3. Definition of Hip-Hop
• Hip-Hop is a music genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that
commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is
chanted. It developed as part of hip hop culture, a subculture defined by four
key stylistic elements: MCing/rapping, DJing, break dancing, and graffiti
writing. Other elements include sampling and beatboxing.
4. History of the Hip-Hop genre
• In the 1970s an underground urban movement known as "hip hop" began to
develop in the South Bronx area of NewYork City focusing
on emceeing, breakbeats, and house parties. Starting at the home of DJ
Kool Herc at the high-rise apartment at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, the
movement then spread across the entire borough. Rap developed both
inside and outside of hip hop culture, and began in America in earnest with
the street parties thrown in the Bronx neighborhood of NewYork in the
1970s.The lyrical content of many early rap groups focused on social issues
5. The Hip-Hop genre and the media
• Hip Hop culture has had a heavy influence in the media, especially in
television.There have been a number of television shows assigned to or
about hip hop. For example, BET (black entertainment television) was the
only channel likely to play hip hop, but in recent years the mainstream
channels such asVH1 and MTV have added a considerable amount of hip
hop to their play list. With the development of the Internet a number of
online sites began to offer hip hop related video content.
6. Conventions of the Hip-Hop genre
• Rhyming
• Swearing (occasionally)
• Jewellery
• Casual clothes (occasional baggy clothing)
• Close ups of artist
• Alcohol
• Drugs
• Urban dancing
• Hot women
7. • Ernest Morrell and Jeffery DuncanAndrade compare hip hop to the works of
great “canon” poets of the modern era, who use imagery and mood to
directly criticize society. As quoted in their seminal work, ‘Promoting
Academic Literacy with UrbanYouthThrough Engaging Hip Hop Culture’:
“Hip hop texts are rich in imagery and metaphor and can be used to teach
irony, tone, diction, and point of view. Hip hop texts can be analyzed for
theme, motif, plot, and character development. Both Grand Master Flash and
T.S. Eliot gazed out into their rapidly deteriorating societies and saw a
"wasteland." Both poets were essentially apocalyptic in nature as they
witnessed death, disease, and decay.”
