FREE CHECK THE TECHNIQUE: LINER NOTES FOR HIP- HOP JUNKIES PDF Brian Coleman | 509 pages | 16 Jun 2007 | Random House USA Inc | 9780812977752 | English | New York, United States A Guide to Hip-Hop Subgenres Hip-hop is a celebration of diversity. Here's a brief rundown of hip-hop subgenres and the key artists in each niche. Alt-rappers typically color outside the lines. These artists are less concerned with pop hooks and dance moves. Check the Technique: Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies main goal is to push the envelope and explore unique concepts. Battle rap is a style of hip-hop music that blends braggadocio with the quest for lyrical superiority. Seasoned battle rappers focus on boastful lines and self-glorifying rhymes about one's proficiency or level of success, accompanied by verbal insults hurled at the other party directly or subliminally. Conscious rap is powered by the idea that radical social change comes through knowledge of self, personal discovery, and societal awareness. So-called conscious rappers devote much of their rhymes decrying social ills and promoting positive ideas. Conscious rap is a contentious category, and not all every rapper like to be classified as such. Crunk started in the s as a sub-form of southern hip-hop. Producer Lil Jon is widely credited with spearheading the movement. Check the Technique: Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies to its name, crunk constitutes a chaotic interpolation of club beats and high-energy chants. East coast hip-hop originated in the streets of New York. The umbrella of this particular sub-genre covers a dizzying mess of styles--from the street hop that gave us to AZ and Nas to the conscious approach popularized by Public Enemy and Black Star. Gangsta rap revolves around aggressive lyrics and trunk-heavy beats. Despite its huge acceptance in the early 90s, gangsta rap has come under fire lately for misogyny and violent themes. DreSnoop DoggIce Cube. Hyphy is a relatively new musical import from Check the Technique: Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies west coast. It incorporates an uptempo, high-energy style. Hyphy is also characterized by witty lyrics and rugged beats. Critics were quick to dismiss it as a fad at first, mainly because it's an offshoot of crunk. Regardless, the Bay Area has enjoyed a measurable amount of success with their brainchild. The slick polyrhythms of snap are naturally accompanied by finger snaps hence the name and occasional whistling to create a distinct melody. Though this style of hip-hop grew out of Atlanta, it quickly spread to other cities in the U. Unfortunately, snap fizzled out almost as soon as it became popular. Stylistically, southern rap relies on exuberant production and direct lyrics typically about the southern lifestyle, trends, attitudes. With a few obscure exceptions, southern hip-hop is more distinct for its sound and slang than for lyricism although, the new school of emcees from Houston and Atlanta are starting to reverse this trend. In an attempt to capture their stylish culture on wax, some southern MCs consciously incorporate car culture, fashion trends, nightlife, and unique Check the Technique: Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies in their songs. Key artists include DJ Screw, T. There's a generational misconception in hip-hop that lyricism is only synonymous with the east coast. The Left coast may be the home of gangsta rap, but it's also home to G-funk, lowrider music, freestyles and yes, lyrical hip-hop. Key artists include N. Trap music is a style of hip-hop that sprung out of the southern rap scene in the s. You'll know a trap track by its beat--stuttering kick drums, hi-hats, s, and oodles of synthesizers. Henry Adaso. Henry Adaso has written about hip-hop since and founded the award-winning blog The Rap Up. LiveAbout uses cookies to provide you with a great user experience. By using LiveAbout, you accept our. How Hip-hop Works | HowStuffWorks It's possible you're at a crossroads right now between finishing the lyrics to this song and reading this article. Go ahead; sing a little more if you can -- we're right there with you …. If you made it to this verse and still have more lyrics in you, then you probably know these are from one of the first hip-hop, or rap, songs ever recorded -- "Rapper's Delight" by The Sugarhill Gang. You might remember the song from when it first hit the airways sprinting toward gold, or maybe you're flashing to a little old lady in the Adam Sandler movie, "The Wedding Singer. Global Graffiti With the aid of the Internet, graffiti has gone global. Most sites include vast archives of photos, and you'll also find blogs, videos, articles, newsletters and interviews. Another thing to clear up