Rap music as a musical form began among the youth of South Bronx, New York in
the mid 1970’s. Individuals such Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash were some of
the early pioneers of this art form. Through their performances at clubs and
promotion of the music, rap consistently gained in popularity throughout the
rest of the 1970’s. The first commercial success of the rap song “Rapper's
Delight” by the Sugar Hill Gang in 1979 helped bring rap music into the
national spotlight. The 1980’s saw the continued success of rap music with
many artists such as Run DMC (who had the first rap album to go gold in 1984),
L.L. Cool J, Fat Boys, and west coast rappers Ice-T and N.W.A becoming popular.
Today, in the late 1990’s rap music continues to be a prominent and important
aspect of African- American culture. Rap music was a way for youths in black
inner city neighborhoods to express what they were feeling, seeing, and living
and it became a form of entertainment. Hanging out with friends and rapping or
listening to others rap kept black youths out of trouble in the dangerous
neighborhoods in which they lived. The dominant culture did not have a type of
music that filled the needs of these youth, so they created their own. So, rap
music originally emerged as a way "for [black] inner city youth to express
their everyday life and struggles" (Shaomari, 1995, 17). Rap is now seen as
a subculture that, includes a large number of middle to upper white class
youths, has grown to support and appreciate rap music. Many youth in America
today are considered part of the rap subculture because they share a common love
for a type of music that combines catchy beats with rhythmic music and
thoughtful lyrics to create songs with a distinct political stance. Rap lyrics
are about the problems rappers have seen, such as poverty, crime, violence,
racism, poor living conditions, drugs, alcoholism, corruption, and prostitution.
These are serious problems that many within the rap subculture believe are being
ignored by mainstream America. Those within the rap subculture recognize and
acknowledge that these problems exist. Those within this subculture consider
"the other group" to be those people who do not understand rap music
and the message rap artists are trying to send. The suppresser, or opposition,
is the dominant culture, because it ignores these problems and perhaps even acts
as a catalyst for some of them. “The beats of rap music has people bopping and
the words have them thinking, from the tenement-lined streets of Harlem, New
York, to the mansion parties of Beverly Hills, California” (Shomari, 1995,
45). Rap music, once only popular with blacks in New York City, Washington,
D.C., and Philadelphia, has grown to become America's freshest form of music,
giving off energy found nowhere else. While the vocalist(s) tell a story, the
sic jockey provides the rhythm, operating the drum machine and
"scratching". Scratching is defined as “rapidly moving the record
back and forth under the needle to create rap's famous swishing sound” (Small,
1992, 12). The beat can be traditional funk or heavy metal, anything goes. The
most important part of rap is "rapping," fans want to hear the lyrics.
During every generation, some old-fashioned, ill-humored people have become
frightened by the sight of kids having a good time and have attacked the source
of their pleasure. In the 1950s, the target was rock 'n' roll. Some claimed that
the new type of music encouraged wild behavior and evil thoughts. Today, rap
faces the same charges. Those who condemn this exciting entertainment have never
closely examined it. If they had, they would have discovered that rap permits
kids to appreciate the English language by producing comical and meaningful
poems set to music. Rappers don't just walk on stage and talk off the top of
their heads. They write their songs, and they put a lot of though into them.
Part of rapping is quick wit. “Rappers like L.L. Cool J grew up rapping in
their neighborhood, and they learned to throw down a quick rhyme when they were
challenged” (Nelson,Gonzales, 1991, 135). But part of it is thoughtful work
over many hours, getting the words to sound just right so that the ideas come
across with style. As L.L. Cool J describes it, "I write all my songs down
by hand. Each song starts with a word, like any other sentence, and becomes a
manuscript." (Nelson, Gonzales, 1991, 137). Many performers set a positive
example for their followers. Kurtis Blow rapped in a video for the March of
Dimes' fundraising drive to battle birth defects and he has campaigned against
teenage drinking as a spokesperson for the National Council on Alcoholism. On
the television show "Reading Rainbow," Run-D.M.C. told viewers how
books enabled them to become "kings of rock." On another occasion,
group member Darryl "D.M.C." McDaniels said, "Little kids like to
follow me around the neighborhood. I tell them to stay in school. Then I give
them money to get something in the deli." Run-D.M.C. is one of the numerous
rap combos advising kids to keep off drugs. Doug E. Fresh and Grandmaster Flash
have each made records telling of the horrors of cocaine. On Grandmaster Flash's
hit "White Lines," he details how the drug can ruin a life, and
shouts, "Don't do it!" From it's inception, rap indured a lot of
hostility from listeners--many, but not all, White--who found the music too
harsh, monotonous, and lacking in traditional melodic values. However, millions
of others - often, though not always, young African-Americans from
underprivileged inner city backgrounds - found an immediate connection with the
style. Here was poetry of the street, directly reflecting and addressing the day
to day reality of the ghetto in a confrontational fashion not found in any other
music or medium. “You could dance to it, rhyme to it, bring it most anywhere
on portable cassette players, and, in the best rock 'n' roll tradition, form
your own band without much in the way of formal training” (Small, 1992, 177).
