Overview
Hip-hop is a combination of four artistic mediums: graffiti, breakdancing, DJing, and MCing. In this lesson, we focus on the music of hip-hop, including the role of the DJ and the MC. Hip-hop music developed in the 1970s as a combination of aesthetics from disco, funk, and other African American and Afro-Caribbean musics. DJs began mixing, juxtaposing, and manipulating records to create new and innovative sounds, and MCs would deliver spoken messages over these sounds. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, hip-hop began to be recorded and released commercially in the United States. Some of the most commercially successful hip-hop groups of the 1980s, such as the Beastie Boys and Run-DMC, blended rap with the sounds and styles of rock music. By the late 1980s, hip-hop had become a dominant commercial force in the American popular music scene.
Objectives
- Recall the Jamaican influences on hip-hop
- Recall the role of the DJ and the MC in early hip-hop
- Recall some of the earliest commercial hip-hop and hip-hop-influenced recordings
- Examine the role rock music played in the success of groups such as Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys
Conclusion
Hip-hop originated in New York and drew from several African American and Afro-Caribbean musical traditions. Most early hip-hop was performed live instead of recorded and released commercially, but that began to change in the early 1980s. The earliest successful rap groups were those that had a hard edge to their flow and who incorporated the sounds of rock music into their songs. In the next lesson, we will consider some hip-hop groups and artists from the late 1980s who increasingly diversified the sounds and messages of the genre.
“My definition of hip hop is taking elements from many other spheres of music to make hip hop. Whether it be breakbeat, whether it be the groove and grunt of James Brown or the pickle-pop sounds of Kraftwerk or Yellow Magic Orchestra, hip hop is also part of what they call hip-house now, or trip hop, or even parts of drum n' bass.”
