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The Elements Of The Culture Breakin' / B Boyin' DeeJayin' Emceein' Grafitti And Most Often Forgotten Beat Boxin' (Many say 4 elements but its 5) |
The Essence Of The Culture Creativity
Originality
Skill Development These are the main factors the are the source that fuels hip hop culture. It is the force that governs it and the foundation for which its built. It dictates the art, fashion, and medias of hip hop. |
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Hip Hop Is Not These are some views that many people share and have use to describe hip hop. Though I respect other peoples viewpoints, I do not recognize hip hop as any of the following. Movement It's a cool way to describe it but I feel it's inaccruate. I do recognize that there are movements within hip hop, such as, hip hop's black conscious movement in the late 80's & early 90's. But as a whole, hip hop is not a movement. Nation Yes, it's as large as a nation but it's not organized in such away. We do not have a process to elect leaders & officials. Even if there were those who volunteered for the positions, we presently do not have an actually, agreed upon, agenda for them to push. We also do not have a flag, official anthem...I could go on & on about this but I think I've made my point that hip hop does not fit into the frameworks of a nation or have a system that allows it to operate as one. Religion There are aspects of hip hop that can be compared to religions such as looking at New York as the mecca or the universal law that "thou shall not bite" as some type of commandent. But overall it's not a religion. People are not hip hop because they follow teachings or because they believe in particular lessons on how to live. It's mindstate they posess. |
Mislabeling Hip Hop Conscious Rap Back Pack Rap Old School Hip Hop Alternative Hip Hop Progressive Hip Hop Underground Hip Hop Positive Rap Alternative, Progressive, Underground in comparsion to what? I hear a lot of people using these terms when describing hip hop in comparision to what seen and heard in the mainstream. These terms would only be valid if Rap was a true extention of Hip Hop, but it is not. Instead of giving hip hop a new name, just call it hip hop and identify commercialized product as rap. Conscious Rap & Old School Hip Hop are just catergories that fall under the banner of hip hop. The term Positive Rap once again falls in a catergory. Hip Hop artists are not required to chose between positive or negative, smooth or raw, polite or rude, clean or explicit, when expressing themselves and creating new material. There are hip hop songs that are just as violent, raunchy, and explicit as rap songs. The differences is: 1. They are presented in a more creative, more original, and more skillful way. 2. They are true expressions/observations and / or intended as creative art. |
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The Music Many people believe Rap music is the music of Hip Hop Culture. Rap is not the music of Hip Hop culture, the music of Hip Hop culture is Hip Hop music. Rap is the commercialized version of hip hop music and culture. The term rap was created by the music industy. At first many people in the hip hop community accepted and used the term "Rap" as additional term for hip hop music. But as rap music became more popular, the hip hop community gradually began to distances itself from it, as not to be confused with rap, what rap represented, and it's lack of respect for the art of hip hop. Slashes were add (Hip Hop / Rap) highlight the difference and emcees ask not to be referred to as rappers. And for hip hop artists who struggled to remain on the rap scene, many of them were shutout. Trying to describe what hip hop sound like is a little tricky? It's usually center around beats and / or ryhmes. But there are no boundaries when it comes to creating the music or any structure for how it should be performed. This is why, unlike rap music, hip hop music can't be put in a box. The various ways hip hop music can be performed and styles that can be created seems to be unlimited. This is highlighted more in "Hip Hop vs Rap pt. 3".
The Community Is a worldwide community of people who love, respect the culture and live the essence. They come from all races and backgrounds. This community exist because of the mindstate of the individuals within it combined with the respect they have for the culture.
Hip Hop's Competitive Spirit The competitive spirit that live within hip hop is a healthy one. It pushing people at being the best by out performing the next. To measure one skills by testing one abilities against anothers. Many of hip hop's best works are direct results of this spirit. Whether it resulted from a battle or competing to claim a spot on the stage of hip hop. |
Rap Is Formula From a business standpoint, the formula for rap is ingenius. It is why rap has had it's sucess. While the creation of hip hop was more of a natural process, the rap formula is something created by the minds of business people (that some in the hip hop community refer to as the "Vultures of the Culture") who engineered and tested it to make a better product to market to a mass audience. The problem is that in duplicating the music element of hip hop they neglected to include the essence. Without the essences of hip hop, the element becomes disconnected from the culture. Format Most rap material follows a formats and fit into catergories. Most rap music that's released sounds alike and videos look alike. It is formatted to appeal to the rap audience. It is main Image Image is very important in rap and plays a big role in a rappers record sales and longevity in the game. Today's popular images in rap are: Thug, Gangsta, Baller, Sexy. Props Cars, Money, Sexy Women, Special effect, etc... Gimmicks Examples are making up or altering a criminal records. Beef Do not confuse beefs with battles. Battles are two parties pitting their skills against one another. Beefs, on the other hand, are two parties in conflict with each another for personal reasons unrelated to hip hop. Dis records for beef are songs are one's that verbally attacks to hurt feelings and /or convey threats by expressing their desire to do harm to the other. It For Rap Audience Unlike a hip hop, rap does not have a community but instead and audience. The larger portion of today's rap music audience is mostly white, young 13-21 old, and female. The prefer formatted music centered around either sex,drugs,violence, & an R&B influence. Dance, athems Game A popular term used by rap artists to describe the way that the music industry operates. Those who play it best rise to the top. Product Rap was designed for the purpose of making money. |