Hip-Hop 96540310 Lester

This time, I’m going to introduce you a popular culture which incorporates four elements; it’s Hip-Hop culture. It integrates its spirituality in nowadays society. Being personally fond of this culture, I will show you each elements in a brief but also a clear way.

Prior to its four elements, the origin of hip-hop is worth knowing; actually, it’s a culture originated from rap music and street dance. The roots of hip hop are in West African and African American music. The musical style of West- Africa traveling singers and poets is reminiscent of hip hop. When it comes to the roots of hip hop, we must mention the contributions of The Last Poets and Jalal Mansur Nuriddin, whose jazzy and poetic spiels commented on 1960’s culture. True hip hop arose during the 1970s when block dancing parties became common in New York City, especially in the Bronx. They were usually accompanied by music. (http://www.hiphopgalaxy.com/origins-of-hip-hop-hip-hop-2101.html) At the long lasting evolution of this origin, it develops into four great parts. Break dancing, Graffiti , DJ and MCeeing.

Those teenagers in inner cities were finding ways to work off. This time, they didn’t do gang things. They jumped to show their power; they danced with no effort left. Streets by streets and day by day. I think break dancing represents the hip-hop culture most actively.

Graffiti, people around the world have considered is as a direct way for street artists to distinguish themselves from others, is also a representative for ghetto teenagers to show their own identities. The relationship between hip-hop and graffiti, I personal would prefer the reference from Wikipedia:

The relationship between graffiti and hip hop culture arises both from early graffiti artists practicing other aspects of hip hop, and its being practiced in areas where other elements of hip hop were evolving as art forms. Graffiti is recognized as a visual expression of rap music, just as breaking is viewed as a physical expression. The book Subway Art (New York: Henry Holt & Co, 1984) and the TV program Style Wars (first shown on the PBS channel in 1984) were among the first ways the mainstream public were introduced to hip hop graffiti.

Thanks to DJs, or disc jockeys, we have not only normal music tracks but those live created music. They use turntables, DJ mixers, amplifiers, speakers, and various other pieces of electronic music equipment.

Always companied by DJs, Mcings or those rappers express by microphones, or specifically by the way called Rhythmically Applied Poetry. They sing; however, at the same, they also speak and tell. That’s RAP.

















Hip-hop culture is a complicated phenomenon, indeed. However, through these four mainstream elements, people could simply understand it and enjoy it!