Gangsta Rap: The Evolution Of Rap Music

Rap music is really popular to us, young people, and sometimes adults, too. In my opinion, I think that rap is a way to allow all of the rappers to express themselves, their voices, their experience, and their feeling from their life. And in some other people opinion, they also describe rap music as the story or the voice of the streets. According to a music articles “The birth of Rap: A Look Back” from NPR.org website, rap music was born and began to develop in the middle of year 1970s. They are firstly formed and played by the Black communities, and then slowly spread out to the world. In rap world, at first they are only male rappers who use music to express themselves and their pain towards the world. Then, women also began to rap to be able to express their thoughts more and more. Female and male rapper are sharing the same purpose of express themselves through their song but they are different in the way they use their lyrics, the subject they choose to rap on and the feeling they express to their fans and their songs’ listeners.

1. Keyes points out that rap music derives from what she refers to as the “West African bardic tradition.” What is this tradition? What is the role of the griot in this tradition? What parallels do you see between the groit and a hip hop MC (the rapper, often the main writer of lyrics for a group)?

The rap genre originated from some of the most underprivileged areas of New York in the 1970’s. What was once DJ’s talking over a beat they were playing to encourage more activity on the dance floor, turned in to a new genre of music called rap. The majority of earlier rap songs were fun inducing tracks, but in the 1980’s, Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five introduced social consciousness to the genre. They sparked a long lasting impact on rap as it started to evolve rapidly as time went on. The 90’s was home to “gangsta rap,” followed by a softer side of song writing pioneered by the likes of Outkast and Kanye West in the 2000’s. Today, rap music is very diverse and more accepting of different styles than it was before. However, throughout the entire history of rap music, the one thing that has stayed

Gangster rappers always encourage sex or demeaning women, where some songs are merely produced with the purpose of disgracing women. Subject matters in a majority of gangster rap lyrics usually deal with curious situations, as in the portrayal of women as dirty sex toys with no value other than pleasure through looks and intercourse and even inventing words, such as “bennett,” “poontang,” and “thots.” Furthermore, drugs are another topic widely spoken by gangster rappers, where the songs contents even deeply influences people to try drugs, due to the perception that their favorite performer thinks it’s cool. For example, Eminem 's hit song "My Fault" made mushrooms more popular than they had ever been with the public, due to the adulation of how drugs are fun; furthermore, it also engendered new words like “coco” and “purp” into mainstream language use. The last and the most common element of gangster rap is crime. Nearly every gangster rap song mentions a robbery or illegitimate act of vandalism, to which these songs give other people, especially younger adults negative ideas, putting the thoughts of committing any particular in the minds of any gullible person.

Rap which originated in Africa was used by storytellers known as Griots, to relay stories about family history or current events, set to the rhythm of a drum. This culture was then brought to the west during the 1600’s when Africans were captured and made slaves in America ( (Mize)

Rap music has been around for many decades. Rap/hip hop is a music genre that consists of a stylized rhythmic music that usually accompanies rapping. Since rap music’s explosion, it took the industry and became the important part of hip hop culture. It has advanced over time as a part of hip hop culture, which originated from urban youth in New York as a cultural movement. Its original listeners were primarily African America and it has spread around the world and hip hop has come to be a part for rap music to audiences. This music genre has risen over the years and has become a popular. “It continues to be one of the most popular genres of music, crossing over to different cultures and influencing different generations through its lyrical content and beats”(Weebly). Although many people disagree that rap music can actually have positive influences, all seem to defiantly agree that it can have negative influences. Many people agree that rap music has many negative influences: glorifying violence, sexualization, drug use, and egotistical. Rap can also have positive influences including unification and education, provide support, entertainment, and hope.

American society has created a version of the English language that significantly differs in context and formality compared to countries of similar linguistics. A large portion of this has come along with the rise of rap, not only as a genre itself but also as one of the most popular choices for most teens and young adults today. It seems as though every day a new word is presented, whether it be a single slang word or a new phrase never heard before. More often than not, it is not only introduced but quickly spreads throughout social media, high school/college campuses, and even advertisements trying to appeal to younger generations.

