Hip Hop

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Hip hop music is a style of popular music, typically consisting of a rhythmic, rhyming vocal style called rapping (also known as emceeing) over backing beats and scratching performed on a turntable by a DJ. Emceeing, DJ-ing, breakdancing and graffiti art comprise the four elements of Hiphop, a cultural movement which began in New York City in the 1970s, predominantly among African Americans and Latinos. The term rap music is sometimes used synonymously with hip hop music, though it is also used to refer specifically to the practice of rapping.

Typically, hiphop music consists of one or more rappers speaking/chanting semi-autobiographic tales, or often, coded information in an intensely rhythmic lyrical form, making abundant use of techniques like assonance, alliteration, and rhyme. Though rap may be performed a cappella, it is more common for the rapper(s) to be accompanied by a DJ or a live band providing an appropriate beat. This beat is often from the percussion of a different song, usually rock, funk, or soul, and is sometimes sampled. In addition to the beat, other sounds are often sampled, synthesized, or performed. Though rap is usually an integral component of hiphop music, instrumental and non-rap Electro acts such as Planet Patrol are also defined as hiphop music groups.

Hiphop arose in New York City when DJs began isolating the percussion break from funk or disco songs. The role of the emcee (MC) arose to introduce the DJ and the music, and to keep the audience excited. The MCs would speak between songs, giving exhortations to dance, greetings to audience members, jokes and anecdotes. Eventually, this practice came to be more stylized, and was known as rapping. By 1979, hiphop had become a commercially recorded music genre, and began to enter the American mainstream. It also began its spread across the world. In the 1990s, a form called gangsta rap became a major part of American music, causing significant controversy over lyrics which were perceived as promoting violence, promiscuity, drug use and misogyny. Nevertheless, by the beginning of the 2000s, hiphop was a staple of popular music charts and was being performed in many styles across the world.