My Understanding of Hip Hop...

Topic: How Is Hip Hop Affecting The Teen Violence Rate In Society?

In my short 15 years of life, I’ve learned that Hip Hop is a big issue in my community. The youth around my side of town looks up to these rap artists and adores their music. Over the years, Hip Hop has transformed into a somewhat violent topic, which led to many deaths of our young people. I understand that a lot of these artists are not trying to “promote” teen violence, but that’s what they are being misguided to understand. Life as a young African-American is not really easy; so many people expect less from us and with this kind of music we now listen to, it is not really helping. Hopefully this is an eye-opener to all youth, and not just focused on the young African-Americans.

The Birth of Hip Hop

Straddling the border between "musique concrete" and audio-verite', New York turntablists Steve "Steinski" Stein and Douglas "Double Dee" DiFranco founded DJing as a form of art with their influential "lessons" (as they called their collages): The Payoff Mix (1983), The James Brown Mix (1985), The History of Hip-Hop (1985). These were records made of (snippets of) records, ranging from tv soundtracks to jazz, from the beginning of the recording era to contemporary hits. New York hip-hop producer Marley Marl(Marlon Williams), who made his reputation with Roxanne Shante's Roxanne's Revenge (1984), was largely responsible for creating the sound of "rap-party" based around the new sampling techniques, a skillful combination of James Brown grooves and drum loops. His "Juice Crew" boasted the sexy Big Daddy Kane (Antonio Hardy), the MC of Raw (1988), the comedian Biz Markie (Marcell Hall), i.e. the human beat box of "Make the Music With Your Mouth" (1988), and street chronicler Kool G Rap (Nathaniel Wilson) of Streets of New York (1991), not to mention Marl's own The Symphony (1991), a summa of the whole crew.

Hip-hop established a significantly different paradigm of music-making. Shifting the emphasis from the melody to the rhythm was not simply an extension of what funk music had already done: it was a Copernican revolution that changed the very meaning of the word "song". The elegant melody of pop music was a negation of reality, whereas the intricate rhythms of hip-hop music was an affirmation of reality. Where melodic songs were, fundamentally, meant to offer a respite from the real world, a hip-hop song was a way to perform a total immersion into it. Pop music was about being a victim or a protagonist: hip-hop music was about being a witness. Pop music was about making storytelling memorable and mnemonic: hip-hop music was about making storytelling as coldly factual as news reporting. The sonic montage made possible by sampling techniques added a further dimension. Pop conceived art as order: hip-hop conceived art as chaos. As electronic devices replaced the traditional instruments, composition became a branch of engineering, and engineering became a way to reflect the chaos of the (urban) environment.
I Got This Information From: http://www.scaruffi.com/history/cpt417.html