Hip Hop

Hip Hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music, or hip-hop music, is a music genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted. It developed as part of hip hop culture, a subculture defined by four key stylistic elements: MCing/rapping, DJing/scratching, break dancing, and graffiti writing. Other elements include sampling (or synthesis), and beatboxing. While often used to refer to rapping, "hip hop" more properly denotes the practice of the entire subculture. The term hip hop music is sometimes used synonymously with the term rap music, though rapping is not a required component of hip hop music; the genre may also incorporate other elements of hip hop culture, including DJing, turntablism, and scratching, beatboxing, and instrumental tracks.

Evolution of Hip Hop
Hip hop as music and culture formed during the 1970s when block parties became increasingly popular in New York City, particularly among African American and Latino youth residing in the Bronx.At block parties DJs played percussive breaks of popular songs using two turntables to extend the breaks. Hip hop's early evolution occurred as sampling technology and drum-machines became widely available and affordable. Turntablist techniques developed along with the breaks and the Jamaican toasting vocal style was used. Rapping developed as a vocal style in which the artist speaks along with an instrumental or synthesized beat. Notable artists at this time include Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, Fab Five Freddy, Afrika Bambaataa, Kool Moe Dee, Kurtis Blow, and Spoonie Gee. The Sugarhill Gang's 1979 song "Rapper's Delight" is widely regarded to be the first hip hop record to gain widespread popularity in the mainstream. The 1980s marked the diversification of hip hop as the genre developed more complex styles.Prior to the 1980s, hip hop music was largely confined within the United States. However, during the 1980s, it began its spread and became a part of the music scene in dozens of countries.

Links To Peel
BBC Radio DJ John Peel started playing hip hop music in 1982, often to the unbridled disgust of certain listeners. Peel later recalled in his autobiography how he had been approached by a BBC producer and told:


 * "That I shouldn't play it [Hip-Hop] on the radio because it was, and I quote, 'the music of black criminals'. This I felt told more about the individuals concerned than it did about hip-hop".

Later his widow, Sheila, would recall the occasion on which a listener was so incesed by his advocacy of black music that they dispatched a "box of turds" by post. Like many of the broadly left persuasion, Peel was alienated by gangsta rap lyrics, their fixation with money and disdain for women and gays. However he did embrace many rap artists from the UK, such as Credit To The Nation, who were not into gangsta rap or sexism or homophobia. Peel at the turn of the century embrassed the UK grime scene, despite this subgenre later on becoming associated with gangsta culture.

Peel's Hip Hop Sessions
Peel's first hip hop session was recorded in September 1984 by UK artist Junior Gee And The Capital Boys, broadcast on 03 October 1984. Later years, many of Peel's hip hop sessions were done by UK artists, who did not get much exposure compared to US artists. Peel was also disillusioned with most American hip hops artists who were sexist and homophobic in lyrics, which he had disdain for and certainly would not want to bring them for a session in the UK.

Festive Fifty
The first hip hop artist to enter the Festive Fifty was Grandmaster Flash & The Furious 5, whose track 'The Message' entered at number 3 in the 1982 Festive Fifty. This was the year of seminal rap and the birth of a new genre in Hip Hop: electro-funk, initiated by Afrika Bambaataa's & The Soul Sonic Force's "Planet Rock", the most sampled Hip Hop record of all time (James Brown's "Funky Drummer" is the most sampled record in Hip Hop). Electro-funk in Hip Hop got Peel interested in the genre, which he played often on his shows including Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five's "The Message", which started political/social rap. Many hip hop artists started to get into the Festive Fifty over the years including Eric B & Rakim, Public Enemy, Cookie Crew, Overlord X and ..........

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