Creation of Hip Hop Flashcards
Foundations of Hip Hop
South Bronx in 1960s.
Massive urban decay, no jobs, crime rates high “war zone”, poverty
70% black men under the age of 35 have been arrested at one point
- Washington Report
Rise and expansion of a small Black middle class, education levels and opportunities.
= Success of the Civil Rights movement
By the end of the 1980s, 1/3 of African American families fell below the poverty level
Info regarding the first person who threw Hip Hop’s first disco party
Kool Herc man who threw Hip Hop’s first disco party on 1973 August 11th
- 1520 Sedgwick Avenue.
- 40-50 people at home.
Zulu Nation
Afrika Bambaataa
- Zulu Nation (1973) is all about embracing African culture
- Black spades (gang that Bambaataa) conquering areas
= Street gang culture
- Music was another way to get them out of gangs
= Release the pressure
Grand Mixer DXT
- Disconnected from African heritage
- Rescued that consciousness through Zulu Nation
Person who changes Hip Hop
Grandmaster Flash (changed Hip Hop)
- Fascination that spun around.
e.g. Bicycles, washing machine
- Mix and slow, blends of records together
- Most DJ toner, sloppy off beat. BUT Flash changed this
= Let it go, stopped it, let it go…
Jazzy Jay = “Flash was the turntable god to us”
“Holy Trinity”: known as Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa
Continuity: A voice to the youth, community and social protest
Mid 1970s the genre gained mainstream recognition.
= Record such as Rapper’s Delight by The Sugarhill Gang (1979)
Street parties/block parties are also symbolic of the creation of hip hop as it cements its birth in low socio-economic urban areas.
Local to global
Development of new technologies (Cable television to CD’s to Spotify) and global media industries (MTV)
Soundscan (data tracking of records sold) assisted in moving global acceptance as revealed that rap was on top of the charts in record sale
Media corporations, driven by the profit motive, have capitalised on social networking sites to push the commercial products associated with hip hop
Local to global Tricia Rose
“Large numbers of young, white consumers wanted to hear gangster rap music…encouraged an increase in record-label investment in hip hop production, distribution and promotion on the radio”.
Technologies that have assisted the development of Hip Hop
YouTube views and digital streams as legitimate ways to legally interact with music.
Billboard Hottest 100 – Started using Youtube.social media consumption
Example of technology local to global
Soulja Boy started out on SoundClick, a music-based social community, where his first debut single “Crank That” received international success
- The dance was further popularised on YouTube as a platform for artists with more than 487 million views.
Example: Mix-tapes and online distribution
2007, rapper Lil Wayne rose to fame for releasing hundreds of original songs online to the public.
The songs were free downloads in the form of mix tapes, on which he built songs from the beats of other artists. An example of this was his double-mix-tape release Da Drought 3.
Example: Social Media
Independent artists rely heavily on social networking sites as a medium to give their fans music, and to get instantaneous feedback on it.
For example, Odd Future relied on Tumblr to release free mixtapes to their fans.
Tik Tok, Camp’s “Lottery” + “Old Town Road” + Drake’s “Toosie Slide”
Soulja Boy
Started out on SoundClick - music based social community
His debut single “Crank That” received international success
- Dance was a viral dance → resurfaced on Tik Tok
YouTube → 487 million views
Japan local to global
- Introduce Hip Hop
- Television
DJ and streetwear idol Hiroshi Fujiwara is credited for introducing hip hop to Japan in the 1980s
American records, spinning tracks in clubs throughout Tokyo.
Development of unique terminology: “Spray poison” - Japanese slang for how rappers flow or spit their rhymes
Hip-hop based television, popularity of the genre in Japan e.g. Thumpin’ Camp DVD
Quote on Japan Hip Hop local to global
“It’s interesting to see just how moving [rap] is for people of all different backgrounds and who speak different languages…”
Jayda B., founder of feminist music collective Bae Tokyo
Hip Hop Japan
Artists
Clubs
Parks
Success in the 90s (centered in Tokyo)
- King Giddra and Buddha Brand
Hip hop-centric clubs: Vuenos and Harlem
Yoyogi Park became popular for ciphers, where anybody interested in freestyling, rapping, or breakdancing can show off their skills.
Hip Hop Japan Fashion quote
Takatsuki Yo, a writer for BBC Tokyo, states, “There are more than 300 shops selling hip-hop clothes in central Tokyo alone.”
Hip Hop Lofi + Japan interact with West
Commonly known as Nujabes, the legendary Tokyo-born producer pioneered the style of Japanese hip hop
Artist Takashi Murakami famously designed the cover for Kanye West’s Graduation
Hip hop–inspired anime like Afro Samurai and Samurai Champloo became two of the most commonly sampled scripts
Sound Icloud + Music length + Youtube stats + Economic of music
3 recordings had hit 1 billion hip hop.
2 of the biggest songs in 2019 from here get a record deal from this exposure
Gucci gang “Lil Pum” (2017) is 2 min 44 seconds. 124 seconds
Shortest song enter Billboard Top 10 in 40 years
1.3 billion users use YouTube just for music
47% of music streaming excluding China
Gucci gang = Lil Pum (2017)
→ $8 million
Spain censorship of Hip Hop
Tweets of joke could be arrested.
In 2016, 74 people under Article 578. In 2017, 12 rappers arrested in Spain
3 of jail for glorification of terrorism, insults to the crown
Thailand Censorship
Since coup in 2014 military enforced censorship.
Rap Against dictatorship is a Thai group founded in 2017
“What My Country’s Got” Lyrics: “This is a country whose minister watch belongs to a corpse”
= 20 million in just 2 years
Recreates 1976 photo - graphic.
