WHAT IS HIP HOP? The Four Elements of Hip Hop Hip hop is music — and a culture, encompassing speech, styles of dress, art, poetry and dancing, as well as "rapping." Purists have narrowed the major components of the culture into four loosely defined categories: deejaying, emceeing, breaking and graffiti art. Deejaying Jamaican immigrant Kool Herc, inspired by the “dubbing” and “toasting” from his native home, is credited with introducing deejaying to New York. Early New York DJs improvised, using a pair of turntables as a makeshift instrument when funding for school music programs were cut. Later Afrika Bambataa evolved the art of deejaying. MCing, or Emceeing MCs have become a centralized figure in hip hop. Commercially, MCs are known as rappers. During hip hop’s early days, MCs played a supporting role, accompanying the deejay and carrying crates of records. They used a microphone to talk over breakbeats and publicize their own neighborhoods while the deejay spun records. As competition for this position increased, MCs engaged in one-upmanship, boasting of their greatness in the face of inner city economic despair. Breaking Also known as b-boying, the dances that accompany the music have many influences. Kids in diverse New York neighborhoods were exposed to Eastern martial arts, tap dancing, gymnastics, salsa, Afro-Cuban and Native American dances. In the late ‘90’s b-boys and b- girls integrated moves from capoeira, a 16th century fighting dance developed by Brazilian slaves preparing for resistance. Graffiti Urban graffiti, using spray cans to create stylized murals and “tags” to create art in public spaces, gave kids a means of self-expression and a chance to spread political messages. THE EVOLUTION OF HIP HOP In the late 1970s, marginalized black and Latino youth in the Bronx birthed hip hop music and culture. With limited access to resources for entertainment or distraction from gang life, they redefined the world in their own terms, creating a new form of music on turntables, their makeshift instrument of choice. Hip hop was born as public art, with deejays plugging sound equipment directly into street power sources, b-boys and b-girls showcasing new forms of dance on pieces of cardboard, and graffiti artists illuminating neighborhoods with murals crafted out of nothing but their imaginations and spray cans, often adapted from discarded aerosol deodorant or insecticide caps. At its roots, hip hop was born from an inherent need to resist the manifestations of racism and socioeconomic inequality deeply attached to the lives of New York's young people, to give voice and expression to societal ills and create new possibilities. Hip hop was and is inherently political, its music and culture driven by young people looking for social empowerment, if not within mainstream society, certainly amongst themselves. More than 30 years after its birth in the Bronx, hip hop has gained credibility not just with American youth, but among youth worldwide. With the introduction of media like MTV and online music sites, hip hop has spread across the globe. From Japan to Germany to Uganda, young people worldwide are embracing -- and uniting -- through hip hop. At the same time, the hip hop movement today struggles to balance its commercialization -- too often dependent on the sexism and consumerism to which popular culture so readily responds and often demands -- with its roots of resistance and empowerment. Hip hop glossary Alternative hip-hop Also known as “underground rap,” a subgenre of rap that encompasses art forms such as sampling, breakdancing, spoken word, freestyling, beatboxing, turntablism and more. Alternative hip-hop often includes artists on independent record labels and features socially conscious and politically oriented lyrics. B-boying A dance style stemming from the early 1970s hip-hop scene, evolving from such diverse sources as jazz, martial arts, capoeira and tap dancing. Break boys and girls, who later became known as b-boys and b- girls, first started dancing during DJ breaks at Bronx hip-hop parties. B-boying soon became a skilled and competitive art form. The term “breakdancing” was later created by mainstream media in the 1980s. Battling A competition, often between DJs or rappers, judged often on originality and skill Beats The basis of hip-hop—the instrumental music itself Beatboxing Creating sounds using one’s mouth that replicate rhythmic patterns and percussion. Noted beatboxers include Doug E. Fresh, Darren Robinson (a.k.a. The Human Beatbox) of the Fat Boys and Rhazel of the Roots. Crunk A style of Southern hip-hop featuring heavy bass and aggressively chanted lyrics DJ In hip-hop, DJing originally encompassed the art of mixing and scratching music to create new music Dirty South A term used to describe the Deep South region of the United States, including the states Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas. Rappers