Hip Hop Culture

1. Discuss the shifting significance and meaning of the “mainstream” in the last 15-20 years as a result of global capital. In doing so, be sure to describe how and why this shift occurred and the significance of the house negro/field negro metaphor to the mainstream/underground dichotomy. Using this analysis in relation to hip-hop, as well as Perry's notion of “thug mimicry,” discuss the meaning and significance of 'selling out' and 'buying in' and how songs played in class highlight the complexities around these two categories.

When people think about some features of hip-hop, people usually come up with the rhyming, beats with profound base, and the scratching of a record into their mind. Hip-hop is part of American culture, music, and a lifestyle that has a deep and rich history. The style of music has gone under many phases of development from the rap music that we see these days. The revolutionary pioneer of artists helped to establish the hip-hop trend in many type of music, and its performance and many different styles even makes the music extremely versatile. Today Hip-hop is not only a type of music that we listen to everyday, but it's a culture that is deeply related with American society in 20th century.

Hip-Hop is one of the newest forms of music. It has expanded and is now themost popular form of music for people ages 11-25. In the last 2 years, hip-hop is the most lucrative form of music. It has sold billions of records and has made record companies billions of dollars. Hip-Hop was started in New York City in the late 70's by the cities youth . Hip-Hop was more than just music, it was a culture. It involved many things such as style, of dress, break dancing (a new form of dancing) and the most contraversial, grafitti(a form of art ). All of these aspects are part of the hip-hop culture. Hip-Hop was influenced by many different forms of music such as Rhythm and blues, Rock-n-Roll and Jazz. At parties the disc jockey would have two turntables (phonographs) and a mixer. He would play two different records at the same time creating a whole new sound. Soon poetry was added to hip-hop. While the Dj was creating a new sound, the poet or emcee would say poetry over the beat . This marked the signature sound for hip-hop. So there appeared a new culture, which today is really influential in many aspects like economical, psychological and etc. Especially hip-hop is fame among the teenagers, because of its way of living it is the new fashion that hip-hop brought, new dancing break dance, and graffiti. Generally it is a big big culture, which involves too many things.

Historians dispute that the origins of hip-hop started from the Africa. In fact, the rapping is strongly related to the African ritual practice. In there society the bard is known as the historian and singer, who maintained their history and cultural traditions through a ...