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MC Hero performing rhythmic rhyming known as rapping in Huntsville, Alabama.
Hip hop-style graffiti showing stylized, elaborate lettering and colorful cartoons.

Hip hop or hip-hop, is a subculture and art movement developed in the Bronx in New York City during the late 1970s. The origins of the word are often disputed. It is also argued as to whether hip hop started in the South or West Bronx.[1][2][3][4][5] While the term hip hop is often used to refer exclusively to hip hop music (also called rap),[6] hip hop is characterized by nine elements, of which only four elements are considered essential to understand hip hop musically. The main elements of hip hop consist of four main pillars. Afrika Bambaataa of the hip hop collective Zulu Nation outlined the pillars of hip hop culture, coining the terms: "rapping" (also called MC or Microphone Commander), a rhythmic vocal rhyming style (orality); DJing (and turntablism), which is making music with record players and DJ mixers (aural/sound and music creation); b-boying/b-girling/breakdancing (movement/dance); and graffiti art.[7][2][8][9][10] Other elements of hip hop subculture and arts movements beyond the main four are: hip hop culture and historical knowledge of the movement (intellectual/philosophical); beatboxing, a percussive vocal style; street entrepreneurship; hip hop language; and hip hop fashion and style, among others.[11][12][13] The fifth element is commonly considered either street knowledge, hip hop fashion, or beatboxing; however, it is often debated.[2][7]

The Bronx hip hop scene emerged in the mid-1970s from neighborhood block parties thrown by the Black Spades, an African-American group that has been described as being a gang, a club, and a music group. Hip hop culture has spread to both urban and suburban communities throughout the United States and subsequently the world.[14] These elements were adapted and developed considerably, particularly as the art forms spread to new continents and merged with local styles in the 1990s and subsequent decades. Even as the movement continues to expand globally and explore myriad styles and art forms, including hip hop theater and hip hop film, the four foundational elements provide coherence and a strong foundation for hip hop culture.[2] Hip hop is simultaneously a new and old phenomenon; the importance of sampling tracks, beats, and basslines from old records to the art form means that much of the culture has revolved around the idea of updating classic recordings, attitudes, and experiences for modern audiences. Sampling older culture and reusing it in a new context or a new format is called "flipping" in hip hop culture. Hip hop music follows in the footsteps of earlier African-American-rooted musical genres such as blues, jazz, rag-time, funk, and disco to become one of the most practiced genres worldwide. It is the language of urban environments and the youth around the world. According to KRS-One, "Hip hop is the only place where you see Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have A Dream Speech' in real life." He also notes that hip hop is beyond something as race, gender, or nationality; it belongs to the world.[14] In 1990, while working with the rap group Snap!, Ronald "Bee-Stinger" Savage, a former member of the Zulu Nation, is credited for coining the term "Six elements of the Hip Hop Movement" by being inspired by Public Enemy's recordings. The "Six Elements Of The Hip Hop Movement" are: Consciousness Awareness, Civil Rights Awareness, Activism Awareness, Justice, Political Awareness, and Community Awareness in music. Ronald Savage is known as the Son of The Hip Hop Movement.[15][16]

In the 2000s, with the rise of new media platforms and Web 2.0, fans discovered and downloaded or streamed hip hop music through social networking sites beginning with Myspace, as well as from websites like YouTube, Worldstarhiphop, SoundCloud, and Spotify.[17][18][19]



Keith "Cowboy" Wiggins, a member of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, has been credited with coining the term[20] in 1978 while teasing a friend who had just joined the US Army by scat singing the made-up words "hip/hop/hip/hop" in a way that mimicked the rhythmic cadence of marching soldiers. Cowboy later worked the "hip hop" cadence into his stage performance.[21][22] The group frequently performed with disco artists who would refer to this new type of music by calling them "hip hoppers." The name was originally meant as a sign of disrespect but soon came to identify this new music and culture.[23]

The song "Rapper's Delight" by The Sugarhill Gang, released in 1979, begins with the phrase "I said a hip, hop the hippie the hippie to the hip hip hop, and you don't stop".[24] Lovebug Starski — a Bronx DJ who put out a single called "The Positive Life" in 1981 — and DJ Hollywood then began using the term when referring to this new disco rap music. Bill Alder, an independent consultant, once said, "There was hardly ever a moment when rap music was underground, one of the very first so-called rap records, was a monster hit ("Rapper's Delight" by the Sugar Hill Gang on Sugarhill Records).[6] Hip hop pioneer and South Bronx community leader Afrika Bambaataa also credits Lovebug Starski as the first to use the term "hip hop" as it relates to the culture. Bambaataa, former leader of the Black Spades, also did much to further popularize the term. The words "hip hop" first appeared in print on September 21, 1982, in The Village Voice in a profile of Bambaataa written by Steven Hager, who also published the first comprehensive history of the culture with St. Martins' Press.[21][25]




