The Rise of Hip Hop
Hip Hop is one of the most controversial types of music around. With its (on most occasions) ludicrous lyrics and notorious reputation of rappers being involved with guns, violence and drugs who can blame the media for portraying this controversial image?
The reputation has increasingly grown over time as back in the days of the 70s black people saw Hip Hop as part of their culture and saw no faults in it. The black radio of the 70s promoted the talent of certain rappers such as Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa and without this help their music might never have been heard. Rap became increasingly popular because it offered unlimited challenges and had no set rules, except to be original and to rhyme in beat of the music – anything was possible! As long as you could do these things you could be an individual rapper. No two rappers sounded the same and even if someone tried to recite another persons rap it could never be the same, no two people could rap at the same time, that’s what made people’s rap original and stand out, making them big stars.
Hip Hop and Rap are still popular in today’s urban youth for the same reasons it was a major breakthrough in the early days; it is a way of expressing oneself capable of portraying positive affirmations of one’s peer. The immensity of the rap and hip hop industry gives, and did back in the days, a false perception of being a quick and easy escape from the harshness of inner city life. Kids are now under the belief that if they put a few fresh words together that rhyme they’re off to a good life.
This clearly proves that hip hop has evolved from just being about graffiti, break-dancing etc into a major music industry that is just as big as any other type of music that is in the charts today and certainly made a name for itself.
I feel that although hip hop has reached its highest point of success in terms of popularity the old style hip hop is slowly dying away and modern, commercialised hip hop has taken over. Stars such as 50 cent, Snoop Dogg and Jay Z are just some of the recent popular rappers that are in the charts whose music is modern and commercialised. I say bring back the good old days of Run DMC and 2pac and the world of hip hop will be a better place.
© 2003 Freeway
Written by: Amy Wilde