from the Dirty South began to dominate hip-hop in the early 2000s. Dub Hip-hop’s roots emerged from dub, a form of ska and reggae music out of 1960s Jamaica characterized by an MC singing or rapping over a mostly instrumental “dub” version of an existing song. Flow A lyricist’s rhythm or cadence, his or her ability to combine words with the music Freestyle The art of vocal improvising Gangsta rap Originally popularized by West Coast rappers in the 1980s, often containing “hardcore” rap lyrics related to gangs, gang members and their lifestyle MC A hip-hop performer or rhymer. Also stands for “mic controller” or “master or ceremonies.” Old school Early hip-hop style, usually spanning the 1970s to the mid-to-late 1980s Sampling The process of using sound segments from one musical piece to form sounds in another musical piece Scratching Moving a record manually under a needle to create new musical sounds Turntablism Playing the record turntable as if it were an instrument. Techniques might include scratching or mixing in order to create rhythms and manipulate sounds. Timetables 1970s Spoken word collective The Last Poets release their debut recording. Mixing politically conscious poetry with music, it later is lauded as an early progenitor of hip-hop. Clive Campbell, a.k.a. DJ Kool Herc, DJs his first party in the South Bronx, an impoverished neighborhood riddled with gang violence and isolated from the rest of New York City following the construction of Robert Moses’s Cross Bronx Expressway. Known as the father of hip-hop, Herc was the first to experiment with breakbeats, manipulating the instrumental breaks of old funk, R&B and soul tracks to form the basis of hip- hop. Graffiti tagging begins in New York City. Influenced by Kool Herc, hip-hop pioneers Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash and Grandmaster Caz start DJing at house and street parties across the Bronx. Bambaataa forms the Universal Zulu Nation, a socially conscious collective of DJs, graffiti artists and breakdancers that included the b-boy crew the Shaka Zulu Kings. He defines the “four elements” of the nascent hip-hop scene as DJing, breakdancing, graffiti art and MCing. Grandmaster Flash starts mixing, a new DJing method that connects bits of two different songs during the breaks. The first MC team, which stemmed from party shouts during DJ sets, is formed by Coke La Rock and Clark Kent, a.k.a. Tyrone Smith. DJ Grand Wizard Theodore accidentally invents “scratching,” or nudging a record under the needle during breaks. Hip-hop spreads beyond the Bronx and into all five boroughs of New York City. Meanwhile, disco continues to dominate the radio airwaves and the club scene. More rappers begin performing as MCing starts to eclipse DJing. Bronx b-boys JoJo and Jimmy D form the Rock Steady Crew. Artist Lee Quinones paints graffiti murals on subway trains and on handball courts. Record label owner Sylvia Robinson assembles the Sugar Hill Gang, who record the first commercial rap recording, “Rapper’s Delight.” Written by Grandmaster Caz and featuring a sample from the disco act Chic, it exposes many Americans to hip-hop for the first time. Kurtis Blow, managed by Russell Simmons, becomes the first rapper to sign with a major label. He releases “Christmas Rappin” on Mercury Records. Hip-hop further enters the mainstream with Mr. Magic’s Rap Attack, a new Saturday night radio show on New Jersey radio station WHBI. Wendy Clark, a.k.a. Lady B, one of hip-hop’s first well-known female artists, releases “To the Beat Y’All.” Kurtis Blow releases his best-selling album The Breaks and is the first rapper to appear on national TV, performing on Soul Train. Hip-hop meets art pop as the New York scene extends downtown and rappers and b- boys mingle with the white club scene. After meeting hip-hop scenester Fab 5 Freddy, the new wave act Blondie records “Rapture,” featuring singer Debbie Harry rapping and continuing hip-hop’s journey into the mainstream. Captain Rapp and Disco Daddy release “Gigolo Rap,” the first West Coast rap record. The Rock Steady Crew and Dynamic Rockers battle—at Lincoln Center. 20/20 airs the first TV news feature story on “the rap phenomenon.” Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five release their turntable masterpiece The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel, which contains the popular and socially conscious track “The Message.” Directed by artist Charlie Ahearn and created by Fab 5 Freddy, Wild Style marks the first Hollywood exploration of hip-hop style and culture. The film showcases the work of legendary hip-hop and graffiti artists such as Lady Pink, Daze, Grandmaster Flash and the Rock Steady Crew. The first international hip-hop concert tour, featuring Afrika Bambaataa, Fab 5 Freddy and the Double Dutch Girls, goes to Europe, marking the start of hip-hop’s worldwide reach.