Hip hop
From ArticleWorld
The background of the hip hop culture was hatched upon the back of a group of silenced youth. Inner city youth had a feeling that not only were they not getting a fair advantage at a quality life but that they were not being heard. Our history shows that when expression is held back something bad, usually aggression often will follow. In the case of hip hop luckily the aggression wasn't depicted in the form of violence but rather in an evolution that would change not only the municipal areas close to its birth but our brotherhood as a whole!
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Rap music
As it began, hip hop wasn't even known as hip hop. In the middle to late 1970s young Latino and black youths from the Bronx were searching for a way to convey themselves and began to have open microphones at get-togethers which they would exercise to perform a kind of poetry over any song that was being played. This was the development of rap music or hip hop music. Although rapping might seem simple to a novice the simple fact is that not everyone had the knack to express themselves in this manner.
Breakdance
A different of self expression pertaining to rap was born in the form of break dancing. People could be seen not only at parties they attended but on street corners with nothing more then a piece of cardboard and a radio or boom box, dancing for self expression and even for cash in some cases.
Graffiti
The final form of the hip hop phenomenon is the most debatable one! Some youth weren't capable of rapping nor could they dance but they had to discover an outlet or a way in which they can also be included in this movement. What they did have was the art skills. This art form which to most is called graffiti was now renamed "tagging" in the hip hop culture. Whether you agree or disagree with the way in which they went about highlighting their talent, no one can ignore that they truly were talented. Tagging came about when the artist of one crew or gang would create a 'stamp' or slogan that was to be his group's logo and spray paint this all over subway trains.
Why subway trains and not walls? Well, it helped that the subway system ran through the city, and was advertisement of his crowd to the other respective crews. It became a game in the regard that if you could get your tag over the top of another team's tag you would have pretty much performed the hip hop style of a check mate!
What is hip hop?
Hip hop is the ensemble of all three of the above mentioned frames of reference. Ra, breakdance and graffiti dancing are all evenhanded forms of the hip hop movement. Some might be argumentative with the message that some hip hop relays but the fact that these women and men are artists is not even questionable. Hip hop was a feeling way before it ever became a form of expression and it will continue to be a way of life long after all the other types of expression are gone!