HIP-HOP MUSIC:ITS HISTORY

 by pledge rub

Controversy surrounding hip hop music has been in the forefront in the media. Political and media groups have been quick to place blame on rap for a seeming trend in youth violence. However, though critics are quick to point out the violent lyrics of some rappers, they are missing the point of rap's message. Rap, like other forms of music, cannot be understood unless it is studied without the frame of its historical and social context. Today's rap music reflects its origin in the hip-hop culture of young, urban, working-class African-Americans, its roots in the African oral tradition, its function as the voice of an otherwise underrepresented group, and, as its popularity has grown, its commercialization and appropriation by the music industry.

 In today’s commercial world, hip-hop has even gone so far as to represent various companies and products.

Hip-hop emerged, providing black youths with an identity and cultural support groups through deejaying, rapping, break dancing, and graffiti production.

It is deeply rooted in pre-modern oral traditions while hip-hop itself follows in the footsteps of previous black musical styles such as jazz, blues, and southern soul music.

There was a noticeable shift in the lyrical content of hip-hop. Previously the lyrics focused on social, political, and cultural issues, the lyrics now were becoming more hyper-violent and hyper-masculine, eventually coming together as a new genre known as Gangsta Rap which rose in popularity and sales while being heavily promoted by the major labels.

 YoMTV raps in 1989 marks the emergent influence and commercialization of rap music popularly known as hip hop in the modern world. 

YoMTV Raps influenced a monumental shift in hip-hop culture as now music videos became a major factor in hip-hop. Airing music videos on MTV, hip-hop artists were able to gain visibility and expand the genre’s audience base to an ever-growing white market. With the growing importance of music videos, there was an increased focus on how a singer looks rather than how he or she sounds and soon rappers and their music labels were crafting images to go along with the musical contents.

Prior to the success of hip-hop on MTV, the genre’s music videos frequently functioned as a snapshot in the lives of the artist and generally depicted the rapper hanging out in his neighborhood generally black urban inner-city locations with his or her posse. However, after the commercialization of hip-hop, the major labels had more control of the creative process and soon music videos became a quasi-cinematic, sensationalized illustration of the persona of the artist in order to appear more marketable to Top-40 demographics.

The generic, industrial standard of hip-hop videos of this modern era often display rappers ego-stroking by making glorious displays of wealth and power. While watching a standard contemporary music video, one will often see scantily clad women parading around the rapper’s mansion, entertaining the rapper and his posse. One anonymous music video director has even stated that it has gotten to the point where it’s all about the hot girls and the social and political messages behind the lyrics have taken a back seat. Violence and hyper-masculinity are major themes present in the videos produced by the major labels.

It might seem odd that rappers would portray such stereotypical and possibly self-degrading image of themselves by continuing to write songs and make videos laced with violent, sexist, egotistical, and hyper-masculine lyrics, visuals, and overtones. However, as it turns out, rappers seems to have less of a choice than one would think young rappers were seen rapping about very violent and sexist topics with the aspirations of one day signing with a major label and becoming famous.

When these young artists were asked why they rap about such deplorable topics with arguably little social meaning, they responded that they would prefer to rap about more “righteous” things as the first rappers had done. These aspiring rappers insist that the reason for continuing producing Gangsta Rap over music with more social and culturally meaningful lyrics is that they firmly believe that the record industry only wants to see the image of tough black males. Hip-hop has so abandoned the original social and political themes that the historical mantra of ‘keeping’ it real” is only a fragile prospect…