In the 1970s, an underground urban movement known as "hip hop" began to develop in the Bronx, New York City. It focused on emceeing (or MCing) over "breakbeats," house parties and neighborhood block party events, held outdoors. Hip hop music has been a powerful medium for protesting the impact of legal institutions on minorities, particularly police and prisons.[26] Historically, hip hop arose out of the ruins of a post-industrial and ravaged South Bronx, as a form of expression of urban Black and Latino youth, whom the public and political discourse had written off as marginalized communities.[26] Jamaican-born DJ Clive "Kool Herc" Campbell[27] pioneered the use of DJing percussion "breaks" in hip hop music. Beginning at Herc's home in a high-rise apartment at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, the movement later spread across the entire borough.[28] On August 11, 1973 DJ Kool Herc was the DJ at his sister's back-to-school party. He extended the beat of a record by using two record players, isolating the percussion "breaks" by using a mixer to switch between the two records. Herc's experiments with making music with record players became what we now know as breaking or "scratching."[29]



DJ Kool Herc is a pioneer in developing hip hop music.

DJs such as Grand Wizzard Theodore, Grandmaster Flash, and Jazzy Jay refined and developed the use of breakbeats, including cutting and scratching.[34] The approach used by Herc was soon widely copied, and by the late 1970s, DJs were releasing 12-inch records where they would rap to the beat. Influential tunes included Fatback Band's "King Tim III (Personality Jock)," The Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight," and Kurtis Blow's "Christmas Rappin'," all released in 1979.[35][dead link] Herc and other DJs would connect their equipment to power lines and perform at venues such as public basketball courts and at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, Bronx, New York, now officially a historic building.[36] The equipment consisted of numerous speakers, turntables, and one or more microphones.[37] By using this technique, DJs could create a variety of music, but according to Rap Attack by David Toop "At its worst the technique could turn the night into one endless and inevitably boring song".[38] KC The Prince of Soul, a rapper-lyricist with Pete DJ Jones, is often credited with being the first rap lyricist to call himself an "MC."[39]


Afrika Bambaataa with DJ Yutaka of Universal Zulu Nation in 2004

DJ Kool Herc's house parties gained popularity and later moved to outdoor venues in order to accommodate more people. Hosted in parks, these outdoor parties became a means of expression and an outlet for teenagers, where "instead of getting into trouble on the streets, teens now had a place to expend their pent-up energy."[43] Tony Tone, a member of the Cold Crush Brothers, stated that "hip hop saved a lot of lives".[43] For inner-city youth, participating in hip hop culture became a way of dealing with the hardships of life as minorities within America, and an outlet to deal with the risk of violence and the rise of gang culture. MC Kid Lucky mentions that "people used to break-dance against each other instead of fighting".[44][full citation needed] Inspired by DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa created a street organization called Universal Zulu Nation, centered around hip hop, as a means to draw teenagers out of gang life, drugs and violence.[43]

Ronald Savage is the owner of the Hip Hop Movement trademark and is credited for coining the term "Six elements of the Hip Hop Movement"

The lyrical content of many early rap groups focused on social issues, most notably in the seminal track "The Message" (1982) by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, which discussed the realities of life in the housing projects.[45] "Young black Americans coming out of the civil rights movement have used hip hop culture in the 1980s and 1990s to show the limitations of the movement."[46] Hip hop gave young African Americans a voice to let their issues be heard; "Like rock-and-roll, hip hop is vigorously opposed by conservatives because it romanticizes violence, law-breaking, and gangs".[46] It also gave people a chance for financial gain by "reducing the rest of the world to consumers of its social concerns."[46]




In 1982, Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force released the electro-funk track "Planet Rock". Instead of simply rapping over disco beats, Bambaataa and producer Arthur Baker created an electronic sound using the Roland TR-808 drum machine and sampling from Kraftwerk.[48] "Planet Rock" is widely regarded as a turning point; fusing electro with hip hop, it was "like a light being switched on," resulting in a new genre.[49] The track also helped popularize the 808, which became a cornerstone of hip hop music;[50][50] Wired and Slate both described the machine as hip hop's equivalent to the Fender Stratocaster, which had dramatically influenced the development of rock music.[51][52] Other groundbreaking records released in 1982 include "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, "Nunk" by Warp 9, "Hip Hop, Be Bop (Don't Stop)" by Man Parrish, "Magic Wand" by Whodini, and "Buffalo Gals" by Malcolm McLaren. In 1983, Hashim created the influential electro funk tune "Al-Naafiysh (The Soul)", while Warp 9's "Light Years Away"(1983), "a cornerstone of early 80s beat box afrofuturism", introduced socially conscious themes from a Sci-Fi perspective, paying homage to music pioneer Sun Ra.[53]

Grandmaster Melle Mel.

