This document summarizes the history and key elements of hip-hop music. It notes that hip-hop originated in the Bronx in the 1970s through DJ Kool Herc's parties, where he would rap over instrumentals. The four main elements of hip-hop are emceeing, deejaying, graffiti, and breakdancing. The genre is believed to have spread from the Bronx to other New York boroughs. Subgenres like grime, UK garage, and freestyle rap later emerged with their own styles. The document provides brief overviews of these subgenres.

1. HIP-HOP
Today Hip-Hop is a very popular and wide spread genre which particularly
appeals to the youth in todays society. Hip-Hop is most commonly linked to
crimes and being a “gangster”. Most rap songs are often influenced by the
artist's hard upbringing. These negative things associated with Hip-Hop
often give a bad stereotype of Hip-Hop artists. Hip-Hop is very big in
countries such as USA where some of the best rappers including Eminem
and 50 cent. Hip-Hop is also linked to DJ’ing and songs are often played
at clubs/parties.
The reason why I have chosen this genre is because I like artists such as
Eminem who is one of the biggest Hip-Hop stars of all time. Also this genre
appeals to the younger male audience and Is a popular genre.
AMARJIT SINGH

2. HISTORY OF HIP-HOP
Hip-hop is a form of popular music that's comprised mainly of emceeing and
deejaying. The other two components that complete the four elements of hiphop are graffiti and breakdancing. As hip-hop evolves into big business, the four
elements (emceeing, deejaying, graffiti, and breakdancing) are constantly being
merged with others like clothing trends, slang, and general mind-set.
A product of cross-cultural integration, rap is deeply rooted within ancient
African culture and oral tradition. Hip-hop is believed to have originated in the
Bronx by a Jamaican DJ named Kool Herc. Herc's style of deejaying involved
reciting rhymes over instrumentals. At house parties, Herc would rap with the
microphone, using a myriad of in-house references. Duplicates of Herc's
house parties soon drifted through Brooklyn, Manhattan. Herc and other block
party DJs helped spread the message of hip-hop around town and spawned
tons of followers.
AMARJIT SINGH

3. SIMILAR SUB GENRES
Grime
UK Garage
Freestyle Rap
Grime emerged from Bow, East London with its origins on UK pirate radio stations,
such as Rinse FM, Deja Vu Fm, Freeze 92.7 & MajorFm.com were essential to the
evolution of the genre. This indicated the movement of UK Garage away from its
House influences towards darker themes and sounds. Among the first tracks to be
labelled "Grime" as a genre in itself were 'Eskimo' by Wiley and "Pulse X" by Musical
Mob.[4]
UK Garage(also known as UKG) is a genre of electronic music originating from England in the
early 1990s. UK garage is a descendant of house music which originated in Chicago, Detroit, New
Jersey and New York. The genre usually features a distinctive syncopated 4/4 percussive rhythm
with 'shuffling' hi-hats and beat-skipping kick drums. Garage tracks also commonly feature
'chopped up' and time-shifted or pitch-shifted vocal samples complementing the underlying
rhythmic structure. UK garage was largely subsumed into other styles of music and production in
the mid-2000s, including dub step, baseline and grime. The decline of UK garage during the mid2000s saw the birth of UK funky, which is closely related.
Freestyle is a style of rap, with or without instrumental beats, in which rap lyrics are
improvised, i.e. performed with no previously composed lyrics, and "off the top of the head".
where there is a lead instrumentalist acting as the improviser and the rest of the band providing
the beat. Rap battles are sometimes improvised in this way. However, most modern battles are
prewritten weeks before the actual battle to give the paying audience in large forums a better
show. Prewritten battles were previously frowned upon, and were cause enough to dismiss a
participant from a battle.
AMARJIT SINGH

4. IMAGERY ASSOCIATED WITH HIP-HOP
There are a lot of negative things associated with this genre and this is
particularly due to how rap songs portray things through there lyrics and
by swearing. Things associated with hip-hop is money, sex, cars and
guns. The reason for this is because many hip-hop artists are brought
up surrounded by these things so it influences there lyrics and this gives
Hip-Hop a negative representation.
In terms of artists they wear baggy jeans and hoodies as well as
wearing expensive jewellery and gold chains to show there wealth. This
image is used usually portrayed on Hip-Hop magazines, albums and
music videos. In addition, things like beat boxing which involves making
music from your mouth is often associated with this genre.
AMARJIT SINGH

5. ARTIST THAT COULD FEATURE IN MY MAGAZINE
Genre: Hip-Hop
Artist: Eminem
Target Audience: 18 – 40
Musical Influences: Dr Dre, Tupac, 50 cent,
own childhood and upbringing
Genre: Hip Hop
Artist: Lil Wayne
Target Audience: 15-30
Musical Influences:
Money, fame, sex, guns
Genre: Hip Hop
Artist: 50 cent
Target audience: 16 – 30
Musical Influences: money,
fame girls, Eminem, lil
Wayne, Dr Dre, Bad meets
Evil
Genre: Rap/pop
Artist: Drake
Target Audience: 16 - 30
Musical Influences: Rihanna, Jay z
Genre: Hip Hop
Artist Jay Z
Target Audience: 16-35
Musical Influences: Varies between many
other rappers, main influences are his
personal experiences.
Genre: Hip Hop
Artist: wiz khalifa
Target Audience: 16 – 35
Musical Influences: Mainly
weed/drugs, personal experiences,
child hood, other artists such as
snoop dogg
AMARJIT SINGH