(soap) unit 5 notes hip hop & rap

April 30, 2013THE SOCIOLOGYOF AMERICANPOPULAR MUSIC(SOAP)UNIT 5 NOTESHIP HOP & RAP

OVERVIEW OF HIP-HOP AND RAP MUSIC TRADITIONSDefining Hip-Hop and Rap - Hip-Hop Culture: - HIP-HOP is the name forthe culture of which rap is simply a part - hip-hop culture initially had four mainelements: 1. emceeing (rapping), 2. break dancing, 3. graffiti art,and 4. DJ'ing - eventually, it included the new styles of language and fashionthat were popular among rappers and their fansRAP is a vocal style of rhythmic speaking in rhyme - the voice is used as apercussive instrument while delivering messages in a complicated verbal rhythm- the actual speaking is called "rapping" or "MC'ing" - early rap artists wantedtheir lyrics to be clearly understood, and the patter format seemed to achieve thisclarity - initially, rapping was simply chants and call-and-response rhymes over aDJ's manipulations of records - it became one aspect of a cultural phenomenoncalled "hip-hop," apparently from early rap lyrics such as "Say hip, hop, you don'tstop."Hip-Hop as a Distinct Musical Style - hip-hop has also been used to refer to themusical style in which a kind of patter-song vocal technique is used that issomewhere in between, or combines elements of, rapping and singing a melodicmelody - singers in this style also use an electronic-generated and highlyrhythmic music texture as backup - as rap became more associated with socialand political messages, hip-hop tended to maintain the earlier partyatmosphere associated with reggae and the funk DJs who had initiated the styleRAP AND HIP-HOP IN A SOCIAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT - Rootsof Rap in African and African-American Oral Traditions - rhymed andrhythmic speaking has always been an integral part of African-American culturesApril 30, 2013

April 30, 2013- James Brown, the "Godfather of Soul" and the originator of funk, had used aspeaking style on message songs of the 1960s ("Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'mProud") - Louis Jordan had used rhythmic speech in songs such as "SaturdayNight Fish Fry" in the 1940s - rhythmic and rhymed speech can be traced in asteady line from musicians of all genres of African-American music back throughrhymed "signifying," storytelling preaching, and eventually back to the griots(traveling poets) of traditional cultures of West AfricaThe Syndetic Approach - rap and hip-hop's compositional technique of samplingis also seen as having African roots - in West African cultures, the interactionbetween youth, elders, and ancestors was grounded in a process called syndesis, inwhich descendants were encouraged to respond to previous works of art by takingelements of those works and incorporating them into their new creations - thisprocess is seen in instrumental "quotations" in both the blues and jazz, and it is onsome level also the basis of sampling - although rhythmic speech and syndesis canbe seen in many forms of African-American culture, it has found its strongest andmost sustained expression in hip-hop and rapThe Earliest Hip-Hop and Rap - KOOL HERC - born Clive Campbell inKingston, Jamaica - moved to the Bronx area of New York City as a teenager andbecame a successful DJ in the early 1970s - Herc began concentrating on the"break" segment of the song, which was the section in between vocal choruses andverses where just the instruments, especially the percussion, took over

- knowing the popularity of this part of the song with partiers, he decided to usetwo copies of the same record on two different turntables and cut back and forthbetween them in order to make the break last longer - this produced the"breakbeat," the sound that became the starting point for much hip-hop andlater techno - the people who became his most serious devotees were the dancerswho saved their best moves for the break section in the song, and it was throughthis that they became known as "break boys," or simply "b-boys," and the stylebecame known as break dancingGRANDMASTER FLASH - (Joseph Sadler) grew up in the Bronx, idolized KoolHerc - became a successful DJ who began using a cue monitor, allowing him tohear one record through headphones while the other was playing for the audience -he soon surpassed Kool Herc in popularity - he also introduced a technique ofworking the needle back and forth rhythmically that became known as"scratching" - he also began using multiple MCs simultaneously to engage thecrowd - Afrika Bambaataa, another early important Bronx DJ, released a recordcalled "Planet Rock," a seminal presentation of scratching, electronic additions,high-tech beats, cutting rhythms, and highly processed vocalsSUGARHILL GANG - in 1979, this early hip-hop group rapped over the rhythmtrack taken from a recent #1 disco record called "Good Times" by the R&B groupChic - the song, "Rapper's Delight," became an immediate, commercial catalystfor subsequent recordings of hip-hop and rap - by the late 1970s, rap was becominga response to disco, the music style that dominated popular radio, and that to manymany young urban blacks was a watered down and insipid version of the soul andfunk music that had been popular in the 1960sApril 30, 2013

