Download
1 / 38
380 likes | 532 Views
Rap: An Introduction. Let’s start it off right . Baby Got Back. Why are we studying rap?. Rap is undeniably steeped in the tradition of poetry .
E N D
Let’s start it off right • Baby Got Back
Why are we studying rap? • Rap is undeniably steeped in the tradition of poetry. • ENG3UI is an International Studies course at Cameron. Rap is perhaps the most influential cultural force our world has seen. From Brazil to France to China, rap is making an impact almost everywhere.
James McBride • James McBride, a black journalist from NYC, says this: “Whatever music it [rap] eats becomes part of its vocabulary, and as the commercial world falls into place behind it to gobble up the powerful slop in its wake, it metamorphoses into the Next Big Thing. It is a music that defies definition, yet defines our collective societies in immeasurable ways. To many of my generation, despite all attempts to exploit it, belittle it, numb it, classify it, and analyze it, [rap] remains an enigma, a clarion call, a cry of "I am" from the youth of the world.”
Defining Rap and Hip Hop • Task! Record your own definitions of rap and hip hop in your notes. • Rap: the act of an MC rhyming over a beat traditionally performed by a DJ. • Hip Hop: a cultural movement that includes at least five elements: DJ-ing (turntablism), MC-ing (rapping), Breaking (breakdancing), Graffiti Art, and Beat Boxing.
The Rap Invasion • The world has experienced a number of momentous cultural events: Swing Jazz of the 1930s, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Grunge, etc. • Rap and Hip Hop are arguably bigger than all of these. • Task! In point form, propose some reasons why rap and Hip Hop have made such a significant impact on our world. Please be prepared to share your work.
Historical Context: 1970s • Economic troubles forced New York City’s public education system to cut its budget for the arts. • Children in the areas of South Bronx and Harlem came up with something else.
AfrikaBambaataa • In 1973, a black teenager by the name of AfrikaBambaataa hooked up his turntable to a speaker, which was placed in the window of his mother’s apartment at 1595 East 174th Street in the Bronx River Houses, and started playing and mixing music for the tenets of the housing project.
Others • A Jamaican teenager by the name of Kool DJ Hercwas doing the same thing in East Bronx. • A couple miles south, Grandmaster Flash was making a name for himself as well.
The Bronx • The Bronx spawned a number of pioneers: • Fab 5 Freddy, Kurtis Blow, Melle Mel, Grand Wizard Theodore, Kool DJ AJ, The Cold Crush Brothers, Spoony Gee, The Rock Steady Crew of B-boys, LovebugStarski (who was said to utter the phrase, "hip-hop“, between breaks to keep time.
The Bronx River Houses • Some have called the Bronx River Houses, government subsidized housing, the City of Gods. • Question: Why is this name ironic?
Metaphor of the Bronx • The metaphor refers to how the Bronx was the “holy ground of hip-hop, the place where it all began.” • Rap grew out of undesirable environments created by race and class issues.
Present today? • The conditions, unfortunately, are still present: • 40% NYC’s black males are out of work. • 30% born in 2001 will end up in prison. • Life expectancy of black men in the U.S. is lower than that of men in Sri Lanka and Colombia. (National Geographic)
All About Identity • The movement was all about identity: “I am the best...in the Bronx, in Harlem, in Queens.” • Initially, the attention was not on the MCs, but rather the B-boys, who attended the block parties to “battle” other crews. • At this time, popular radio was not interested. Instead, DJs sold mix tapes out of the back of their cars. • In 1979, "Rapper's Delight“ by the SugarhillGang became the first commercially successful song.
Roots • Hip Hop can be traced to the spoken-word, dance, drum, and song of West African storytellers. • The combination of word and music is the culmination of the pain and suffering experienced by West African slaves who survived the middle passage (e.g., call and response, improvisation, etc.). • "Speech-song has been part of black culture for a long, long time," says Samuel A. Floyd, director of the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College in Chicago.
Spoken Words and Beats • Several black poets were instrumental in laying the groundwork for rap: for example, Nikki Giovanni and Gil Scott-Heron, the latter writing “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised". • The beat poet, Amiri Baraka, was perhaps the most influential. • Baraka’s performances influenced a group called, The Last Poets, who are now considered the first rap group. • The Last Poets performed spoken-word poetry over percussion and beats. Sound familiar? • AbiodunOyewole, a founding member of The Last Poets, said, “We were about the movement. A lot of today's rappers have talent. But a lot of them are driving the car in the wrong direction.”
Social Consciousness • The Hip Hop movement, initially, was very much about party music, but that changed in 1982 when Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five released “The Message.”
Social Consciousness cont. • Much of today’s commercial rap promotes violence and discrimination (of women and gays). • There is a substantial underground rap movement currently promoting social consciousness – but listeners have to dig for it.
The Commercialization of Rap • Commercial rap seems more focused on advertising than on music: cars, clothes, liquor, etc. • Agenda Inc., a pop culture brand strategy agency, found that Mercedes-Benz was the number one brand mentioned in Billboard's top 20 singles in 2005. • Question:
The Dream: Rags to Riches • Rap represents the rags to riches dream for many impoverished youth in our world. • People all over the world fantasize about making it big in the rap industry.
Epilogue: James Mcbride in Africa • “Welcome to Africa. The assignment: Find the roots of hip-hop. The music goes full circle. The music comes home to Africa. That whole bit. Instead it was the old reporter's joke: You go out to cover a story and the story covers you. The stench of poverty in my nostrils was so strong it pulled me to earth like a hundred-pound ring in my nose. Dakar's Sandaga market is full of "local color"—unless you live there. It was packed and filthy, stalls full of new merchandise surrounded by shattered pieces of life everywhere, broken pipes, bicycle handlebars, fruit flies, soda bottles, beggars, dogs, cell phones. A teenage beggar, his body malformed by polio, crawled by on hands and feet, like a spider. He said, ‘Hey brother, help me.’ When I looked into his eyes, they were a bottomless ocean. The Hotel Teranga is a fortress, packed behind a concrete wall where beggars gather at the front gate. The French tourists march past them, the women in high heels and stonewashed jeans. They sidle through downtown Dakar like royalty, haggling in the market, swimming in the hotel pool with their children, a scene that resembles Birmingham, Alabama, in the 1950s—the blacks serving, the whites partying. Five hundred yards (460 meters) away, Africans eat off the sidewalk and sell peanuts for a pittance. There is a restlessness, a deep sense of something gone wrong in the air.”
