History of Hip-Hop Exam 1: Relevancy to hip-hop history

First Lady of Rap

* Lana Michelle Moorer * B. October 11, 1970 * First solo female rapper to release a full album * Started at 13 * Sunny Girl Label Made a statement for female rappers in a time period where the industry was mostly run by men. Music inspired many young girls to take there talents to the microphone too.

Marley Marl's Recipe for "The Bridge" (1984)

-2 SDD-200 -TR-808 He bouned the kick and the snare between the two to create the base beat and then looped it together with the ghost note to make a deep sounding base of the song. He then reversed a old disco song that made the crowd start going which was the overlay of the song it follows the kick. Also using autofill on the 8th beat which was the creation of the beat for the bridge. This was important because it gave insight of what making a track really looked like before MCs started rapping over it.

New York's Black Suburbia

-Black Suburbia * Queens * Long Island Black Belt * (Roosevelt, FREEPORT, Hempstead, Glen Cove, Amityville, Wynandanch, and Brentwood) * Nassau and Suffolk Counties * Black Middle Class These places have the greatest amount of culture and relation to where hip hop was really developed. Having a large young population exposed to all the street violence that was so commonly occurring. Hip-hop gave them a way to express their feelings but also to a larger crowd causing the newly born art to go mainstream.

Def Jam Records

-Public Enemy -Run-DMC "Walk This Way" -Beastie Boys Def Jam Records was a record label created by Rick Rubin in his NYC dorm room that was a platform for up and coming artists like LL Cool J which quickly gave these artists opportunities to create something for themselves and let them express their feelings and experiences which then led to a greater expansion of the hip-hop world

Foundational Elements of Hip Hop

1.MCing: Manifested from the social conditions of the time. This form of poetic and "verbal acrobatics" was derived from ancient African culture and oral tradition. Also known as "rapping" this element removed the veil that isolated the wider culture from the social conditions of many underserved urban communities. 2:Djing: This was a new found manipulation of sounds that was used to create music. The innovative breaks and isolation of the percussive beat was what gave hip hop its initial rise. 3.Breakdancing: Breaking can be described as "poetry in motion". Its acrobatics style with influences of gymnastics, Capoeria, martial arts and other cultural influences speaks to the innovative wave ushered in by hip hop culture. 4.As most graffiti artist leave their artwork in public places and "tag" it by leaving their names. TAKI 183, made this form of artistic representation famous and in neighborhood such as Wynwood, Little Haiti and Opa-locka we can see this art form's widespread integration with bursts of energy and vibrancy on buildings throughout the cities. 5.Knowledge:This element is the thread that weaves all the other elements together. "Knowledge of self" refers to the Afro-diasporic mix of spiritual and political consciousness designed to empower members of oppressed groups" according Travis Gosa

Michel'le Surviving Compton

Discovered at a young age, the shy, squeaky-voiced Michel'le (Brown) was plucked straight from South Central, Los Angeles and catapulted into the spotlight while riding N.W.A.'s rocket ride of early success. Surrounded by industry visionaries from Eazy-E to Tupac Shakur, Michel'le quickly climbed the charts; but, her musical successes were soon overshadowed by betrayal and corruption. A nearly decade-long romance with the infamous Dr. Dre (Hamilton) pushed her into a life tarnished by alcohol, drugs and violence until her savior came in the unlikely form of Suge Knight (Taylor), co-founder of Death Row Records and Dre's business partner. Friendship would turn into a courtly romance, but the union Michel'le thought they had did not end happily-ever-after. With children from both men and a career to protect, Michel'le's voice became silenced by Compton's biggest power players. Until now. She was determined to find her voice again. She was trying to come out of a community dominated by male rap groups while being involved in a great amount of conflict with her love life that corresponds deeply with her music career. Her story and hardships she went through only inspired more to try and do the same. She had a large influence on female rappers coming out of the west especially.

