Hip Hop

Zoe Nagys
 What is Hip Hop?
• Hip Hop is a rhythmic style of music mostly involving rap
consisting of a backing beat. Hip Hop music is part of a hip hop
culture. Hip Hop music may be based around live or produced
music with a clearly defined drum beat. It can be presented either
with or without a vocal accompaniment.
 History of Hip Hop.
• Hip Hop originally started from African American roots. The griots
of West Africa are a group of travelling singers and poets, whose
vocal style is similar to that of rappers and who are part of an oral
tradition dating back hundreds of years. This is where Hip Hop
originated from. It wasn’t till the 1970s that Hip Hop first began to
grow when Bloc parties became popular and artists such as the
Bronx started to become well known and well liked.
• Later the hip hop artists became more varied in their vocal and
rhythmic approach involving brief rhymes at an effort to
differentiate themselves entertain their audience.
 New school Hip Hop

• The new school of hip hop was a second wave of hip hop music
starting from 1983–84 with the early records of Run DMC and LL
Cool J. New school hip hop started in New York City and was
usually in form by drums and had a slight element of rock.
However artists were seen to deliver their lyrics in an aggressive
manner and in a self assertive style. In image as in song its artists
projected a tough, cool, street b-boy attitude. New school artists
made shorter songs that could more easily gain radio play, in a bid
to gain a wider audience and become more popular within the
music industry.
 Artists
• Some of the best and well known artists include, Run DMC, 2 Pac,
Jay Z, The Notorious B.I.G., LL Cool J, Snoop Dog, Busta Rhymes
and Kanye West.
• Most hip hop artists use stage names to make their name more
memorable and to represent the kind of music, e.g. busta rhymes.
Hip hop is also known for feuds between different artists, this can
be seen as a publicity stunt to sell more records. For example the
recent battle between Mariah Carey and Eminem, they used lyrics
in their songs as a way of arguing with each other and to promote
their songs.