= 46 students killed. Thailands Tiennamen square
Thailand 4.0 released in 2018
- 60,000 dislikes out of 4 million views
Local to global negative impact on origin quote
“Some critics argue that the commercialisation and the globalisation of hip-hop music dilutes its message so that the genre no longer truly represents the voice of the black community.”
- Rapper Mos Def’s 1999 manifesto “Fear Not of Man”
Statistics for Spotify
The genre’s share of listening in Europe has grown by an average of 20% every year for the past five years.
Local-language hip-hop is also consistently in Spotify’s top 10 most-engaged playlists in Europe, says Sulinna Ong
Globalisation and technology on the consumption of Hip Hop quote
“Now urban artists can access a large audience without those things.” -Antoine Monin
How local to global has had positive racial impact
In America, Hip-Hop has transcended the racial boundaries between Black and White
→ E.g. Leading choreographer Alexander Chung and Matt Steffanina are non-black.
Stats on the physical media sales + Spotify + social media music
Fallen from 132 million 2008 to 32 million by 2018
Spotify in 2016 its number of paid subscribers globally was 30 million but by 2019 it had more than tripled that figure to 100 million.
90% of social media users take part in some form of music or artist related activity on social platforms
Commodification - Sneakers/Fashion
Hip Hop collaborations with shoes began in 1986.
- 2016 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, Run D.M.C. and Adidas.
Grand View Research Inc said by 2025 that the size of global athletic footwear reach $95.14 billion.
When a fan purchases this sneaker, they demonstrate to the world their link to the artists + their belonging to the pop culture and they gain status.
Artist + Nike collaboration song + statistics
Air Force Ones - by Nelly
A tribute to the classic Nike Air Force 1 shoe, and a wildly successful single for Nelly that reached number 3 on the US Billboard 100.
Commodification process quote
Marxist theory, which argues that in a capitalist society the market “endows objects with a ‘mystical character’ that makes them appear to be of value in and of themselves, rather than as products of human labour or by virtue of their use-value”
- (Jenkins, 2011).
Rap group that transformed Hip hop into a commodity
The Sugarhill Gang was the first hip-hop group to sell more than two million records with their 1979 ‘Rappers Delight’ single.
= End of rap music as a voice from the Bronx
Quote of perpetration of violence due to the commodification process
Christopher Smith contends: “Public Enemy made the ghetto visible in order to abolish it. Many of today’s rappers make the ghetto visible in order to sell and be sold.”
Role of mythology
The story of Kool Herc and Cindy’s party has become part of the legend of hip hop, with thousands claiming they were there
The “ghetto” represents the environment where heroes and legends are made.
= Becomes part of the mythology that helped perpetuate hip hop
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and Afrika Bambaataa - the idea of the “Holy Trinity”
Role of mythology - Thug Life
Tupac “Thug Life” tattooed as a way of linking him to the street life and social context that is embedded in the origins of the popular culture.
Acrynom: “The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody”
- Represented marginalization of black youth ends up negatively affecting society
Continuities and change
Everything Is Everything - (1998) by Lauryn Hill
- Gender equality
Straight Outta Compton by N.W.A– criticse police
- Police brutality against black people
Obama Box Office in 2009 26%, but 2015 it went back up
C&C Old School
1979 to 1983
Rapping, beatboxing, scratching and sampling
Refined their techniques as advanced in recording technology made sampling easier
SugarHill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” recognized as the first hip-hop record to gain widespread popularity.
Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five’s “The Message” showed that hip-hop was also capable of delivering social commentary
C&C Conscious Wave
1983-2000
Wide variety of topics inlcuidng race, politics, poverty and the environment
Nas’ Illmatic and Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt are personal narratives about growing up in and hustling out of poverty-stricken urban neighbours
Aimed overall maturation of music and lyrics that encouraged listeners to think critically of the world around them
Conscious rap was often seen as a more positive form of the genre
C&C Blog Era
2006-2014
The Internet created new music distribution channels and record sales began to decline, emerging artists started using new tools to promote their releases and find new audiences for their music
Atlanta-based rapper Soulja Boy harnesses the power of the internet for music promotion.
- MySpace, Youtube effectively marketed his way into a viral hit with “Crank That”
This era removed barriers to entry into the music industry for many new artists at the start of their careers, including Drake, J. Cole and Nicki Minaj
Overview of continuities
Lyrics and graffiti generally a reflection of social issues
Encompass rhyming over a continuous beat, graffiti and breakdancing
Has a large influence over youth culture
Artists often do not have any professional training in music, art or dance
Enables people to feel connected to a culture or community
Controversial - rap lyrics continue to cause debate among groups within society
Overview of change
Content of lyrics - gangsta rap uses racial, misogynistic and homophobic language
Graffiti or street art has become commercialised and is gaining acceptance in some areas
More female and white artists
Technology - changes in the production and consumption of music, e.g. artists are now releasing songs on YouTube
Promotion of products through product placement an endorsement
Global product - local interpretations of hip hop can lead to lack of authenticity
Content analysis - Song 1
NWA - Straight Outta Compton (1988)
N Words and swearing
More aggressive to get the message across
Gangster clothes
Being arrested by the police
Exclusively male
‘Bitch’ and ‘hoe’: sexualised reference to women
White policemen
Content analysis - Song 2
Afrika Bambaataa & The Soulsonic Force - Planet Rock (1982)
Repeated phrases throughout the song
“Be what you want to be”
Baggy clothing
Bloc party emphasis
‘Positive’ interactions
→ Zulu Nation
Men presented as masculine
Most women watching and not participating