"Dirty Decade" of Hip-Hop

During the decade of 1997-2007, rap music produced in cities such as Atlanta, New Orleans, Memphis, Miami, and Houston transformed the margins into the rap mainstream. These years saw southern artists rise to national prominence, with a related surge in major label interest and investment in southern rap, a process encapsulated and expressed by the idea of the Dirty South. This music was typically associated with clubbing and trap music. Especially in Atlanta the music took off, its currently today a hub for most rap music in the country. Outkast winning Best New Rap Group at the Source Awards 1995 was a statement that the south had music too to prove that they had something to grasp onto too. Different types of music formed from the expansion of the different variations of rap music in the respected separate cities in-bracing hip-hop/rap music.

The Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN)

Founded in 2001, the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN) is dedicated to harnessing the cultural relevance of Hip-Hop music to serve as a catalyst for education advocacy and other societal concerns fundamental to the empowerment of youth. Trying to show the younger generation that there are things to hide and things to show. Rap depicts a life of specific culture so learning about it is important so that learning kids understand what the bigger picture of what hip-hop really is.

Gangsta Rap

Gangsta rap or gangster rap is a style of hip hop characterized by themes and lyrics that generally emphasize the "gangsta", "O.G" and "Thug-Life" lifestyle. For example 2Pac expressed himself through the vision he had of the streets and what he saw. Ice Cube with and without N.W.A brought the street life to our ears expressing what its like to live a gangsta life style. They had disagreements about east and west coast gangsta rappers about who was the best; this then had people choose sides for what they thought was superior music.

Lyrical Analysis:Midwest Kayne West Gold Digger

Gold digger is an explanation of what is referred too as "money chasing" which is poorly looked upon in todays society. He has Jamie Foxx sing the intro of the song as well as in the background of the track creating a loop of his voice that mixes together with the hard hitting base track. Kayne track expresses his dislike in the ideology of money chasing because it has personally effected him. Kayne uses lots of different sounds and implements them into his music to emphasize the create sounds and beat.

Roxanne Shanté

In the 1980s, as hip-hop was budding in the streets of New York City, a teenage girl from the Queens projects emerged as one of the genre's first female stars. At 14, Lolita Shanté Gooden, better known as Roxanne Shante, was a fierce, freestyling rap prodigy. She was trying to break free from a male dominated industry, competeing against men twice her age. Her story of coming out of her conditions and being one of the great female rappers influenced young women to follow what they believed along with showing that women can compete in a mostly male dominated industry.

Lyrical Analysis:Long Island MaMa Said Knock You Out

LL Cool J was given advice from his grandmother "knock em out" so this song is based on a continuous beat and it explains to the listener what he expects of himself to do after being in a lost place. Using lots of examples from his life experiences and street knowledge he creates the flow and continues it consistently with the beat. He uses background singers to create the sound in the back of ahhh ahhh ahh ahhh along with overlapping shout out of voices that he responds too in the song.

Lyrical Analysis:Queens Mobb Deep Shook Ones

Shook Ones by Mobb Deep goes into depth of what the life of a 19 year old kid in the streets is facing. Gangs, Drugs, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It expresses how dangerous it is to be in the streets. The idea of the shook ones are the kids who experience these things and have to cope and deal with it. They tell the stories of the streets which was typically hidden in mainstream media.

1995 Source Awards and Source Magazine

The Magazine and The 1995 Source Awards were important to the culture and seeing eye of the public to define what hip-hop was and what it stood for by displaying examples and awards to the best of the best; a war between the West, South, and East for who was the best in the game. Outkast won Best upcoming artist of the year and they said a famous quote - the south got something to say- creating the connection that the south was up and coming in hip-hop, Biggie Won Album of the Year which was a plus for the east, and snoop when Dre won producer of the year got up on stage and disses the east coast which only stirred the pot. This feud influenced dis-tracks to be made which only expanded the rap game in its current state. This idea of being the best was the goal of each and every rapper so it only drove each person to be better and release new music which was very beneficial for hip-hop

Blackout of 1977

The New York City blackout of 1977 was important to Hip-Hop because the streets were looted and normally younger people in the Bronx who could not afford to buy the proper electronic equipment to make music so they took the opportunity to steal it from the stores. Mixers, speakers, viynal tracks, all looted in the blackout of 1977.