The basic workouts of early rappers like Kurtis Blow and the Fat Boys can sound
a bit tame today. Many were still expecting the music to peter out before Run
D.M.C. came along. Rap was, and to a large degree still is, a singles oriented
medium, but these men from Queens proved that rappers could maintain interest
and diversity over the course of entire full-length albums. Combining hard beats
and innovative production with material that emphasized positive social activism
without ignoring the cruel realities of urban life, they found as much favor
with the critics as the street. Among the first rap groups to climb the pop
charts in a big way, they also were among the first to make big inroads into the
White and Middle-American audiences when they teamed up with Aerosmiths's
Stephen Tyler and Joe Perry for the hit single "Walk This Way." The
mid- and late '80s saw rap continue to explode in popularity, with the
“birth” of superstars like LL Cool J and Hammer (the latter is often accused
of providing a safe rap- pop alternative). Although most early rap productions
originated in New York City and its environs, the music took hold as a national
phenomenon, with strong scenes developing in other East Coast cities like
Philadelphia, as well as West Coast strongholds in Los Angeles and Oakland.
Production techniques became increasingly sophisticated; electronics,
stop-on-a-dime-editing, and sampling from previously recorded sources became
prominent. The increased emphasis on electronic beats led to the popularization
of the term "hip-hop," a designation which is by now used more or less
interchangeably with rap. The Beastie Boys, obnoxious white ex-punks from New
York, brought rap further into the Middle American mainstream with their
“vastly popular hybrids of hip-hop, hard rock, and in your face braggadocio”
(Nelson, Gonzales, 1991, 12). While rap had always forthrightly dealt with urban
struggle, the late '80s saw the emergence of a more militant strain of the
music. Sometimes advantaged neighborhoods of South Central Los Angeles, although
performers like Philadelphia's Schoolly D probed that the genre was not specific
to the area. Boogie Down Productions laid down a prototype that was taken to
more extreme measures by N.W.A., who reported on the crime, sex and violence of
the ghetto with an explicit verve that some viewed as verging on celebration
rather than journalism. Enormously controversial, and enormously popular with
record buyers, several N.W.A. members went on to stardom as solo acts, including
Ice Cube, Eazy-E, and Dr. Dre. The most popular and controversial of the
militant rappers, the New York based Public Enemy, were perhaps the most
political as well. Their brand of activism, like that of Malcolm X's two decades
earlier, made a lot of people, including liberals, pretty uncomfortable, with
their emphasis upon Black Nationalism and careless anti-Sematic, homophobic, and
sexist references. Groups such as Public Enemy ignited an ongoing debate in the
media. Activist-oriented critics and audiences found a lot to praise in their
music. At the same time, they could not let the xenophobic tendencies of these
acts pass unnoticed, or ignore the frequent quasi-celebration in much rap music
of misogyny, drugs, and violence, and the status to be gained in the urban
community by the practice thereof. Passionate advocates of civil liberties and
free speech wondered, sometimes aloud, whether rappers were taking those
privileges too far. Newly emerging gangsta rappers like Snoop Doggy Dogg, Slick
Rick, and 2Pac not only take the violent subject matter of their lyrics to new
extremes (and to the top of the charts), but have been accused of enacting their
scenarios in real life, landing in jail for manslaughter or fighting similarly
grave charges. These performers often unrepentantly contend they are only
reporting things as they happen in the 'hood, of a culture that not only shoots
people, but is being shot at. Many critics find their line between art and
reality too thin, and hate to see them spreading their gospel from the top of
the charts (2Pac's 1995 album "Me Against the World" debuted at No. 1
even as he was serving a prison sentence), or serve as role models for
international youth. Gangsta rap may have gotten a lot of the headlines in
recent years, but the field of rap as a whole remains diverse and not as
dominated by the shoot-'em-out minidramas of gangsta rap, as many would have you
believe. De La Soul took rap and hip-hop productions to new heights with their
1989 debut Three Feet High & Rising, an almost psychedelic sampling and
editing of a wildly eclectic pool of sources that would do Frank Zappa proud.
