Rap Final
SISTA WITH ATTITUDE
"Female Mcs who value attitude as a means of empowerment and present themselves accordingly." Sistas with Attitude present an aggressive challenge to male authority. In the late 1990s, rapper Lil Kim and Foxy Brown emerged with an aggressive, hyper-sexualized image and style that combined aspects of Sista With Attitude and Fly Girl into a "bad girl" or "badwoman" persona. Important Sistas With Attitude include Roxanne Shante, MC Lyte, Da Brat, Eve and Mia X
"COP KILLER"
A song by Ice T's heavy metal band Body Count released in 1992 that caused police officers to boycott Sire Records, eventually pressuring Ice T into leaving Sire/Warner Brothers records
"BUCK JUMP TIME"
A song released in 1989 by Gregory D and Mannie Fresh that was one of the first bounce songs to become big. It featured many characteristics of bounce such as the 2nd line inspired rhythm and shout outs to the various projects
NEW ORLEANS BOUNCE
A style featuring fast drum machine beats, singsongy vocals, shoutouts to local neighborhoods, and the influence of the New Orleans Second Line Parade in it's tuba inflected bass lines and rhythms
US GIRLS
All female hip hop supergroup put together to perform in the 1984 film Beat Street. All three members - Sha Rock, Lisa Lee and Debbie D - were among hip hop's first notable female MCS
GOODIE MOB
An ATL based group formed in 1991 consisting of Big Gripp, Cee-Lo, Khujo, and T-Mo. They coined the term "the dirty south" on their 1995 L Soul Food. They along with OutKast, helped to popularize a free flowing rap style with chanted refrains using a variety of sounds from samples to live instruments
THE DUNGEON FAMILY
An ATL collective centered around the Organized Noize production crew, which was started in Rico Wade's basement and also consisted of Raymond Murray and Pat "Sleepy" Brown. The Dungeon Family consists of these individuals plus Goodie Mob, OutKast, Witchdoctor and Cool Breeze
LAFACE RECORDS
An Atlanta based label founded in 1989 by Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds and Antonio "LA" Reid that represents Goodie Mob and Outkast and was also associated with the production team Organized Noize.
TRICK DADDY
An artist of the late 90s and early 2000s who began on Slip N Slide Records who changed Miami hip hop from the bass driven party scene of the early 90s to a style that somewhat resembled crunk, but also featured influences from reggae, gospel, house, soul, and pop. He worked closely with Trina.
CASH MONEY RECORDS
Another record label of the deep south founded in 1991 by Brain "Baby" and Ron "Suga Slim" Williams that produced Juvenile and a number of other artists from the south including Lil Wayne. Mannie Fresh was in charge of production for Cash Money
"DRAG RAP"
a song by the Show Boys that introduced the beat that would influence many of the New Orleans Bounce Songs
PLAYA/PIMP
an archetype in hip hop that is signified by the hyper-masculinity and hyper-sexuality of commercial hip hop culture. These rappers are highly visible, heterosexual, misogynistic, and the crux of hip hop black cool prose. They signify the pleasure ideal for the male dominated industry at the expense of women. Examples include Kurtis Blow, LL Cool J, Too $hort, Uncle Luke, and Big Boi
SYLVIA ROBINSON
Cofounder of Sugar Hill Records with her husband. Former disco singer during the 70s happened upon rap in a club and decided to begin company and later produced and manufactured group known as Sugar Hill Gang (Rapper's Delight)
FEMALE DJS
DJ Pam the Funkstress; DJ Jazzy Voice
DJ PAUL & JUICY J
DJs/Producers from Memphis, TN that were responsible for making a precursor to crunk in the early 90s. They were the founding members of Three 6 Mafia alongside the rapper Lord Infamous.
ROLAND TR-808
Drum machine widely used in the production of hip hop songs to provide heavy kick sound; used especially in Miami bass and crunk music
TOO $HORT
Evolved his style in the underground rap scene of East Oakland in the early 1980s. While on the local 75 girls record label he recorded three albums: Don't Stop Rappin, 75 Girls Present Too Short, and Players. He cultivated a subdued rapping style that belied his street hustler's rhymes about pimping and ghetto lore. He released Born to Mack in 1988 which went gold.
