1. Hip-hop is a genre of music characterized by rhyming vocals (rapping) syncopated to rhythmic (often to the point of excluding melody, etc.) instrumental backdrops that emphasize percussion and bass and are traditionally produced by a DJ indefinitely manipulating a portion of one or more records (sampling).
2. Sampling is hip-hop's central innovation. This leads to the idea that the person who plays a record is as important as someone who plays on a record.
3. The subculture surrounding hip-hop originally included graffiti and a style of dance called b-boying. It has since expanded, in theory, to include many forms of street art and dance styles. In reality, the genre of music has separated from the rest of the subculture, whose elements have grown on their own.
4. Hip-hop's creators were Black and Latino.
5. Hip-hop was originally a live medium.
6. Hip-hop was popularized by people who were not hip-hop. The Sugar Hill Gang violated some of hip-hop's original rules:
a) Lazy sampling (Pioneering DJs gained their reputations from their stock of records that they played that no on else had. "Rapper's Delight" used an obvious and popular sample. It's important to note that the fact they sampled is not bad, it's that they were lazy about it and used the popularity of the sample to drive the song, not its inherent dopeness.)
b) Stolen rhymes (It is well-known that the members of the Sugar Hill Gang stole the lyrics to "Rapper's Delight" from the Cold Crush Brothers
"I'm overcharging niggas for what they did to the Cold Crush."
- Jay-Z
and performed them as if they were their own.)
This changed hip-hop irrevocably. Recorded hip-hop became more important than live hip-hop. Arguably, this is when authentic hip-hop died.
7. After a period of reliance on live interpolation, direct sampling was brought back to prominence by singles from Eric B & Rakim, Ultramagnetic MC's, and Boogie Down Productions. DJ Marley Marl was instrumental in this revival.
8. Rakim of Eric B & Rakim changed rapping by doing something different. Whereas rappers before would emphasize the end of one line ("There ain't no HIGHER, sucker MCs better call me SIRE"), Rakim evenly spaced his words through a line and ended lines without altering his tone. This opened up the idea that there was more than one proper way to rap.
9. Dr. Dre changed hip-hop forever as well by reintroducing interpolation of samples by live instrumentation. His music also relied on samples of music that was popular in Southern California and didn't conform to the prevailing hip-hop (New York) aesthetic. This opened up the regionalization of hip-hop, pushed it further towards becoming part of the spectrum of Black music, and created a series of attempts to restore a previous aesthetic, reconcile it with the new reality (aka underground hip-hop), or purify it.
10. Treach of Naughty by Nature changed hip-hop by greatly increasing the role of choruses/hooks in hip-hop songs. His approach has been stretched to encompass entire songs in recent history by 50 Cent.
11. Underground hip-hop as defined in 9 was complicated by Anticon, a collective mentored by an indie rock performer and whose audience largely came to consist of non hip-hop heads. However, it wasn't complicated as much as some might think, because the term underground hip-hop is a blanket term that covers several scenes and subgenres, not one.
11. Hip-hop was not created for activist or nationalist purposes, and will never replace education or proper petitioning. Hip-hop was originally created as party music, and by people who have more in common with the Diplomats and Kay Slay than dead prez and Q-Bert. This does not mean that the Ying Yang Twins are an ideal, but it does mean that hip-hop is sophisticated enough to encompass a wide range of subject matter, from "The Message" to "Balcony Beach" to "The Whisper Song".
13. Hip-hop is driven by Black performers whose music targets Black audiences. If this were not true, Bubba Sparxxx's second major-label album would've produced a hit single and Joe Budden would rap about prescription drugs and not PCP.
14. The population of hip-hop heads is small. It very likely does not exceed one million persons in the United States.
15. The main threat to hip-hop is its inevitable absorption into the popular music spectrum, which will eventually mean its being produced according to popular music's rules.
16. Conversely, hip-hop's influence has probably stifled the development and growth of other regional subcultures and music.
2. Sampling is hip-hop's central innovation. This leads to the idea that the person who plays a record is as important as someone who plays on a record.
3. The subculture surrounding hip-hop originally included graffiti and a style of dance called b-boying. It has since expanded, in theory, to include many forms of street art and dance styles. In reality, the genre of music has separated from the rest of the subculture, whose elements have grown on their own.
4. Hip-hop's creators were Black and Latino.
5. Hip-hop was originally a live medium.
6. Hip-hop was popularized by people who were not hip-hop. The Sugar Hill Gang violated some of hip-hop's original rules:
a) Lazy sampling (Pioneering DJs gained their reputations from their stock of records that they played that no on else had. "Rapper's Delight" used an obvious and popular sample. It's important to note that the fact they sampled is not bad, it's that they were lazy about it and used the popularity of the sample to drive the song, not its inherent dopeness.)
b) Stolen rhymes (It is well-known that the members of the Sugar Hill Gang stole the lyrics to "Rapper's Delight" from the Cold Crush Brothers
"I'm overcharging niggas for what they did to the Cold Crush."
- Jay-Z
and performed them as if they were their own.)
This changed hip-hop irrevocably. Recorded hip-hop became more important than live hip-hop. Arguably, this is when authentic hip-hop died.
7. After a period of reliance on live interpolation, direct sampling was brought back to prominence by singles from Eric B & Rakim, Ultramagnetic MC's, and Boogie Down Productions. DJ Marley Marl was instrumental in this revival.
8. Rakim of Eric B & Rakim changed rapping by doing something different. Whereas rappers before would emphasize the end of one line ("There ain't no HIGHER, sucker MCs better call me SIRE"), Rakim evenly spaced his words through a line and ended lines without altering his tone. This opened up the idea that there was more than one proper way to rap.
9. Dr. Dre changed hip-hop forever as well by reintroducing interpolation of samples by live instrumentation. His music also relied on samples of music that was popular in Southern California and didn't conform to the prevailing hip-hop (New York) aesthetic. This opened up the regionalization of hip-hop, pushed it further towards becoming part of the spectrum of Black music, and created a series of attempts to restore a previous aesthetic, reconcile it with the new reality (aka underground hip-hop), or purify it.
10. Treach of Naughty by Nature changed hip-hop by greatly increasing the role of choruses/hooks in hip-hop songs. His approach has been stretched to encompass entire songs in recent history by 50 Cent.
11. Underground hip-hop as defined in 9 was complicated by Anticon, a collective mentored by an indie rock performer and whose audience largely came to consist of non hip-hop heads. However, it wasn't complicated as much as some might think, because the term underground hip-hop is a blanket term that covers several scenes and subgenres, not one.
11. Hip-hop was not created for activist or nationalist purposes, and will never replace education or proper petitioning. Hip-hop was originally created as party music, and by people who have more in common with the Diplomats and Kay Slay than dead prez and Q-Bert. This does not mean that the Ying Yang Twins are an ideal, but it does mean that hip-hop is sophisticated enough to encompass a wide range of subject matter, from "The Message" to "Balcony Beach" to "The Whisper Song".
13. Hip-hop is driven by Black performers whose music targets Black audiences. If this were not true, Bubba Sparxxx's second major-label album would've produced a hit single and Joe Budden would rap about prescription drugs and not PCP.
14. The population of hip-hop heads is small. It very likely does not exceed one million persons in the United States.
15. The main threat to hip-hop is its inevitable absorption into the popular music spectrum, which will eventually mean its being produced according to popular music's rules.
16. Conversely, hip-hop's influence has probably stifled the development and growth of other regional subcultures and music.
