Genre story · Other
Hip-Hop
A musical and cultural movement made through turntables, rhymes, dance and collective invention in the Bronx.
Hip-hop developed in the 1970s among Black and Latino communities in New York City's Bronx. DJs extended instrumental breaks for dancers, and MCs developed new ways of addressing the crowd over those rhythms. DJ Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash and many other pioneers helped establish local practices long before recorded rap became a major commercial industry. The movement also involved dance, graffiti and visual expression. Its history is a community story rather than the achievement of one musician on one night.
The beat is constructed
A hip-hop track may be built by selecting and repeating a section of another record, manipulating a rhythm with two turntables, using a drum machine or constructing an original instrumental arrangement. The voice can be percussive, conversational or highly melodic, and music may be instrumental. Different regional scenes later developed distinct recording styles and approaches to lyrical subject matter.
Beyond one technique or one market
Hip-Hop is a broad musical and cultural family. Alternative Hip-Hop, Experimental Hip-Hop and many other later forms draw from it differently. Mixing rapping with metal guitars can produce Rap Metal or Rapcore, but it does not make all hip-hop a child of rock.
Listening landmarks, recordings that follow the original live scene
- 1982Grandmaster Flash and the Furious FiveThe Message1982 single. Social observation and recorded rap.
- 1986Run-D.M.C.Raising HellA striking rap/rock-era expansion.
- 1991A Tribe Called QuestThe Low End TheoryJazz-informed rhythmic and lyrical interplay.