LADY PINK
Female graffiti artists active during the 80s. First Lady of graffiti
Fly GIRL
Female hip hop artists that dressed in a way that was considered by their audiences to be "fly." Described as a woman who wants you to see her name and her game and who wears tight jeans and mini skirts and jewelry and make up. The fly girl speaks he mind, uses her style to call attention to "aspects of black women's bodies that are considered undesirable by mainstream standards of beauty." Important Fly Girls include Salt-N-Pepa, Left Eye of TLC, Yo-Yo, and Missy Elliott
VIDEO VIXEN
Female model who frequently appears in hip hop oriented videos
HIP HOP MAGAZINES
Major publications include The Source, Vibe, and XXL
NELLY/ ST. LUNATICS
Nelly was an artist out of St. Louis who gained popularity with Country Grammar (widely influenced by black girl game songs)and El. he was a Grammy nominee and a member of the crew St. Lunatics. He continued to popularize the singsongy style of the Dirty South.
BLONDIE
New York City based punk/new wave band of the late 1970s and early 1980s that was among the first white acts to experiment with hip hop. Their single "Rapture" was the first #1 hit on the Billboard Pop charts to feature rapping
PMRC
Parent's Music Resource Center, a committee formed by four women in Washington DC in 1985. The PMRC was formed with the intention to increase parental control over their children's purchases of music deemed to have sexually explicit, drug related or violent content, and successfully lobbied the recording industry to include "Explicit Lyrics" labels on albums with such content
PHILOSOPHER KING
Performer who "blends emotional vulnerability and intellect" and who "expands on the complexities of the world around him." These rappers model new identities, and new ways of understanding and representing their experiences for those within hip hop culture (where they are often regarded as leaders) and as representatives of hip hop culture for outsiders. Examples of philosopher kings include KRS-One, 2Pac, Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West, and Andre 3000
TECHNOLOGY/EQUIPMENT
Popular equipment for DJs and producers includes the Technics SL-1200 and PT-2000 turntable units; the Gemini, Nu-mark and Vestax mixers; the Roland TR-808, Roland SP-808 and Emu SP-1200 Sampling drum machines; and the Akai S900 Digital sampler
DJ SOLOISTS
Prominent turntable performers include the Invisibl Skratch Piklz (whose members include DJ Q-Bert and Mix Master Mike), the Beat Junkies, Cut Chemist and Nu-Mark of Jurassic 5, DJ Shadow, and DJ Apollo among others
MC HAMMER
Put Oakland on the map by establishing it as a thriving hip hop mecca. Recorded his first single "Ring 'Em," on his independent label Bustin Records. Following the sucess of his single and album Let's Get It Started, he signed with Capitol Records in 1988. He also created a dance style trend that was followed by many hip hop artists. His musical success was not only derived from his consummate dance moves but his subtle use of recycled funk jams and past rhythm blue hits as background music in his rap songs.
JAY-Z/ROC-A-FELLA RECORDS
Rapper and record executive/entrepreneur from Marcy Projects in Brooklyn. Founded the Roc-a-Fella label with Damon Dash and Kareem Burke in 1996, which was bought by Def Jam and grew to include a roster of artists such as Beanie Sigel, Juelz Santana, Cam'ron, and Kanye West. Detailing his rise from the street corner to the boardroom on record as a classic, universally resonant rags-to-riches take on achieving the American Dream, and often comparing crack game (hustling dope) to the rap game (hustling dope beats), Jay-Z epitomizes the hip hop archetype of the "hustler" detailed by Regina Bradley
TONE-LOC
Rapper from Los Angeles, CA with a party oriented style who had major pop hits with his 1988 singles "Wild Thing" (which became the second best-selling single since "We Are the World") and "Funky Cold Medina." His lyrics were largely written by the rapper Young MC, who had his own hit single in 1989 with "Bust a Move."