Shift in Rap from Party Music to Social Commentary - in 1982, GrandmasterFlash & The Furious Five released the song "The Message," which shifted rapto more social commentary - the record described the desperation and rage felt inthe black community, where hopes and dreams were reduced to efforts to survive("It's like a jungle, sometimes it makes me wonder, how I keep from goingunder.") - the words also describe someone being sent to prison for 8 years, who is"used and abused" by his cellmates until he commits suicide by hanging himself -the song did not make it on to Billboard's Top Forty, but it was honored as "singleof the year" in critics' polls for both Rolling Stone magazine and Village Voicenewspaper- being "real" and "hard" became the new values in rap music, and one suchgroup, RUN D.M.C., was extremely successful (1st rap group to have a goldrecord and be nominated for a Grammy Award) - Def Jam Records, founded in1984 by record producer Rick Rubin and hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons,began to find great success with new artists like LL Cool J - he had 4 platinumalbums by 1991 and became the 1st superstar of rapHip-Hop and Rap Become More Mainstream - in the early 1980s, breakdancing became a national fad and was shown in everything from TVcommercials to fashion magazines - however, rap music remained out of themainstream until the late 1980s - RUN D.M.C. was largely responsible for rap'scrossing over when they collaborated with rock group Aerosmith on the remakeof the band's 1977 song "Walk This Way"- The Beastie Boys' hit "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party)" (1986)was the 1st rap album to hit the top of the Billboard charts- De La Soul's album 3 Feet High and Rising (1989) sampled recordings bySteely Dan and Johnny CashApril 30, 2013

- Queen Latifah's album All Hail the Queen (1989) brought a woman'sperspective into the genre- in August 1989, MTV debuted Yo! MTV Raps, which quickly became thestation's most popular program (aired rap music videos and live in-studioperformances and interviews with rap artists)The Growth of Hard-Core Rap - rap music with a more social and political tonewas evident in the success of Public Enemy, a New York group who released ItTakes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988), and emphasized blacknationalist pride- 1989 - L.A. rap group N.W.A. released their debut album Straight OuttaCompton, an influential recording that contributed to the development of the subgenreknown as "gangsta" rapThe Obscenity Trial of 2 Live Crew - in 1989, Miami's 2 Live Crew releasedNasty as They Wanna Be - a federal court judge in Florida declared the album"obscene," and Florida record store owner Charles Freeman was arrested forselling it in his store - this was the 1st time in the history of the U.S. that afederal court had set down such a ruling about a recording - the album wasbanned in Florida as well as other states - Freeman was found guilty in trial, butthe rap group was acquitted - sales of the album skyrocketedGangsta Rap Becomes Mainstream - in the early 1990s, albums by N.W.A., IceCube, Public Enemy, and Snoop Doggy Dogg jumped to the top of the charts- critics became alarmed, stressing that not only was this type of rap focusingalmost exclusively on pathologies within American culture, particularly blackghetto communities, but also that it was glorifying ghetto life and incitingviolenceApril 30, 2013

- albums with sexually explicit or violent lyrics were required to post a "ParentalWarning" logo on CD covers - 1996 - "West Coast" superstar Tupac Shakur wasmurdered in Las Vegas - 1997 - "East Coast" rapper Notorious B.I.G. was shotand killed- 1998 - rap became America's top-selling musical format - 81 million CDs, tapes,and albums were sold that year - in 1999, whites purchased 70% of hip-hopalbums- in 2001, hip-hop music executive Russell Simmons announced a "Hip-HopSummit" - he invited major artists, recording executives, members of Congress,academics, and civil rights groups to meet in New York to discuss a variety ofissues - people talked about getting artists in the entertainment industry "to takeresponsibility for themselves," to establish mechanisms for conflict resolutionamong artists, and to closely examine artist development and marketing in orderto identify strategies to "elevate the art form"April 30, 2013