Encompassing graffiti art, MCing/rapping, DJing and b-boying, hip hop became the dominant cultural movement of the minority-populated urban communities in the 1980s.[54] The 1980s also saw many artists make social statements through hip hop. In 1982, Melle Mel and Duke Bootee recorded "The Message" (officially credited to Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five),[55] a song that foreshadowed the socially conscious statements of Run-DMC's "It's like That" and Public Enemy's "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos".[56] During the 1980s, hip hop also embraced the creation of rhythm by using the human body, via the vocal percussion technique of beatboxing. Pioneers such as Doug E. Fresh,[57] Biz Markie and Buffy from the Fat Boys made beats, rhythm, and musical sounds using their mouth, lips, tongue, voice, and other body parts. "Human Beatbox" artists would also sing or imitate turntablism scratching or other instrument sounds.




With the commercial success of gangsta rap in the early 1990s, the emphasis in lyrics shifted to drugs, violence, and misogyny. Early proponents of gangsta rap included groups and artists such as Ice-T, who recorded what some consider to be the first gangster rap record, 6 N' the Mornin',[61] and N.W.A whose second album Niggaz4Life became the first gangsta rap album to enter the charts at number one.[62] Gangsta rap also played an important part in hip hop becoming a mainstream commodity. Considering albums such as N.W.A's Straight Outta Compton, Eazy-E's Eazy-Duz-It, and Ice Cube's Amerikkka's Most Wanted were selling in such high numbers meant that black teens were no longer hip hop's sole buying audience.[63] As a result, gangsta rap became a platform for artists who chose to use their music to spread political and social messages to parts of the country that were previously unaware of the conditions of ghettos.[61] While hip hop music now appeals to a broader demographic, media critics argue that socially and politically conscious hip hop has been largely disregarded by mainstream America.[64]

Global innovationsEdit

British hip hop artist and poet Kate Tempest performs her signature piece "Let Them Eat Chaos" at the 2017 Treefort Music Fest in Boise, Idaho.

According to the U.S. Department of State, hip hop is "now the center of a mega music and fashion industry around the world" that crosses social barriers and cuts across racial lines.[65] National Geographic recognizes hip hop as "the world's favorite youth culture" in which "just about every country on the planet seems to have developed its own local rap scene."[66] Through its international travels, hip hop is now considered a "global musical epidemic".[67] According to The Village Voice, hip hop is "custom-made to combat the anomie that preys on adolescents wherever nobody knows their name."[68]

Hip hop sounds and styles differ from region to region, but there are also instances of fusion genres.[69] Hip hop culture has grown from the avoided genre to a genre that is followed by millions of fans worldwide. This was made possible by the adaptation of music in different locations, and the influence on style of behavior and dress.[70] Not all countries have embraced hip hop, where "as can be expected in countries with strong local culture, the interloping wildstyle of hip hop is not always welcomed".[71] This is somewhat the case in Jamaica, the homeland of the culture's father, DJ Kool Herc. However, despite hip hop music produced on the island lacking widespread local and international recognition, artists such as Five Steez have defied the odds by impressing online hip hop taste-makers and even reggae critics.[72]

Hartwig Vens argues that hip hop can also be viewed as a global learning experience.[73] Author Jeff Chang argues that "the essence of hip hop is the cipher, born in the Bronx, where competition and community feed each other."[74] He also adds, "Thousands of organizers from Cape Town to Paris use hip hop in their communities to address environmental justice, policing and prisons, media justice, and education.".[75] While hip hop music has been criticized as a music that creates a divide between western music and music from the rest of the world, a musical "cross pollination" has taken place, which strengthens the power of hip hop to influence different communities.[76] Hip hop's messages allow the under-privileged and the mistreated to be heard.[73] These cultural translations cross borders.[75] While the music may be from a foreign country, the message is something that many people can relate to- something not "foreign" at all.[77]



Rapper, entrepreneur and executive Jay-Z emphasizes his wealth.


In an article for The Village Voice, Greg Tate argues that the commercialization of hip hop is a negative and pervasive phenomenon, writing that "what we call hiphop is now inseparable from what we call the hip hop industry, in which the nouveau riche and the super-rich employers get richer".[46] Ironically, this commercialization coincides with a decline in rap sales and pressure from critics of the genre.[80] Even other musicians, like Nas and KRS-ONE have claimed "hip hop is dead" in that it has changed so much over the years to cater to the consumer that it has lost the essence for which it was originally created.




As top rappers grow wealthier and start more outside business ventures, this can indicate a stronger sense of black aspiration. As rappers such as Jay-Z and Kanye West establish themselves as artists and entrepreneurs, more young black people have hopes of achieving their goals.[83] The lens through which one views the genre's commercialization can make it seem positive or negative.[84]

White and Mexican Latino pop rappers such as Macklemore, Iggy Azalea, Machine Gun Kelly, Eminem, Miley Cyrus, G-Eazy, Pitbull, Lil Pump, and Post Malone have often been criticized for commercializing hip hop and cultural appropriation.[85] Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry, although not rappers, have been accused of cultural appropriation and commercializing hip hop. Katy Perry, a white woman, was criticized for her hip hop song "Dark Horse".[86] Taylor Swift was also accused of cultural appropriation.[87]







DJ Pete Rock mixing with two turntables.



