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Hip Hop: from the Street to the Mainstream English

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Hip Hop: from the Street to the Mainstream English Embassy of the United States of America Hip-Hop: From the Streets to the Mainstream Cornell University has the largest collection of Hip Hop artifacts and recordings in the world. Lindsay France/ University Photography ip-hop is more than just In a rented Sedgwick Avenue rec- University’s Hip Hop Collection music. The term encom- reation room on August 11, 1973, in Ithaca, New York. The univer- Hpasses a whole culture, a Jamaican-born DJ named Kool sity has been preserving hip-hop and that helps explain how it has Herc debuted the art of separat- artifacts and recordings since become one of the most influ- ing the breakbeat from recorded 2007 and boasts the largest col- ential elements shaping global songs and extending it using lection of its kind in the world. entertainment and youth self- two turntables that were playing Cornell’s curator of rare books and expression. All over the world, the same record. Herc’s friend manuscripts, Katherine Reagan, hip-hop is a tool for explaining Coke La Rock began rapping over says the university not only is the complexities of daily life and the infectious beats. The sound preserving the story of hip-hop’s speaking truth to power, whether sparked an instant revolution, through spoken lyrics, graffiti art, and it was soon being recreated dance or disc jockey mastery. at parties all over the Bronx. The DJ Kool Herc’s discovery of how to isolate and extend extended breakbeat also encour- breakbeats set Hip Hop in motion. AP Images Not to be confused with com- aged the evolution of break danc- mercial rap — which often glori- ing, in addition to rapping, and fies material excess, violence and graffiti artists offered a visual misogyny — hip-hop was born in complement to the musical and the Bronx, New York, more than 40 dance performance. years ago as an alternative to self- destructive gang culture. Hip-hop “Culture doesn’t begin on a gave disaffected youth in impov- single day, but events can hap- erished neighborhoods an oppor- pen on a single day that put a lot tunity to channel their frustrations of things in motion,” says Ben into art rather than violence. Ortiz, assistant curator of Cornell 1311_HipHop_English.indd 1 1/2/14 9:51 AM Hip-Hop: From the Streets to the Mainstream beginnings, but also giving its orig- inators and new artists a chance to tell the story to students and com- munity youth organizations, as well as musicologists. “We want to give this living culture a voice because the originators of that cul- ture are by and large still alive and we want to include them in this process of documentation while we still can,” she said. Cornell has recruited hip-hop pio- neer Afrika Bambaataa as a visiting scholar. The Bronx DJ and founder of the hip-hop awareness group Rapper/MC Rakim poses with graffiti art of turntable deejaying. AP Images the Universal Zulu Nation chose the term “hip-hop” as the name for your history and heritage and the Today, without question, hip-hop the culture and identified its core heritage of other people.” is a global phenomenon. Break elements as rapping or emceeing, Hip-hop grew to include tech- dance moves have spread to coun- breakbeat deejaying, break danc- niques such as vocal percussion, tries that only recently have been ing (b-boying and b-girling) and known as beat boxing, and vinyl connected to the Internet, and rap graffiti art. scratching, and through record- lyrics are being spoken in nearly “The fifth element that Afrika ings such as the Sugarhill Gang’s every language. Easily adapting Bambataa described is knowl- 1979 hit “Rapper’s Delight,” its hip-hop to their own cultures, edge, and hip-hop’s art forms are fan base began to expand from the young artists worldwide are using the tools to achieve it,” Ortiz said. urban African-American, Afro- it to express themselves, as bluntly “Knowledge, in this case, means Caribbean and Latino communities or as eloquently as they prefer, an awareness, a consciousness and of the Bronx to include suburban making statements on anything understanding about the world American kids of all racial and from love and abandonment to and understanding of yourself, ethnic backgrounds. poverty and corruption. Noting hip-hop’s amazing growth University of Florida students perform a breakdance moves on their campus in Gainesville. AP Images from its roots in the Bronx, Bambaataa said the culture “has brought more people together than all the politi- cians on Earth put together.” “Through hip-hop, people in dif- ferent religions who wouldn’t ever speak to one another come together. People of different races and nation- alities who would never cross barri- ers and borders or come into each other’s homes do so because of the music and culture of hip-hop,” Bambaataa said. “Understanding each other is the power of hip-hop.” UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE Published November 2013 BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION PROGRAMS 1311_HipHop_English.indd 2 1/2/14 9:51 AM.
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