Bronx Music Scene (1968-1977)

The city was on fire, slumlords were burning down their buildings that they owned to get insurance claims that were valued at a much higher increment than what the building was worth. This caused a problem with homelessness because all of the cheaper places to live were gone this exposed children to life on the streets which in most cases resulting in gangs and violence because there was no where else to turn too because the streets were ran by violence. These kids then mature on the streets and find an escape in music being able to tell their stories and hardships. Secondly during the bronx music scene, Regge music, the godfather of hip-hop music, was implemented into the New York area because of an identity loss after their independence from great Britain. Their tempo and use of drums was easily adapted into beats for Djs to use for Mcs to flow on. Clive Campbell or Dj Kool Herc came from Jamaica to New York in 1967 with his family and started out Djing house parties and block parties. By 1972 he noticed that teens found the drum break was where they typically made their moves he zeroed in on that part of the song- the break. The break revolutionized the ability to mix tracks together and keep the party continuously energized and flowing.

The Fire Next Door documentary clip

The fire Next door was a Documentary that went in deep about what was happening in the bronx and how much damage that was being caused to families and the city. This documentary expressed the importance of the forgotten city and brought it to television sets across America. It represented what the rest of the country didn't want to apply themselves too. It talked about eh negatives and the lesser positives but it brought some of the street life and cultural aspects to view expanding the amount of knowledge the common person understood about life in the bronx and that everything that came along with it.

Sugar Hill Records

The first rap label, based in New York. The Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" was the first successful rap single. Sugar Hill Records was a record label specializing in hip hop music that was founded in 1979 by husband and wife Joe and Sylvia Robinson with Milton Malden and funding from Morris Levy, the owner of Roulette Records They signed Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Melle Mel, The Sugarhill Gang, Funky Four Plus One, the list goes on and on. Sugar Hill Records really had the artists to create a national brand so that's exactly what they did. Music created by some of the best in the business that really had an impact on broadcasting what they wanted to express to the rest of the country They even collaborated with a young stan lee creating their music videos for the songs that were extremely successful, even shown on cable television.

Yo! MTV Raps

The show hosted by Dr.Dre on MTV that brought rap to the forefront of MTV. MTV Raps hosted by one of the rap greats, Dr. Dre, granted access for people to see into the music that Ice Cube, 2Pac, Biggie, Mary J. Blige, and the Wu-Tang Clan and so many more were creating. It allowed everyone to experience what rap was like from the comfort of their home. It gave opportunities to defined and up and coming rappers to show their talents on live television. Expanding their fan base and spreading their name into households. Sneak peeks into new music got the public interested in what was to come next from all the big names.

Trap music

Trap music is known for its ominous and often bleak, gritty vocals and lyrical content. Typical lyrical themes include general life and culture in the "trap" or in the actual southern "trap house" where narcotics are being sold. Topics also include street life, club life, the Atlanta strip club scene, violence, classic American vehicles, and life experiences that artists have faced in their southern American surroundings. the TR-808 Rhythm Composer created a deep base sound that adapted perfectly into this style of music. Very Similar to gangster rap in the west with artists like N.W.A and Snoop Dogg, Artists like Migos, Gucci Mane, Young Dolph really express what the trap life is about through their music. Their music brings their experience of everyday life to the ear of the public. To know what goes on in different parts of the country. Mainly based in Atlanta trap music has grown exponentially to current date. Popular with young mostly young adults and typically African American men and women. Trap music was influential in hip-hop because it created a new style of rap along with a new take on tracks for songs.