LADY B
Rapper from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is one of the earliest female rappers in hip hop, and one of the first to record a studio album. She began her career with the WHAT radio station in 1979, and recorded her first single later that year, "To the Beat Y'all"
HERBIE HANCOCK, "ROCKIT"
Record by jazz keyboardist Herbie Hancock that featured the turntable scratching of Grandmixer D.ST. Released in 1983 with a video that went into heavy rotation on MTV, "Rockit" helped to expose the art of turntablism (as it was not yet named) to a national and global audience
KEDAR MASSENBURG
Record executive and president of Motown Records from 1997-2004 who signed Erykah Badu and coined the term "neo-soul"
BAD BOY ENTERTAINMENT/SEAN "P. DIDDY" COMBS
Sean "P. Diddy" Combs' record label founded in 1993 after he left Andre Harell's Uptown Entertainment. It featured names such as the Notorious B.I.G, Mase, Lil' Kim and Lil' Cease of Junior M.A.F.I.A. They competed with Death Row Records
THE PHARCYDE
Spawned out of experimental rap "hang outs" like Good Life Cafe and Project Blowed near South LA, which hosted open-mic poetry jams. Extended open-mic poetry to that of a song like rap style over jazz-tinged breaks and drum beats
FREESTYLE FELLOWSHIP
Spawned out of experimental rap "hang outs" like Good Life Cafe and Project Blowed near South LA, which hosted open-mic poetry jams. Extended open-mic poetry to that of a song-like rap style over jazz-tinged breaks and drum beats
PEBBLE-POO
Started in the 70s as a B-Girl then became a member of the Smoke-a-Trons, was taught how to rap from a gentleman by the name of Dr. Bomb-Bay - who took her to a Kool Herc jam. Then became Kool Herc's 1st Female MC Soloist - Pebblee Poo a Herculord
LESBIAN
Still largely late in the 1990s. Queen Pen's "Girlfriend" was one of the first break throughs for this style
CIPHER
Term popularized by Five Percenters, this is a group of three or more rappers free-styling in a circle and feeding off of each others energy to keep rap going in a circular fashion
HUSTLER
The archetype is quick witted and ambitious. Hustlers are hybrids of other masculine personas in hip hop. Consists of narratives about yourself up by your boot straps contextualized within hip hop as an entrepreneurial space. These narratives have the possibility of being over exaggerated tales their paths to success. Ex: Jay Z
TURNTABALISM
The art of turntable performance. Following upon pioneering mobile DJS like Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash, Grad Wizard Theodore and Grandmixer D.ST, turntablists use the turntables and vinyl records as their musical instruments, manipulating the records with their hands
DEATH ROW RECORDS
The record label founded by Dr. Dre and Marion "Suge" Knight in 1992. It included Snoop Dogg and 2Pac and quickly rose to become the most successful of gangsta rap labels. Dr. Dre eventually left the label and it was officially renamed in 2001.
INNER TIME/OUTER TIME
The two types of time utilized by hip hop performers. "Outer time" refers to time that is objectively measurable by devices such as clocks and metronomes, while "inner time" is an inner sense of the beat, the pulse or the rhythmic feel that one must master in order to give a successful performance. Inner time includes the flexible and implicit sense of timing delineated by words such as "swing" and "flow" that cannot be fully indicated by Western notation
VANILLA ICE
White rapper who experienced major commercial success wit his 1990 album To the Extreme and its single "Ice Ice Baby." His career declined swiftly when critics questioned the originality of his music—discovering the chorus of "Ice Ice Baby" was lifted from a chant by the black fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha— and when it was discovered that he was not from the hood (as he had claimed) but had grown up in the suburbs
MERCEDES LADIES
Widely recognized as the first all female hip hop crew, The Mercedes Ladies were founded around 1976. The crew has female MCs (including Sherri Sher and Eva Def), DJS (including La Spank), breakdancers, and graffiti artists
SIR MIX-A-LOT
He had several platinum albums. From Seattle, Washington. He had a US Number 1 hit in 1992 with the techno-funk styled "Baby Got Back."
HYPE WILLIAMS
Highly successful video director of the 1990s, noted for his high production budgets, use of fish-eye lens, unusual camera angles and synchronized dance movements
THE ROOTS
Hip hop band from Philadelphia that creates its music not using samplers, drum machines, and turntables, but on traditional instruments like bass, drums, and keyboards. The group mixed in a pronounced jazz influence on their 1990s albums and helped to establish the neo-soul genre through collaborations with singers Jill Scott and Erykah Badu. Drummer and bandleader Questlove, in particular, emerged as an important producer and musician in the neo-soul movement, co-producing and playing on album by Badu, D'Angelo, and Bilal among others
SHA ROCK
Hip hop's first influential solo female MC. Introduced echo chamber technique later used by DMC of Run DMC
HIP HOP FILMS
Important early hip hop films included Beat Street, Wild Style, and Krush Groove. By the 1990s, both underground and major Hollywood films (along with network television shows) increasingly began to feature popular rappers in starring roles, including New Jack City, Juice, Boyz N the Hood, Set it Off, and hip hop cult classics like House Party and Belly. Rappers Queen Latifah, Will Smith (aka the Fresh Prince) and Ice Cube among others, would ultimately find long-term success and acclimation in their acting careers
GANG STARR
A duo consisting of Guru and DJ Premier that helped to pioneer the mixing of hip hop and Jazz with their 1989 LP No More mister Nice Guy, which featured the song "Manifest" which had a sample bass line of Dizzy Gillepsie's "A Night in Tunisia," introducing jazz-like breaks. They also invited many jazz artists to perform on their album and had a duet called "La Bein, La Mal" with the French/Senegalese rapper Mc Solaar
2 LIVE CREW
A group from Miami, Florida on Luke Records that was founded by Luke Skyywalker (Luther Campbell). Their lyrics and song titles were sexually explicit and their 1989 album As Nasty as They Wanna Be, garnered national attempts to ban it. They were charged by district attorneys of Florida and Alabama for violating obscenity laws, though they were found innocent. This was one of the censorship cases of the 1990s.