Rapper Busta Rhymes performs in Las Vegas for a BET party

Rapping (also known as emceeing,[91] MCing,[91] spitting (bars),[92] or just rhyming[93]) refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics with a strong rhythmic accompaniment".[94] Rapping typically features complex wordplay, rapid delivery, and a range of "street slang", some of which is unique to the hip hop subculture. While rapping is often done over beats, either done by a DJ, a beatboxer, it can also be done without accompaniment. It can be broken down into different components, such as "content", "flow" (rhythm and rhyme), and "delivery".[95] Rapping is distinct from spoken word poetry in that it is performed in time to the beat of the music.[96][97][98] The use of the word "rap" to describe quick and slangy speech or witty repartee long predates the musical form.[99] MCing is a form of expression that is embedded within ancient African culture and oral tradition as throughout history verbal acrobatics or jousting involving rhymes were common within the Afro-American community.[100]


An aerosol paint can, a common tool used in modern graffiti

Graffiti is the most controversial of hip hop's elements, as a number of the most notable graffiti pioneers say that they do not consider graffiti to be an element of hip hop, including Lady Pink, Seen, Blade, Fargo, Cholly Rock, Fuzz One, and Coco 144.[101][102][103] Lady Pink says, "I don’t think graffiti is hip hop. Frankly I grew up with disco music. There's a long background of graffiti as an entity unto itself,"[104][105] and Fargo says, "There is no correlation between hip hop and graffiti, one has nothing to do with the other."[101][103][106] Hip hop pioneer Grandmaster Flash has also questioned the connection between hip hop and graffiti, saying, "You know what bugs me, they put hip hop with graffiti. How do they intertwine?"[106][107][108]


Phase 2 is an influential graffiti artist who began painting in the 1970s.


Bubble lettering held sway initially among writers from the Bronx, though the elaborate Brooklyn style Tracy 168 dubbed "wildstyle" would come to define the art.[111][112] The early trend-setters were joined in the 1970s by artists like Dondi, Futura 2000, Daze, Blade, Lee, Fab Five Freddy, Zephyr, Rammellzee, Crash, Kel, NOC 167 and Lady Pink.[111]



Breaking, an early form of hip hop dance, often involves dance battles, showing off technical skills, trying to out-do a rival dancer, and displaying tongue-in-cheek bravado.

Breaking, also called B-boying/B-girling or breakdancing, is a dynamic, rhythmic style of dance which developed as one of the major elements of hip hop culture. Like many aspects of hip hop culture, breakdance borrows heavily from many cultures, including 1930s-era street dancing,[114][115] Brazilian and Asian Martial arts, Russian folk dance,[116] and the dance moves of James Brown, Michael Jackson, and California funk. Breaking took form in the South Bronx in the 1970s alongside the other elements of hip hop. Breakdancing is typically done with the accompaniment of hip hop music playing on a boom box or PA system.

A silhouette shows a man break dancing. One of the 4 elements of hip hop.



Biz Markie is noted for his beatboxing skills. He is holding the mic close to his mouth, a technique beatboxers use to imitate deep basslines and bass drums, by exploiting the proximity effect.




A typical rap drum beat, written in drum notation.







While hip hop music makes a significant use of sampling old records, using turntables and drum machines to create beats, producers use electric and acoustic instruments on some songs. Pictured is an electric bass player at a hip hop show.



Social impactEdit


A b-boy performing in San Francisco

Hip hop has made a considerable social impact since its inception in the 1970s. "Hip hop has also become relevant to the field of education because of its implications for understanding language, learning, identity, and curriculum."[125] Orlando Patterson, a sociology professor at Harvard University, helps describe the phenomenon of how hip hop has spread rapidly around the world. Patterson argues that mass communication is controlled by the wealthy, the government, and major businesses in Third World nations and countries around the world.[126] He also credits mass communication with creating a global cultural hip hop scene. As a result, the youth are influenced by the American hip hop scene and start their own forms of hip hop. Patterson believes that revitalization of hip hop music will occur around the world as traditional values are mixed with American hip hop music,[126] and ultimately a global exchange process will develop that brings youth around the world to listen to a common musical form of hip hop.