Their humorous and cheerful vibe inspired a mini-school of "Afrocentric"
acts most notably the Jungle Brothers and A Tribe Called Quest. Arrested
Development, Digable Planets, and Digital Underground also pursued playful,
heavily jazz- and funk-oriented paths to immense success and high critical
praise. The work of rap is a highly macho (some would say sexist) environment,
but some female performers arose to provide a much needed counterpoint from
various perspectives: the saucy (the various Roxannes), the pop (Salt-N-Pepa),
and the feminist (Queen Latifah). It is a measure of rap's huge influence that
the style has infiltrated mainstream soul and rock as well. Producer Teddy Riley
gave urban-contemporary performers like Bobby Brown a vaguely hip edge with his
brand of "New Jack Swing," White alternative rockers like G. Love and
most notably Beck devised a strange hybrid of rap, blues, and rock. Vanilla Ice
probed that Whitbread pop-rap could top the charts, though he was unable to
sustain his success. More than most genres' rap/hip-hop has become a culture
with its own sub-genres and buzzwords what can seem almost impenetrable to the
novice. Despite this proliferation of schools of production and performance,
many rap records can appear virtually indistinguishable from each other to a new
listener. And there's no getting around the fact that a lot of them are. “The
market is saturated with repetitive beats and monotonously uncompromising slices
of urban street life, to the point that they've lost a lot of both their musical
novelty and shock value” (Rose, 1994, 56). Rap music has lost none of its
momentum as we head into the last half of the 1990's. Scenes continue to
proliferate, not just on the coasts, but in Atlanta, Houston, and such unlikely
locales as Paris. It may appeal more to inner-city adolescents than anyone else
may, but gangsta rap may be bigger than anything else in R&B music may
commercially, and there are more multiplatinum rap/hip-hip acts than you can
count. Shinehead, Shabba Ranks, and less heralded performers like Sister Carol
have fused reggae and rap. And the jazz and rap worlds are being brought closer
together than ever through the efforts of “Gang Starr and their lead Guru,
US3, and the landmark Stolen Moments: Red, Hot + Cool compilation, which united
many of the top names of hip-hop and jazz” (Rose, 1994, 67). Rap is still a
new music form. It is expanding every day, and the sound has grown wide enough
to include scores of future stars. Some rap is rock-based, some is funk, and
some is very close to the original "street" sound. A few of the
present stars will definitely have a noticeable impact on the future of rap.
Themes that are found more and more in rap lyrics are: pride in an African
heritage and the call for harmony between men and women. Queen Latifah and MC
Lyte are working hard to open doors to women in the music business. Rap fans are
also starting to accept more white artists. 3rd Bass and Vanilla Ice are new
white rap acts with promise. The time is near when all of America will be
bopping to rap. Rap has already shown signs of crossing over to a new audience.
A Grammy category was added for rap music in 1989. D.J. Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh
Prince were the first winners for their single, "Parents Just Don't
Understand." In 1990 Young MC took home the prize for "Bust a
Move." And with real proof that rap is reaching more people, Tone Loc
became the first rapper ever to reach number one on the pop charts. He did it
with his hit single "Wild Thing" in 1989. Of course, there are still
plenty who are afraid of rap and won't listen to it's message. Along with the
birth and growth of rap comes censorship. This has become a big issue within the
music industry, and rap music is at the center of the controversy. Some people
want to put warning labels on certain rappers' albums and newspapers and
magazines have been printing articles about the bad influence that some rappers
have on kids. What is it about the music that people find so troubling? Some
rappers use strong language. Others are accused of writing racist lyrics, or
lyrics that are insulting to women. As with all kinds of music, the more popular
it becomes, the more likely you are to find both good and bad sides. But the
positive side of rap greatly outweighs the negative. And its positive messages
seem to be spreading. The number of new rappers that grows everyday will bring
about new forms of rap and constant changes on the “old school” versions of
the music. With these new versions and variations comes new fans and renewed
faith from old fans. Regardless of how many rap artists land in jail or end up
dead, this music will live on. The fans will make sure of it.

BibliographyNelson, Havelock and Michael A. Gonzales. Bring the Noise: A Guide to Rap
Music and Hip-Hip Culture. New York: Harmony Books, 1991. Rose, Tricia. Black
Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. Hanover, Wesley
University Press, 1994. Shomari, Hashim A. (William A. Lee, III). From the
Underground: Hip-Hop Culture as an Agent of Social Change. Mt. Vernon, NY:
X-Factor Publications, 1995. Small, Michael. Break It Down: The Inside Story
from the New Leaders of Rap. Secaucus, New Jersey: Carol Publishers, 1992.
www.aolnetsearch.com.