East Coast: The East Coast, most notably New York City, was the genesis for rap music hitting the mainstream. Run-D.M.C. led the pack, with Rakim and Big Daddy Kane also breaking through to make rap emerge as a national phenomenon.
West Coast: While HipHop was cooking in the East, West Coast rap music gained national recognition in the mid-1980s with performers like Ice T and Too $hort.
Dirty South: While most of the music world's attention focused on rap coming from New York and Los Angeles, HipHop artists in the South were turning to independent music labels to release their work. Geographically, the Dirty South genre encompassed places as diverse as Houston, Birmingham, and Miami, and was greatly influenced by Ghetto Mafia in the mid-1990s. Musically, Dirty South rap is known for is danceabilty and rhythmic delivery.
Gangsta Rap: Some say Gangsta Rap first emerged on the West Coast with N.W.A.'s "Straight Outta Compton" release, while others credit Ice T with taking Gangsta Rap to national acclaim. Characterized by lyrics glamorizing elements of a criminal lifestyle, violence, promiscuity, misogyny, and materialism, Gangsta Rap's controversy came to a head with the murder of the West Coast Tupcac Shakur in 1996, and the subsequent murder of the East Coast's The Notorious B.I.G. in 1997.
Pop Rap: Known for its widespread, mainstream appeal, Pop Rap's first breakout star was LL Cool J. The Fresh Prince and MC Hammer quickly rose to the top of the Pop Rap scene and the music charts with lyrics that were less controversial than those of the Gangsta Rap genre, and thus were more likely to receive radio airplay.
Christian Rap: While HipHop was garnering a reputation for less than savory lyrics and artists for questionable activities, other artists were expressing their faith through HipHop. Christian Rap took off in the late 1980s and early 1990s with rap groups like P.I.D. and S.F.C.
Jazz Rap: Although Jazz Rap has never enjoyed mainstream commercial success, the genre often incorporates Afrocentric and political themes. Gang Starr and Gil Scott-Heron are often cited as two of the first Jazz rappers.
Conscious HipHop: Similar to Jazz Rap, Conscious HipHop has never enjoyed mass commercial success. With an emphasis on social issues, Conscious HipHop isn't overtly political, but rather deals with issues such as poverty and religion.
Electro HipHop: A combination of dance music and rap, Electro HipHop first emerged in the 1980s on the West Coast from artists like Arabian Prince and Egyptian Lover. By the mid-1990s, Electro HipHop had pretty much run its course.
Rap Music And Violence
Rap music worked its way to mainstream music around the late 70s to the early 80s. Those who study history would trace rap musics roots way back in American history when Griots or West African folk poets used to deliver their stories in a rhythmic tone accompanied by drums and other sparse instrumentation. Today, the art of rapping has evolved into something that spans cultural and lifestyle dimensions.
Folk roots meet Jamaican-style
Rap music combines the poetry of the Griots with Jamaican-style toasting. Toasting is used by Jamaican disc jockeys or DJs in dance parties to coax people to dance to their music. DJs are the first rappers or MCs (short for master of ceremonies). They would speak over their music to shout out slogans like Work it, work it and Move it to keep encourage continuous dancing on the dance floor. Soon, toasting became longer and became less about dancing and more about life and having fun. Contextually, these raps can be insult raps, news raps, message raps, nonsense raps, and party raps.
This early way of rapping was soon enhanced to include manual manipulation of the sound system to heighten the dance experience. It has been said that people dance because of the beat and not of the lyrics. And so, DJs soon incorporated other techniques like dubbing and scratching to the rap music appeal. Dubbing enhanced Jamaican toasting by cutting back and forth between vocal and instrumental tracks and isolating the beat for danceability. Scratching, on the other hand, is done by moving the record in the turntable from one direction to another and back again while the needle is still in the groove.
Rappers deluxe
Rap historians cite young Jamaican Clive Campbell as one of the proponents of rap music when he migrated to the Bronx and brought with him the art of Jamaican toasting. In the Brox, Campbell was known by his monicker, Kool Herc (short for Hercules). Other early rappers rappers were Jamaican toasters such as U Roy, Duke Reid, Sir Coxsone, and Prince Buster. They were followed by the next decade of rappers like MelleMel, Fatback Band, Sugarhill Gang, Grandmaster Flash, and Run-D.M.C.
The early nineties saw the entry of white American rappers like Ice Cube to the African-American-dominated world of rap music. Even women rappers surfaced in the mainstream rap music scene. Women rappers like Salt N Pepper, Monie Love, and Queen Latifah rapped over R&B melodies and expressed lyrics that touched on women-related issues.
The look of rap
From its origins in the gang dominion of Bronx and the dancehalls of downtown ghettos, rap music soon found its way into the mainstream music scene. Soon, not only African-Americans were dancing to rap music. Rap music evolved into lyrical reflection of urban life. Rastafari-clad youth wore oversized shirts and jackets paired with low-riding oversized jeans that exposed their underwear. Heavy chain accessories also became part of the rapper look.
Rap music, while considered by some to be a fad that would eventually lose its appeal, is really a form of musical art that has become a way of expression. Modern mouth percussion, vocal improvisation and stripped down melody, these elements of rap music make it a unique musical experience.
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