cool J released his first single. They were doing the same thing when, roughly 20 years later, he released his tenth album, and they’ll probably continue to do so as long as the genre exists. Should rap ever die, which isn’t likely, it would be far too late to prevent its effect on most other music forms, from R&B to rock to jazz.

Since hip-hop’s emergence in the 1970s, the movement has fostered a cultural climate of harmony and good music for everyone. From the early days of B-Boys and break dancing to the modern era of big jewelry and even bigger rhymes, hip-hop has been able to transcend generations and color boundaries despite initial dismissals as a fad.

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All About Hip Hop

23 May

Kurtis Blow, The Sugarhill Gang, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Whodini and others are considered to be the pioneers of rap and hip hop music.

1520 Sedgwick Avenue, the Bronx — the avenue used by Kool Herc is often considered the birthplace of hip hop.  DJ Kool Herc and Coke La Rock provided an influence on the vocal style of rapping by delivering simple poetry verses over funk music breaks, after party-goers showed little interest in their previous attempts to integrate reggae-infused toasting into musical sets.  DJs and MCs would often add call and response chants, often consisting of a basic chorus, to allow the performer to gather his thoughts (e.g. “one, two, three, y’all, to the beat”).

Rap group Run DMC had a huge impact on hip hop

Rapping, also referred to as MCing or emceeing, is a vocal style in which the artist speaks lyrically, in rhyme and verse, generally to an instrumental or synthesized beat. Beats, almost always in 4/4 time signature, can be created by sampling and/or sequencing portions of other songs by a producer.   They also incorporate synthesizers, drum machines, and live bands. Rappers may write, memorize, or improvise their lyrics and perform their works a cappella or to a beat.

The roots of spoken hip hop music are found in African-American music and ultimately African music, particularly that of the griots of West African culture.  The African-American traditions of signifyin’, the dozens, and jazz poetry all influence hip hop music, as well as the call and response patterns of African and African-American religious ceremonies.

Emerging out of Rap, Hip hop music came about as party DJs made improvisations to existing music.   Turntable techniques, such as scratching, beat mixing/matching, and beat juggling eventually developed along with the breaks, creating a base that could be rapped over, in a manner similar to signifying, as well as the art of toasting, which is prevalent in Jamaican dub music.  Although hip hop music predates the introduction of rapping into hip hop culture, the majority of the genre is accompanied by rap vocals.

DJs Mixing

Later, the MCs grew more varied in their vocal and rhythmic delivery, incorporating brief rhymes, often with a sexual or scatological theme, in an effort to differentiate themselves and to entertain the audience. These early raps incorporated the dozens, a product of African American culture. Kool Herc & the Herculoids were the first hip hop group to gain recognition in New York, but the number of MC teams increased over time.

Rhythm and Blues (R&B) singer and ”Godfather of Soul”,  James Brown, and musical ‘comedy’ acts such as Rudy Ray Moore and Blowfly are often considered “godfathers” of hip hop music.

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Rhythm & Blues: The Mother of Hip Hop

23 May

R&B, which stands for Rhythm and Blues, was the greatest influence on music around the world for most of the second half of the 20th century.  Rhythm and Blues is a term with a broad sense, but typically recognizing black-pop music. This type of music was introduced to the world by artists’ combining the music styles of jazz and blues.

R&B is actually what was later developed into what we know as rock and roll. The term Rhythm and Blues was used as a synonym for Black Rock and Roll in the 1950s. This influence is evident in forms of Rock Music, Country and Western, Gospel music, Jazz and also in Non-Western forms of music. Rhythm and Blues music also embraces genres such as Jump Blues, Club Blues, Black Rock and Roll, Soul, Motown, Funk, Disco and Rap.

The Drifters

Evolving out of jump blues in the late ’40s, R&B laid the groundwork for rock & roll.   It kept the tempo and the drive of jump blues, but its instrumentation was sparer and the emphasis was on the song, not improvisation. R&B was was basically blues chord changes played with an insistent backbeat. During the ’50s, the genre was dominated by vocalists like Ray Charles and Ruth Brown, as well as vocal groups like the Drifters and the Coasters. Eventually, R&B metamorphosed into soul, which was funkier and looser than the pile-driving rhythms of R&B. Soul came to describe a number of R&B-based music styles.  From the bouncy, catchy acts at Motown to the horn-driven, gritty soul of Stax/Volt, there was an immense amount of diversity within soul.

During the first part of the ’60s, soul music remained close to its R&B roots. However, musicians pushed the music in different directions, and different regions of America produced different kinds of soul. In urban centers like New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago, the music concentrated on vocal interplay

The Jackson 5

and smooth productions. In Detroit, Motown concentrated on creating a pop-oriented sound that was informed equally by gospel, R&B, and rock & roll. In the South, the music became harder and tougher, relying on syncopated rhythms, raw vocals, and blaring horns. All of these styles formed soul, which ruled the black music charts throughout the ’60s and also frequently crossed over into the pop charts.

During the ’60s and ’70s, soul began to splinter apart.  Artists like James Brown and Sly Stone developed funk; Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff initiated Philly

James Brown – The “Godfather of Soul”

soul with the O’Jays and Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes; and later in the decade, danceable R&B became a mass phenomenon with the brief disco fad.

In the 1970s, the term R&B was being used to describe soul and funk music styles, which today we know it describes Rhythm and Blues. Along with being influenced by jazz and blues, R&B also had influences from gospel and disco music. Disco’s downturn in the 1980s opened the door for R&B to truly take-off in popularity.

In the early 1970s, the cultural movement of hip hop music was born. Hip hop’s fast paced music style is made of two parts; the rhythmic delivery of rap and the use of instrumentation by a DJ. Hip hop music also brought with it a fashion of its own.  The fashion helped to represent and advance this newly created music.

Hip hop music has its roots from West African music and African-American music. The first rap song to be put onto a vinyl record was, “Rapper’s Delight”, a song by The Sugarhill Gang back in the 1970s. This is when block parties started becoming the norm in New York City, which gave hip hop and rap the chance to explode in popularity. Hip hop’s instrumentation came from funk, R&B, and disco, when combined together make this dynamic type of music. When the DJs at these block parties learned what the people liked, they began mixing these vinyl records and created music that played continuously with amazing transitions between songs.

Kurtis Blow

Hip hop was actually created by a DJ named Kool Herc, a Jamaican that had moved to the United States with a style that consisted of mixing music by using two copies of the same record. Many of the poor Jamaican’s in the town could not afford vinyl records, so huge stereo systems were set up so that many could hear the rhythmic beats. These stereo systems were the kick-off for the beginning of the evolution of block parties. So with the musical talent of these amazing DJs, with the use of vinyl record mixing, the culture of hip hop and rap music was born.

During the ’80s and ’90s, the polished, less earthy sound of urban and quiet

Sugarhill Gang

storm ruled the airwaves, but even then, R&B began adding stylistic components of hip-hop until — by the end of the millennium — there were hundreds of artists who featured both rapping and singing on their records.

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