In this report, I will present a discussion of rap music so as to review the origins of this style of music and the reasons for its growth in popularity. Music is the art of arranging tones in articulate sequence in order to produce a continuous and unified composition of sounds and vocals with rhythm and harmony. Rap music encompasses all music produced using samples, incorporating a dominant beat, and quick rhymes. Although rap music today is a global phenomenon among the youth, I will focus this discussion on American rap music. This analysis will attempt to put rap music within postmodern and socio-cultural contexts.

What they don’t tell you about modern-day rap music are the dull basslines and 808s. Basslines are the low room-filling sound that comes from your typical rap song. Most songs, of course, have a bassline but rap use their basslines in a new form. 808s are what are commonly used in rap songs. The low frequency and minimally modulated synth or resample are used in modern rap to give out the power in the song. This is a flaw however because a bassline in a song shouldn’t be the strength of the song, it should be the bowl that contains

The history of rap music started in Africa with rhythmic beats using drums. From Africa to the Caribbean islands it came to America and started its influential change on American Music. The first rap song to take flight and make its mark on the up and coming rap culture was the Sugar Hill Gang in 1979. In 1986 rap music finally reached the top of the music charts and was show on MTV for the first time featuring Run-DMC. Continuing to change in the 90's in the east coast came the more harsh and raw of the rap music scene like Wu-Tang Clan and Notorious Big. As for rap music on the East coast rap music was mellower. When these rappers first started rapping the music videos were

In Rap music, there is a musician that creates words based on their feelings and mood. After creating the words, the musician ties the words to a beat that sounds catchy and appealing to listeners. In rap music there are no limitations to what can be said. Musicians can use profanity, violence and hate to express their feelings. Also, there is a length of the music that is being created. Originally, for the music to get played on the radio or television the musicians must make that the song is no longer than four minutes. Rap music reflects me because of the style that musicians create.

The history of Hip Hop as music and as a culture formed during the 1970s in the Bronx, NY, and it gain so much positive feedback that local DJs began using the music for block parties among the African-American youth in the Bronx. Mixing music styles of funk, jazz, rhythm & blues. Jamaican immigrants bought this foreign music style to New York and soon after became a phenomenon. Dj Kool Herc, who is generally considered the father of hip hop, was recognized for being one of the very first Hip Hop artists and a pioneer. He bought the art of “scratching” to New York as a way to extend rhythmic songs because most songs were very short; going for almost a minute or sometimes less. With Dj Kool Herc’s innovations and with the music of Hip Hop almost

It has to be said that Rap and Hip Hop is not only a style of music, it is also, such is the case of every music genre, a particular subculture, way of life and attitude. Most distinctive things of Rap and Hip Hop are definitelly charachteristic graffiti and break dance. Musically the rap apart distinguishing tempo and talked lyrics, introduced a a technique called 'scratching' The fashon and the artists and fan's attitude is also part of rap culture.The influence of Jamaican culture and music, brought another interesting factor to rap subculture, that was a distinguishing speach or rather specific slang. It probably came out from Jamaican so called 'toasting'. That was when the Jamaican DJs used to talk and shout while playing their music.

Music is a form of expression with numerous amounts of genres, each conveying different messages, emotions, and ideas. Rap is a music genre formed in the 1970s that depicts the life and struggles of being a minority, specifically African American, in the United States. This art form uses story-telling and rhyming techniques over highly rhythmic beats to express shared experience of the black community the majority could not relate to or understand. Created by DJs playing at block parties in South Bronx, New York, rap is a “common feature of community and popular cultural dialogues that always offers more than one cultural, social, political viewpoint” (Rose, 2). Black voices of urban America were finally able to partake in conversations they were left out of.

Rap is a genre of music that has great history, songs, instruments, and rappers. The most used instruments in rap are drums and mix/sound boards. Rap music started when slaves would work in the fields and sing “call to answer” songs, where one person would sing part of the song and everyone else would answer in the next line. Nowadays, famous songs for rapping are “Lose Yourself” by Eminem and “Remember The Name” by Fort Minor. Famous rappers include Chris Brown, Wiz Khalifa, and Macklemore. Rap has an interesting history and popular songs.