It has also been argued that rap music formed as a "cultural response to historic oppression and racism, a system for communication among black communities throughout the United States".[127] This is due to the fact that the culture reflected the social, economic and political realities of the disenfranchized youth. In the 2010s, hip hop lyrics are starting to reflect original socially conscious themes. Rappers are starting to question the government's power and its oppressive role in some societies.[128] Rap music has been a tool for political, social, and cultural empowerment outside the US. Members of minority communities—such as Algerians in France, and Turks in Germany—use rap as a platform to protest racism, poverty, and social structures.[129]


The development of hip hop linguistics is complex. Source material include the spirituals of slaves arriving in the new world, Jamaican dub music, the laments of jazz and blues singers, patterned cockney slang and radio deejays hyping their audience using rhymes.[130] Hip hop has a distinctive associated slang.[131] It is also known by alternate names, such as "Black English", or "Ebonics". Academics suggest its development stems from a rejection of the racial hierarchy of language, which held "White English" as the superior form of educated speech.[132] Due to hip hop's commercial success in the late 1990s and early 2000s, many of these words have been assimilated into the cultural discourse of several different dialects across America and the world and even to non-hip hop fans.[133] The word diss for example is particularly prolific. There are also a number of words which predate hip hop, but are often associated with the culture, with homie being a notable example. Sometimes, terms like what the dilly, yo are popularized by a single song (in this case, "Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See" by Busta Rhymes) and are only used briefly. One particular example is the rule-based slang of Snoop Dogg and E-40, who add -izzle or -izz to the end or middle of words.








Chuck Philips, Los Angeles Times, 1992[142]

Gangsta rap is a subgenre of hip hop that reflects the violent culture of inner-city American black youths.[143] The genre was pioneered in the mid-1980s by rappers such as Schoolly D and Ice-T, and was popularized in the later part of the 1980s by groups such as N.W.A. Ice-T released "6 in the Mornin'", which is often regarded as the first gangsta rap song, in 1986. After the national attention that Ice-T and N.W.A created in the late 1980s and early 1990s, gangsta rap became the most commercially lucrative subgenre of hip hop.




Public Enemy's "Gotta Give the Peeps What They Need" was censored on MTV, removing the words "free Mumia".[147] After the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Oakland, California group The Coup was under fire for the cover art on their album Party Music, which featured the group's two members holding a guitar tuner and two sticks[148] as the Twin Towers exploded behind them despite the fact that it was created months before the actual event. The group, having politically radical and Marxist lyrical content, said the cover meant to symbolize the destruction of capitalism. Their record label pulled the album until a new cover could be designed.

Product placement and endorsementsEdit


Critics such as Businessweek's David Kiley argue that the discussion of products within hip hop culture may actually be the result of undisclosed product placement deals.[149] Such critics allege that shilling or product placement takes place in commercial rap music, and that lyrical references to products are actually paid endorsements.[149] In 2005, a proposed plan by McDonald's to pay rappers to advertise McDonald's products in their music was leaked to the press.[149] After Russell Simmons made a deal with Courvoisier to promote the brand among hip hop fans, Busta Rhymes recorded the song "Pass the Courvoisier".[149] Simmons insists that no money changed hands in the deal.[149]

LL Cool J in front of a Coca-Cola billboard at a festival sponsored by the soda pop company.


Rapper Dr Dre has endorsed a line of expensive, high-quality headphones and other audio gear called "beats", which bear his name.






The German hip hop magazine Juice.




Rapper Snoop Dogg at a 2009 show.





Breaking in Ljubljana, Slovenia


Kwaito is a political and party-driven genre, as performers use the music to express their political views, and also to express their desire to have a good time. Kwaito is a music that came from a once hated and oppressed people, but it is now sweeping the nation. The main consumers of Kwaito are adolescents and half of the South African population is under 21. Some of the large Kwaito artists have sold more than 100,000 albums, and in an industry where 25,000 albums sold is considered a gold record, those are impressive numbers.[163] Kwaito allows the participation and creative engagement of otherwise socially excluded peoples in the generation of popular media.[164] South African hip hop is more diverse lately and there are hip hop acts in South Africa that have made an impact and continue making impact worldwide. These include Tumi, Ben Sharpa, HipHop Pantsula, Tuks Senganga.[165]

South Sudanese musician Emmanuel Jal uses hip hop to heal war-torn African youth. Jal pictured at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York



Arabic hip hop artist Klash Loon.

In the developing world, hip hop has made a considerable impact in the social context. Despite the lack of resources, hip hop has made considerable inroads.[71] Due to limited funds, hip hop artists are forced to use very basic tools, and even graffiti, an important aspect of the hip hop culture, is constrained due to its unavailability to the average person. Hip hop has begun making inroads with more than black artists. There are number of other minority artists who are taking center stage as many first generation minority children come of age. One example is rapper Awkwafina, an Asian-American, who raps about being Asian as well as being female. She, like many others, use rap to express her experiences as a minority not necessarily to "unite" minorities together but to tell her story.[170] Many hip hop artists that make it out of the developing world come to places like the United States in hopes of improving their situations. Maya Arulpragasm (AKA M.I.A.) is a Sri Lanka-born Tamil hip hop artist in this situation. She claims, "I'm just trying to build some sort of bridge, I'm trying to create a third place, somewhere in between the developed world and the developing world.".[171] Another music artist using hip hop to provide a positive message to young Africans is Emmanuel Jal, who is a former child soldier from South Sudan. Jal is one of the few South Sudanese music artists to have broken through on an international level[172] with his unique form of hip hop and a positive message in his lyrics.[173] Jal has attracted the attention of mainstream media and academics with his story and use of hip hop as a healing medium for war-afflicted people in Africa and has also been sought out for the international lecture circuit with major talks at popular talkfests like TED.[174]

