media

1. Toyin Giwa Media Studies
Genre Convention
The breakthrough of rap music came about in the early 1960’s, as it began to
challenge a lot of music boundaries that other music genre had already set.
With the genre firstly growing in Washington, Philadelphia and New York, the
popularity of rap music was mostly influential to black teenagers and soon
began to grow to entertain wider audience. The Sugarhill Gang’s song
‘Rapper Delight’, which was released in 1979, is known as the first major rap
single.
The typical conventions of rap music differ widely from today’s par videos
 Casual clothing, nothing too characteristic but more subtle and loose.
 Sections of direct contact with the camera- the artists usually spends a
lot of time looking straight into the camera as if to talk or have a
conversation with the audience
 Props regarding costume tend to be sued for example, jewellery
 Show a clear display of emotions- if the tone of the songs is angry, the
artist is likely to present this through their gesture and facial
expressions
However nowadays today, a lot a rap artists have another artists featuring in
their track- usually if it were a male rapper, they may decide to employ a
female signer to vocalise the chorus.
The target audience that rap artists try to attract are not too specific but
actually quite broad. It is claimed that they try to appeal to those of as similar
age to themselves so this varies between each artists. However I did find that
when looking at merchandise and blogs of artists such as Lil Wayne and
Kanye West, the target audience was based and 14 to 25.