GETO BOYS
A group that emerged in the mid 1980s from Houston, that focused on gangsta themes and consisted mostly of Big Mike, Bushwick Bill, Scarface, and Willie D. They gained national exposure for their 1989 album Grip It! On Another Level. They exemplify the archetypal gangsta rappers, with their song "Mind of a Lunatic" eventually causing them to be forced to leave their label Def American after Geffen Records (The distributor) deemed it too violent, leading to the formation of Rap-A-Lot
PROJECT BLOWED
A hang out in the Leimert Park area of South Central LA that hosted open-mic poetic jams that were instrumental in the formation of the style of Freestyle Fellowship and the Pharcyde. The Good Life Cafe was a similar hang out
MANNIE FRESH
A house producer of Cash Money Records that popularized the bounce sound, including production of the Hot Boys, on one of the first bounce groups
NO LIMIT RECORDS
A label founded in 1996 by Master P that became very successful and featured artists such as Mia-X, Mystikal, and Snoop Dogg. Their five man music production team was known as the Medicine Men
CRUNK
A musical genre that began in Memphis, TN in the early 1990s that was pioneered by DJ/Producers Juicy J and DJ Paul. The main crunk act is Three 6 Mafia and eventually, Lil Jon popularized the music, transitioning it into the mainstream. Stylistically, crunk focuses on murky basslines, wheezy synths, slow drum machines with ticking hi-hats, and group vocals that are often chanted on the choruses. However, crunk only became popular after artists from Atlanta became more focuses on "bass-music danceability"
THREE SIX MAFIA
A precursor to crunk out of Memphis, TN with Prophet Records that was founded by DJ Paul and Juicy J. In their early days, they featured satanic themes but gradually shifted to a crunk style. They were most popular in the mid to late 90s. Their most notable hits include "Stay Fly" and "Its Hard Out Here for a Pimp," the latter of which was the second hip hop song to wind an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2006.
SWEET TEE
A rapper, who signed to Profile Records in the 1980s
DOPE BOY/TRAP STAR
Are performers who's dominant lens for their identity in hip hop culture is drug culture. Origins in the cocaine and crack epidemics of the 70s and 80s. The idea of "the trap" is separated from dope boy persona (regional). The trap signifies spaces outside of North Eastern urbanized spaces. the trap is a space in the American South where drug dealers conduct business and is also a space that signifies the despair and socio economic anxieties of southern black men. The dope boy and trap star are narratives that talk their knowledge of the drug game and cynical capitalist. Examples include Eazy E, Young Jezzy, T.I., The Game, Rick Ross
QUEEN MOTHER
Female rappers who viewed themselves as African centered icons. Maternal figures. The Strong Black Woman. The Queen Mother is associated with traditional African court culture. Terms used to describe themselves are: Asiatic, Blackwoman, Nubian Queens, Intelligent Black Woman, or sista droppin knowledge to the people. They demand respect for their people and specifically respect for Black women. Female rappers who embody Queen Mother archetype include Queen Kenya of the Zulu Nation (the first female MC to record commercially under a "Queen" name), Queen Latifah, Sister Souljah, Lauryn Hill, and Yo-Yo
JJ FAD
Female trio from Rialto, California. Their self-titled single and their album Supersonic (1988) went platinum. Supersonic was Ruthless Records' first platinum LP. JJ FAD's success was based on their techno-pop sound and their spandex costumes.
THE FUNKY 4 + 1
First hip hop act to appear on Saturday Night Live; had one female member, Sha Rock