is this: If you think hip-hop and rap are synonymous, you're a little off the mark. While it's accurate to say that rap is hip-hop, it's not entirely accurate to say Check the Technique: Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies hip-hop is rap. Hip-hop is a cultural movement akin to Art Deco and the Harlem Renaissance, and, much like these movements, it incorporates several elements. Most hip-hop historians speak of four elements of hip-hop: tagging graffitib-boying break dancingemceeing MCing and rapping. One of the visual elements -- Check the Technique: Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies -- technically came first, but at that time it wasn't part of hip-hop culture because hip-hop didn't exist. DJing and MCing and eventually rapping started the hip-hop movement, with dance and style following closely thereafter. If you look at the movement from its beginnings up to today, you'll see that these elements have expanded into broader terms:. Poetry has also found a home in hip-hop, by way of spoken word -- the process of reciting original poetry or the work of another in front of a group or audience. It should be noted that performance poetry isn't confined to the realm of hip-hop, but it has steadily been gaining footing within the movement for many years. In this article, we'll take a closer look at Check the Technique: Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies of the elements of hip hop. But first, let's go back -- way back -- and explore the beginnings of this year-old movement. To consider hip-hop's birth, something most folks would agree happened in the streets of New Yorkyou first have to look at the paths of several musical styles and genres -- sort of like a musical family tree. Hip-hop's roots can be found in a variety of African-influenced musical styles. A rough outline of events goes something like this: Slaves transported from West African countries to North and South America brought with them various oral and musical traditions. These traditions became integral to the use of music as a form of resistance and rebellion. West African religious drumming met with storytelling and griotism an oral tradition of maintaining and passing along important familial and local histories through poetry and music to create spirituals and ballads. Call and response between congregation and minister moved beyond the church and into music. In time, jazz, blues and folk music permeated the southern United States. Bebop and, eventually, doo-wop music hit the airways. Meanwhile, in Jamaica and many other Caribbean regions, disc jockeys DJs with large, portable sound systems would set up temporary discos in rented buildings or out in the streets. The market for these roaming dance clubs was fiercely competitive. DJs started devising ways to one-up their rivals; one common practice was toasting. Toasting involved either improvised or scripted talking while a song was playing. Sometimes the commentary included barbs or jabs at rival DJs. This practice eventually led to two new types of reggae music: talk over and dub [source: Hebdige ]. Talk-over tracks were recordings of DJs toasting a particular tune. Dubs were even more doctored renditions of songs. They included both talk- over and sound effects, such as echo Check the Technique: Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies, reverb and intensified bass and treble. Many artists started placing a dub version on the b-side of their 45s. These dub versions were usually mostly instrumental with some song lyrics and talk-over commentary. So how does all of this lead to hip-hop? He brought with him knowledge of the mobile discos, toasting DJs, and talk-over and dub records of his birthplace. That knowledge combined with a powerful sound system helped Campbell -- a. Kool Herc -- lay the foundation of the hip-hop movement. But before we talk about Herc's turn at the turntables, let's take a look at something else that he spent time doing after moving to New York -- tagging. Note: Gang members use graffiti to communicate within and outside their crews. However, graffiti is also created by people not affiliated with gangs. The graffiti discussed here refers to the non-gang-related practice. The Cost of Graffiti Cleanup crews operate solely to combat graffiti in cities and counties throughout the United States. Reportedly, about 60 million square feet of graffiti had to be removed in Los Angeles County alone in In a proactive measure, the city of Montebello, Calif. These cameras use a sensor to detect the sound of an aerosol can from as far away as 80 feet, and then they alert the police. Graffiti -- also known as writing, tagging and aerosol art -- is a message or drawing created, most often illegally, on a public surface.