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Overview

As both a musical genre and a mass culture movement, hip-hop was developed in the United States by inner-city African American and Latino American youth in the Bronx borough of New York City during the 1970s. Since then, the genre has developed more complex styles and spread around the world.

Be ready to:

Describe the four elements of hip-hop and explain their significance to hip-hop.

Identify members of the holy trinity of hip-hop and understand nonviolent ethos.

Name two individuals responsible for establishing the DJ as an authority figure.

Define gangsta rap, including notable artists and their songs.

Articulate how and why new jack swing and other hybrids emerged during the late 1980s.

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References

Breakdancing

Hip-hop denotes the practice of the entire culture defined by four key elements, beginning with breakdancing. Early b-boys SIDE NOTEA b-boy is a person devoted to breaking or break dancing. would battle with one another, and through battling, the various technical aspects of breakdancing were honed and developed. There were several crews of young folk who participated in the development of breakdancing. One of the earliest and now most legendary breaking crews is the Rock Steady Crew. Bronx b-boys Jimmy D. and Jojo established the legendary Rock Steady Crew . Crazy Legs and Lenny Len joined them in 1979. The following scene from Beat Street shows a battle between the NYC Breakers and the Rock Steady Crew:

Beat Street Roxy Battle. NYC Breakers vs Rock Steady Crew [ 00:00-00:00 ]

B-boy DanceMachine at the Breakfast Jam finals in Kampala, Uganda on November 19, 2016

Grafitti

TAKI 183 tag on the NYC subway

The next foundational element of hip-hop culture is graffiti art. Many people think this designation is an oxymoron. After all, it is against the law to spray paint names or images onto public property, so graffiti is an act of vandalism in its most rudimentary form. Nonetheless, it is accepted as a valid artistic component of hip-hop. There are various reasons for this. For one, graffiti, like hip-hop in general, attracts people from many different cultures. For example, a Greek graffiti writer could easily understand the motivations of their African American, Jamaican, West Indian, Puerto Rican, Asian, Dominican, or Cuban counterparts.

Additionally, graffiti underscores the urge to manipulate public property and services to benefit youth culture, particularly the processes of self-identification among inner-city youth. In this regard, several scholars have interpreted the attitudes of early adopters of hip-hop to reclaim public spaces through loud sounds or graffiti. A good example is using the subway to quickly and effectively circulate the tag "TAKI 183" throughout the five boroughs. TAKI 183 was a graffiti tagger active during the late 1960s and early 1970s in New York City. His tag was short for "Dimitraki," an alternative for his Greek birth name Dimitrios, and the number 183 came from his address on 183rd Street in Washington Heights.

Rakim

The golden age was when people were starting to understand what hip-hop was and how to use it. I was lucky to come up then. Everybody wanted to be original and have substance; it was somewhat conscious...There was an integrity that people respected.

Quincy Jones

I guess hip-hop has been closer to the pulse of the streets than any music we've had in a long time. It's sociology as well as music, which is in keeping with the tradition of Black music in America.