The History Of Hip Hop Music In America
The roots of American hip hop music can be traced down to western Africa and in various foreign cultures. The vocal style of popular rap artists is also found in the griot tradition from Africa, where oral histories were once important and poets would wander from place to place telling their stories.
Street performers, with their freestyle artform, dramatically influenced the impact of American hip hop music over the years.
American hip hop music had another influence that came, it was from New York during the post civil rights era. More and more people were finding that coming together to celebrate personal events was a worthwhile thing to do, and the legendary block parties were soon created.
No longer do disc jockeys stay underground in the club scenes, they started finding new outlets to expose their art of beat driven mixes of soul, funk, and cultural music, performing at block parties all around, entertaining a wide range of audiences.
Their sound gained the attention of many and American hip hop music started to make some noise in the music scene.
The important thing about American hip hop music is that it wasn’t always been confined in a definition as other music genres were. The darker side of rap music gained much exposure for a while, as it assemble its own sense of notoriety, and not in the best of ways.
Meanwhile, DJ made dance mixes was rising in fame and gradually building its own niche in American hip hop music. The underground clubs were quickly becoming mainstream, and soon the two sub-cultures would begin to clash.
Street performers carry with them tapes of DJ mixed beats, and performs their awesome break dance moves to gather crowds, adding up to the hype that is American hip hop.
Meanwhile, at the peak of American hip hop, concert performances started undergoing a transformation, soon turning more into competitions rather than planned exhibitions. Renowned rapper groups would take on all challengers, letting the audience decide the winner with their cheers.
The vibrant world of American hip hop music soon began to lose its luster, as more rebellious artists became victims of their own lifestyles. Tupac Shakur and the Notorious BIG were murdered, and the world of American hip hop music was thrown into a tailspin.
The genre suffered the effects as many of its popular artists fall into committing criminal acts that failed to hide itself from the public eye.
Now, American hip hop music has begun a resurgence in a more defined and acceptable manner.
Gone is the violence and degrading lyrics, replaced with more thoughtful and positive music, with artists once again expressing their creativity with themed albums targeted more to rebuilding the popularity of American hip hop music in today’s world, with themes of love and community being the more prevalent topics.
Whether this new manifestation will go as well with the people as the old remains a question, but it definitely did start off well.