Many K-Pop artists in South Korea have been influenced by hip hop. Many South Koreans perform hip hop music. In Seoul, South Korea, Koreans b-boy.[175]



Organizations and facilities are providing spaces and programs for communities to explore making and learning about hip hop. An example is the IMP Labs in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Many dance studios and colleges now offer lessons in hip hop alongside tap and ballet, as well as KRS-ONE teaching hip hop lectures at Harvard University. Hip hop producer 9th Wonder and former rapper-actor Christopher "Play" Martin from hip hop group Kid-n-Play have taught hip hop history classes at North Carolina Central University[178] and 9th Wonder has also taught a "Hip Hop Sampling Soul" class at Duke University.[179] In 2007, the Cornell University Library established a Hip Hop Collection to collect and make accessible the historical artifacts of hip hop culture and to ensure their preservation for future generations.[180]

Values and philosophyEdit


Since the age of slavery, music has long been the language of African American identity. Because reading and writing were forbidden under the auspices of slavery, music became the only accessible form of communication. Hundreds of years later, in inner-city neighborhoods plagued by high illiteracy and dropout rates, music remains the most dependable medium of expression. Hip Hop is thus to the Hood as Negro Spirituals are to the Plantation: the emergent music articulates the terrors of one’s environment better than written, or spoken word, thereby forging an “unquestioned association of oppression with creativity [that] is endemic” to African American culture”.[181] In hip hop culture, it is thus considered essential to "keep it real" or to be authentic to the lived experiences of people from disadvantaged neighborhoods ("the Ghetto"). Despite the fact that hip hop artists typically use imagined scenarios and fictionalized stories in their raps, the culture demands that they act as if all their lyrics are true or potentially true. Because of this, lyrics of rap songs have often been treated as "confessions" to a number of violent crimes in the United States.[182] It is also considered to be the duty of rappers and other hip hop artists (DJs, dancers) to "represent" their city and neighborhood. This demands being proud of being from disadvantaged cities neighborhoods that have traditionally been a source of shame, and glorifying them in lyrics and graffiti. This has potentially been one of the ways that hip hop has become regarded as a "local" rather than "foreign" genre of music in so many countries around the world in just a few decades. Nevertheless, sampling and borrowing from a number of genres and places is also a part of the hip hop milieu, and an album like the surprise hit Kala by Anglo-Tamil rapper M.I.A. was recorded in locations all across the world and features sounds from a different country on every track.[183]

According to scholar Joseph Schloss, the essentialist perspective of Hip Hop conspicuously obfuscates the role that individual style and pleasure plays in the development of the genre. Schloss notes that Hip Hop is forever fossilized as an inevitable cultural emergent, as if “none of hip-hop’s innovators had been born, a different group of poor black youth from the Bronx would have developed hip-hop in exactly the same way”.[181] However, while the pervasive oppressive conditions of the Bronx were likely to produce another group of disadvantaged youth, he questions whether they would be equally interested, nonetheless willing to put in as much time and energy into making music as Grandmaster Flash, DJ Kool Herc, and Afrika Bambaataa. He thus concludes that Hip Hop was a result of choice, not fate, and that when individual contributions and artistic preferences are ignored, the genre’s origin becomes overly attributed to collective cultural oppression.


Graffiti depicting US rapper 50 Cent. Larry Nager of The Cincinnati Enquirer wrote that 50 Cent has "earned the right to use the trappings of gangsta rap – the macho posturing, the guns, the drugs, the big cars and magnums of champagne. He's not a poseur pretending to be a gangsta; he's the real thing."[184]


Paul Gilroy and Alexander Weheliye state that unlike disco, jazz, R&B, house music, and other genres that were developed in the African-American community and which were quickly adopted and then increasingly controlled by white music industry executives, hip hop has remained largely controlled by African American artists, producers and executives.[185] In his book, Phonographies, Weheliye describes the political and cultural affiliations that hip hop music enables.[186] In contrast, Greg Tate states that the market-driven, commodity form of commercial hip hop has uprooted the genre from the celebration of African-American culture and the messages of protest that predominated in its early forms.[187] Tate states that the commodification and commercialization of hip hop culture undermines the dynamism of the genre for African-American communities.

