Hip Hop America

Crystal Renaud

07-04-2012

50:700:497:90

Professor Lally

[Crystal Renaud]

[Professor Lally]

[50:700:497:90]

[07-04-2012]

Hip Hop America

Introduction

By the year 1998, there were hardly any observers of the American popular culture who would refuse to accept the fact that the hip hop music had become very much the trend and has become common in the mainstream. MTV had started playing the music videos by the hip hop artists such as Puff Daddy, Busta Rhymes, DMX, Wyclef Jean and Jay-Z in heavy rotation, along with the Foo Fighters videos, Metallica and Madonna. People who were crazy about them and the other rappers were getting the albums of these singers in huge amounts, trying to copy the fashion that these celebrities carried and talking the slang that these rappers and all would speak. Companies for shoes and soft drinks were using this image of hip hop to market their products. Such an environment made sure that even those people who would try to ignore hip hop were having a hard time in dismissing the influence that had everywhere.

Discussion

In spite of such popularity of the hip hop music in America and its culture the academic, popular, journalistic and popular communities were not at all unified and cohesive in their communication. The lyrics, videos, and the stereotyped gangsta lifestyle were a bit of a problem even for those people who were the most ardent supporters of music. Regarding the hip hop, although there was a lot of to dismiss about it or hate about it, but still there was also a lot to misunderstand it. An apologist was what hip hop needed at that moment or someone who was able to put this trend into its cultural and historical contexts. Basically, what hip hop needed was a Nelson George.

The book Hip Hop America is thought to be an attempt by the journalists of hi hop and an author to put into text the hip hop fans for the critics, fans and anyone who held interest in hip hop or America. The book is some kind of a journalistic expose, a historical document, a review and a fan letter as well. Nelson George, one an American book award in the year 1999, for his book Hip Hop America. The book basically talks about, in a roughly sequential manner and from a first person account about how the concept of hip hop developed from its recluse and foreigner and prehistorical genesis in the late period of the year 1970, to its more complicated, excited and lively integration into the American popular culture in the year 1990.

From Grandmaster Flash to break dancing to sampling, to Run DMC to gansta rap to censorship to Master P, with a number of hundreds of indexed songs, artists and topics in between, the extent of Hip Hop America is as surrounding and encircling as the culture itself. After reading the book, Hip Hop America, if you are unable to believe the thesis of George Nelson, then you might just want to believe and agree the truth that in many of ...