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The rap part of hip hop is overexposed and played out. If you was there back in 1982 "hip hop" was just the kids street culture. It was mostly dancing, parties and graffiti. The rapping part was ancillary to the dancing. Everyone was breakdancing doing freezes and backspins and the caterpillar. Many kids was writing. The dancing and graffiti was the main part of the culture.
Then hip hop was co-opted by two suburban guys, Rick Rubin and Russel Simmons. They turned NYC city street culture boxed it up for sale and sold it to suburban whiteboys. You can't sell dances or graffiti so they took the minor part of hip hop (rapping) and made it the major part. Hip hop was about having fun and expressing yourself. After a few years of these music industry people manipulated hip hop; soon it was about smacking *******, f the police and all promoted all sorts of degeneracy/violence to the detriment of the community.
If you want to meet a real hip hop king you can. Seen is a true original hip hop king; he has a tattoo shop in the Bronx. He is an original all city king and not a music industry created poser.
As much as pure Hip-hop is almost non-existent today, I am of the opinion that Hip-hop is the most creative movement in NYC. No other form of music represents NYC as much as Hip-hop has. Hip-hop put New York on the map outside of commerce.
Yes, I said it. Outside of commerce, Hip-hop put NYC on the map as far as culture goes.
You have to be like, what, 12 years old? That could be the only excuse for this post.
But you do have to admit boxing up NYC street culture and selling it to suburban kids was pure marketing genius. They made it into something far more glamourous than it truly was, how else could you explain kids in gated communities in Westchester trying to act and dress like common thugs from the South Bronx??
The same thing has been said about pretty much every musical genre and generational trend. Flapper music promoted alcohol use and the attendance of speak easys. Elvis's music was sexually suggestive and promoted teenage relations and early pregnancies. The 60s music like the Grateful Dead only led to heavy drug use and hippies who did not want to work or go to war. Punk rock support anarchy and people who were anti-government. Heavy Metal promoted mosh pits and violence and tragedies like Columbine. Alternative rock leads to people being sissies .
Exactly, I don't know what the chuck everyone keeps complaining about. I'm not the biggest listener to hip-hop but I do like some rap/hip-hop music. Though I'm not a big hip-hop head, it's type annoying when people think its the worst thing that has happened culturally. I mean, you have political TV promoting war and make you hate your fellow man, and tell you why you have to fear this or that but hip-hop is the worst thing that has happened.
To ask it you would have to know nothing about the history of NY between, say, the time of the Iriquois to the advent of MTV. (hiphop would probably still be a local thing without MTV).
You would have to not know about Prohibition and how it led to the rise of mafias and gangs in general, resulting in decades of mob dramas, "The Gangs of New York" , etc.
You'd have to be ignorant of the influx of Jews, intellectuals and Jewish intellectuals during/after World War II, bringing talent, culture and avant-gardism, new art forms that the nazis considered "Degenerate Art" (Europe's loss was our gain, clearly).
You'd have to ignore the movement and impact of the free black culture north, portrayed so well in dramas by August Wilson, and the struggles of African-Americans for self-determination, as seen in EL Doctorow's "Ragtime", and an absolute revolution in jazz, soul, and every other form of music we consider 'American', and while a lot of it forms the basis of hiphop, is only similar in its origins.
You'd have to know nothing about the Stock Market crash of 1929, "The Crime of the Century", architect Sanford White and his visual fingerprint on this city, the flapper culture, the rise of the automobile and middle class mobility, the establishment of work unions ("On The Waterfront"), the apogee of the American musical and musical theater.
In short, you really need to get out more. Go to the library and get some books.
But your point is a good one -- hiphop combines poetry, dancing, music. It's starting to all sound the same though, which is the death knell for any artistic movement. In 200 years, they will study it in universities and everybody will be laughing at the sagging and other hiphop ugly fashions!
*Shrug*, that's just my opinion, take it or leave it.
I mean they delivered a message in the rap songs about things about civil rights... but hip hop itself was not created due to the civil rights movement is what I am saying. It was created to stop kids from joining gangs.
exactly I'm agreeing with you, the civil rights movement could not address the problems going on in the South Bronx. Hip Hop was almost a spontaneous happening, a movement all in itself not spawned from any political occurrences, just pure neglect and youth taking it upon themselves to try to end the gang violence.
Tin Pin Alley, Punk, Post-Punk, Salsa, Minimalism (in terms of classical music), disco, bebop etc.
To talk about hip-hop, basically what's in most recent memory, as the best is selling NYC short.
Its safe to say that hip hop is more of a global cultural force than any of those listed. Disco? Really? You'll see kids breakdancing in front of the eiffel tower
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