Rap / Hip-Hop

About

Rap is a popular music genre throughout the world that usually consists of rhythmical lyrics. It has become extremely popular since the late 20th century and become one of the most popular mainstream genres. There have also been many parodies of the genre in various shows, such as South Park, the Simpsons, and Family Guy.

History

Rap is one of the main genres of music. At first, rap didn't mean what it means today. Rap is a word that is speculated to be first used in 1541 simply as the meaning, "to utter sharply", in short. Four centuries passed and the meaning was changed to "to strike, especially with a quick, smart, or light blow". However, these meaning were quickly forgotten by the media, as rapping is almost always associated with rhymes.

No one has really confirmed when rap started. Some people say centuries before the 1900s, some people say in the 1920s and some people say in the 1960s. But some people simply think that as long as rhymes in songs existed, rap has existed.

The origins of what is today known as "hip-hop" can stylistically be traced back to funk, soul, Jamaican music (i.e Reggae, "toasting", dub, ska) and disco (musically), spoken word music, scat singing and a tradition among African-Americans called "The Dozens", where two blacks insult each other until one side gives up (lyrically).

The prototype of hip-hop music can be found on what is known as "disco rap" in the late 70s, where the lead singer performs a rapid-fire vocalization that became the base of all modern rapping. One of the most famous example is Sugarhill Gang's Rapper's Delight in 1979 and also Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's singles, among others.

DJ Kool Herc and Run-DMC are both credited to have popularized hip-hop in the early 1980s. Kool Herc, in particular, pioneered the "Deejaying" style of hip-hop while Run-DMC pioneered the image and lyricism.

The Golden Age

The two albums that were considered to have kick-started this era was Eric B and Rakim's"Paid in Full^[6] (1987) and N.W.A.'s Straight Outta Compton^[7](1988), both credited to have popularized the rap-over-beat-sample style.

"The Golden Age" of rap is what most people talk about. This spanned from the mid 80s to the late 90s. Many big name rappers and groups such as N.W.A., Nas, Wu-Tang Clan, Public Enemy, Ice Cube, Notorious B.I.G.^[1], Tupac Shakur^[2], and others were well known. To this day, many people praise these musicians for their influence on others' lives.

West Coast vs. East Coast

During the mid to late 90s, when Tupac Shakur (West Coast) and Notorious B.I.G. were the big rappers back then, there was a scuffle between the two coasts. The fans of the two labels, Bad Boys Records (East) and Death Row Records (West) were feuding over Control of the mainstream radio.

The participants of the feud created tracks insulting the opponents and their affiliations.

A full description of the drama is here^[9]

Alternative Hip-Hop

Aside of hardcore hip-hop and gangsta rap that dominated mainstream hip-hop throughout the golden age, there was also the critically acclaimed but less commercially successful alternative rap subgenre which entails hip-hop music that eschews the then-popular gangster themed lyricism and are usually more sample heavy on the beats, led by artists such as Mos Def, The Pharcyde and A Tribe Called Quest. Alternative, sample heavy rap is considered to be the precursor of experimental hip-hop artists such as Madvillain, Deltron 3030 and even Death Grips.

Modern Rap

With Modern times, and the rise of Party Rap and Trap Music, mainstream hip hop has changed its bombastic style and replaced it with a more cold, electronic one, focusing on drugs and gang violence, often praising it, modern Mainstream rappers include Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Gucci Mane, Nicki Minaj and Kanye West.

However, due to the experimental nature of hip hop, it has allowed it to branch out into more subgenres and create more diverse sounds, drawing influence from other genres such as jazz, soul, funk, metal, rock, electronica and chillwave, popular experimental rappers and producers include Flying lotus, Danny Brown, Run the Jewels, and Kid cudi.

On 2011, the hip hop inspired band Death Grips, released their first mixtape titled "ExMilitary", a combination of punk, metal, electronics and hip hop that received rave reviews by critics, Death Grips would then be launched to stardom with the release of their album "The Money Store" on 2012. Death Grips has since then become popular on he 4chan board /mu/, and they often placed on the end spectrum of experimentalism in rap.

On July 24, 2014, Reddit user qazaibomb submitted a chart featuring essential classic and modern hip hop albums to the hip hop subreddit r/HipHopHeads, which has gathered 707 upvotes.

On March 15th, 2015, Compton rapper Kendrick Lamar released this third studio album "To Pimp A Butterfly"^[4] which got rave reviews from all critics as well as positive responses from all over the internet, Internet personality "Anthony fantano"^[5] gave the album a 10/10, his third 10/10 on the whole run of his channel.

The album has been considered a modern classic by many dispite the short time it has been released, as wikipedia wrote "To Pimp a Butterfly received rave reviews from music critics, with some even hailing it as a "masterwork" of the hip hop genre, while other publications billed it as an "instant classic"

Popularity in Black Social Networks

Modern hip hop has had a big involvement in modern black internet culture, with multiple rap songs being referenced on tweets as punchlines, as well as multiple rappers, this has become popular on Vine, a prominent black site.

Related Memes

I Was Going To X, but Then I Got High

"I Was Going To X, but Then I Got High" is an image macro that came from the 2001 Afroman song, "Because I Got High". The image macro usually talks about how the person was about to do something, but then ends with "But Then I Got High" or something similar.

The original video is here

Smoke Weed Everyday

Smoke Weed Everyday is a part of lyrics from Snoop Dogg's song "The Next Episode"^[3]. It's usually accompanied with a dance by snoop dogg seeing on the video "Drop it like its hot" featuring pharrel williams.

Ether

In December 2001, New-York based rapper Nas released a diss-track directed at Jay-Z titled "Ether". The song is well known today as the one that won the feud between the two rappers at the time, and the song today is held in a legendary status along the likes of Boogie Down Productions' "The Bridge is Over" and 2Pac's "Hit 'Em Up". Today, the name of the song, 'Ether', is used to refer to verbal humiliation, similar to burning.^[10]

Satirical Hip Hop

Satirical Hip Hop (often referred to as Ironic rap or Meme Rap) refers to a sub genre of hip hop that is created with the intention of becoming viral, normally as a joke and/or a parody of prominent genres such as Gangsta rap^[1] and trap music^[2]. The satirical nature of an ironic rap song is often intentionally left out of its title, cover image, and description, in order to catch listeners by surprise. Meme rap typically features lo-fi cloudy production^[13], simplistic music videos, lazy rhymes, and intentionally stereotypical lyrics, with humor as the goal.

Perhaps the earliest Meme Rap albums, or the albums that laid the groundwork for Meme Rap were Slick Rick's The Great Adventures of Slick Rick (1988) and De La Soul's 3 Feet High and Rising, which were famous for their pop culture-heavy and absurdist lyrics and samples, the first recognized satirical rapper has been kool keith^[6], considered to be one of hip-hop's most eccentric and unusual personalities

Satirical Hip Hop and its popular artist are recognized as the mayor outsider artists in hip hop, and as well as being placed on an experimental label, popular Satirical rappers include Lil B, Yung Lean and Viper.

External References