These two dissenting understandings of hip hop's scope and influence frame debates that revolve around hip hop's possession of or lack of authenticity.[188] Anticipating the market arguments of Tate and others, both Gilroy and Weheliye assert that hip hop has always had a different function than Western popular music as a whole, a function that exceeds the constraints of market capitalism. Weheliye notes, "Popular music, generally in the form of recordings, has and still continues to function as one of the main channels of communication between the different geographical and cultural points in the African diaspora, allowing artists to articulate and perform their diasporic citizenship to international audiences and establish conversations with other diasporic communities."[189] For Paul Gilroy, hip hop proves an outlet of articulation and a sonic space in which African Americans can exert control and influence that they often lack in other sociopolitical and economic domains.[190]


Traditional vs. progressive viewsEdit

Ever since the over-commercialization of hip hop occurred between the late 1980s and the mid 1990s (at peak), traditional hip hop supporters have been in a feud with more progressive hip hop fans, claiming that they are uneducated towards what they are building. The traditionalists also claim that progressives are not only building music that steps further and further away from Hip Hop, but causes ignorance and misconceptions between fans of more progressive Hip Hop and fans of traditional Hip Hop culture. These views have been narrowed heavily over the past couple of years and have experienced change of views from the traditional side, as well as acceptance towards evolution of hip hop.

However, all of these beliefs seem to still be viewed under very specific sets of morals and ethics. Such as that one does not take themselves away, or deny the true past of hip hop (doing such would result in ignorance of the history of hip hop, and a completely disconnected community of fans who become uncertain as to what truly should be considered hip hop). Hip hop is also known to be the music of the oppressed (African Americans, Puerto Ricans and women) and activist based. Fans of more progressed Hip Hop have received both acclaim due to innovation and futuristic views, as well as strong criticism due to lack of proper education and what is felt as a completely changed form of values, rather than evolved.

Like most grassroots cultures, hip hop initially rejected the views and support of the mainstream industry, however eventually learned to be content due to the understanding of what opportunity and voice could be given. The Father of Hip Hop, DJ Kool Herc recently criticized the cancelled Netflix series The Get Down due to its lack of viewer response, by calling it 'The Let Down' and that legendary hip hop DJ Grandmaster Flash is Grandmaster Trash. Herc criticized the whole production for their misrepresentations of history and culture.

However, he did state that he does support many stars in rap today such as Lil Wayne and Drake.[193] Herc, and many other old school hip hop legends such as Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Caz originally held views against mainstream rap.[194] However, recent interviews have shown to prove that even they have changed their ways to a certain extent.[195] However, rappers like KRS-One still feel a strong disapproval of the rap industry, especially through mainstream media.[196]



Commercialization and stereotypingEdit

In 2012, hip hop and rap pioneer Chuck D, from the group Public Enemy criticized young hip hop artists from the 2010s, stating that they have taken a music genre with extensive roots in underground music and turned it into commercialized pop music.[200] In particular, seminal figures in the early underground, politically-motivated music, such as Ice T, have criticized current hip hop artists for being more concerned with image than substance.[201] Critics have stated that 2010s hip hop artists are contributing to cultural stereotyping of African-American culture and are poseur gangsters. Critics have also stated that hip hop music promotes drug use and violence.[202][203][204]


Marginalization of womenEdit

Hip hop artist Lauryn Hill has been successful as a solo performer and as a member of the Fugees. This photo shows her performing at the Ottawa Bluesfest in 2012.

The hip hop music genre and its subculture has been criticized for its gender bias and its negative impacts on women in African-American culture. Gangsta rap artists such as Eazy-E, Dr. aidz and Snoop Dogg have song lyrics that portray women as sex toys, and as people who are inferior to and dependent on men (though Eazy-E is deceased, Dr. Dre makes music less frequently since about the '90s and has apologized for his views which carried over into actuality, and Snoop Dogg has become extremely diversified and changed his image in a positive way.)[206] Between 1987 and 1993, over 400 hip hop songs had lyrics that described violence toward women including rape, assault, and murder.[207] These anti-women hip hop lyrics have led some male listeners to make physical threats toward women and they have created negative stereotypes of young urban African-American women.[208] Hip hop music promotes masculine hegemony and it depicts women as individuals who must rely on men.[207] The portrayal of women in hip hop lyrics and videos tends to be violent, degrading, and highly sexualized. There is a high frequency of songs with lyrics that are demeaning, or depict sexual violence or sexual assault towards women.[209] Videos often portray idealized female bodies and depict women as being the object of male pleasure.[210]

Very few female artists have been recognized in hip hop, and the most popular, successful and influential artists, record producers and music executives are males. Women who are in rap groups, such as Lauryn Hill of the Fugees, tend to have less advantages and opportunities than male artists.[211] Female artists have received little to no recognition in hip hop. Only one female artist has won Best Rap album of the year at the Grammy Awards since the category was added in 1995.[212] In addition, African American female hip hop artists have been recognized even less in the industry.[213]

Marginalization of LatinasEdit

Latinas especially Cuban, Dominican and Puerto Rican women are degraded and fetishized in hip hop. White women and Asian women are also fetishized in hip hop but not as much as Latinas, who are referred to as “Spanish”. Latinas especially Puerto Rican models and Dominican models are often portrayed as a object of sexual desire in hip hop videos.

Homophobia and transphobiaEdit

As well, the hip hop music community has been criticized for its homophobia and transphobia.[214] Hip hop song lyrics contain offensive, homophobic slurs (most popularly, the pejorative term "faggot") and sometimes violent threats towards queer people, such as rapper DMX's "Where the Hood At," rapper Eazy-E's "Nobody Move," rap group Brand Nubian's "Punks Jump Up to Get Beat Down".[215] Many rappers and hip hop artists have advocated homophobia and/or transphobia.[216] These artists include Ja Rule, who in an interview claimed,"We need to go step to MTV and Viacom, and let's talk about all these fucking shows that they have on MTV that is promoting homosexuality, that my kids can’t watch this shit,"[3] and rap artist Erick Sermon, who has said publicly,"[Hip hop] will never accept transgender rappers."[4] Until the 2010s, hip hop music has excluded the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. This has perpetuated a culture in hip hop that is prejudiced towards queer and trans people, making it a tough culture for queer artists to participate in.[214] Despite this prejudice, some queer/genderqueer rappers and hip hop artists have become successful and popular in the 2010s. One of the more notable members of the LGBT community in hip hop is Frank Ocean, who came out in 2012 and has released critically acclaimed albums and won two Grammy Awards.[5] Other successful queer hip hop/rap artists include female bisexual rapper Azealia Banks, pansexual androgynous rapper and singer Angel Haze, lesbian rapper Siya, and genderqueer rapper Mykki Blanco.[citation needed]


Having its roots in reggae, disco, funk and soul music, hip hop has since expanded worldwide. Its expansion includes events like Afrika Bambaataa's 1982 releasing of Planet Rock, which tried to establish a more global harmony. In the 1980s, the British Slick Rick became the first international hit hip hop artist not native to America.[citation needed] From the 1980s onward, television made hip hop global. From Yo! MTV Raps to Public Enemy's world tour, hip hop spread to Latin America and became a mainstream culture. Hip hop has been cut, mixed and adapted as it the music spreads to new areas.[217][218][unreliable source?]

Mary J. Blige performing.
Londoner Kate Tempest performing at the Treefort Music Fest

Early hip hop[by whom?] may have reduced inner-city gang violence by replacing physical violence with hip hop battles of breakdancing, turntablism, rapping and artwork. However, with the emergence of commercial and crime-related gangsta rap during the early 1990s, violence, drugs, weapons, and misogyny, were key themes. Socially and politically conscious hip hop has long been disregarded by mainstream America in favor of its media-baiting sibling, gangsta rap.[64] Alternative hip hop artists attempt to reflect the original elements of the culture. Artists/groups such as Lupe Fiasco, Immortal Technique, Lowkey, Brother Ali, Public Enemy, The Roots, Shing02, Jay Electronica, Nas, Common, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Dilated Peoples, Dead Prez, Bizzy Brown, Blackalicious, Jurassic 5, Jeru the Damaja, Kendrick Lamar, Gangstarr, KRS-One, Living Legends emphasize messages of verbal skill, internal/external conflicts, life lessons, unity, social issues, or activism.


Many have written about these intersections of hip-hop and feminism. One such example is Savannah Shange's article on Nicki Minaj entitled A King Named Nicki: Strategic queerness and the black femmecee. In her article, Shange discusses the inability to categorize Nicki Minaj’s music as either specifically hetero or homosexual. She ways that Nicki uses a sort of strategic queerness to that uses her sex appeal both ways to attract her audience. Shange writes how even when looking at Nicki’s music and persona from a homonormative lens, she defies categorization. She goes on to describe how Minaj “is a rapper whose critical, strategic performance of queer femininity is inextricable linked to the production and reception of their rhymes.” In this way, Nicki Minaj's performative style enables her to make similarly great strides as those who came before her.

For women, artists such as Missy Elliott, Lil' Kim, Young M.A. and others are providing mentorship for new female MCs. In addition, there is a vibrant scene outside the mainstream that provides an opportunity for women and their music to flourish.[60] Rap music has the power to influence how we view black women in our society. Queen Latifah used her award-winning song "U.N.I.T.Y." to support to other women and to inform of the presence of women in the hip hop genre. However, many contemporary females in hip hop do not embody this mindset and counteract it.[221] In 2014, Iggy Azalea was the first White female rapper to go mainstream and was the first White female rapper to have a number-one hit with “Fancy” in history.[222]

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Further readingEdit

  • Chang, Jeff. Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop. Basic Books, 2008.
  • Fitzgerald, Tamsin. Hip-Hop and Urban Dance. Heineman Library, 2008.

External linksEdit