“Hip Hop is nothing more than a bunch of gibberish. There is no talent involved and it is just an excuse for angry young men to use foul language.” This is a quote from a former associate of mine. Many people share this sentiment about the genre.
My first piece of advice is too not judge a genre by what one hear’s on the radio, especially in today’s industry. My other piece of advice is to not look at hip hop as just a genre, but a culture. Hip hop is a culture of people that come from nothing, furthermore, these are not just regular people. They are poets, ready to paint a verbal picture of their experiences.
Kool Herc
Hip Hop can truly be traced back to slavery times. As Nas, says they had “slave said rhymes”. Nevertheless, there is actually one man credited with creating Hip Hop. That man is named Clive Campbell, but he is more commonly known as Kool Herc. Kool Herc was actually born in Kingston, Jamaica and came to America with his parents looking for the American Dream. More specifically, he moved to the Bronx, commonly credited as the birth place of Hip Hop.
He arrived in 1967 to find a country battling segregation and poverty. Nevertheless, passionate about music, by the mid 70’s Kool DJ Herc made his name utilizing block parties and his innovative DJ techniques. For example, he created “The Merry-Go-Round”. A DJ would take two copies of the same record and back cue a record to the beginning of a break to extend the break.
Kool Herc noticed that most people started to get excited and dance when the break started so he decided to extend it to keep people dancing, thus making his parties even more fun and innovative. The merry-go-round became very popular, especially in the early days of hip hop.
The Four Elements
One may wonder what a DJ has to do with Hip Hop. Is Hip Hop not about the rapper? There are four elements of Hip Hop, and ironically, the DJ was once the most important element. In actuality, the rapper was initially utilized to only "hype up" the DJ.
As time went on, however, rappers began talking more about themselves. The other elements of hip hop are break dancing, and graffiti. Hip Hop is a culture and must be treated like one. The type of clothes that are worn, the way one walks, and talks, etc, is also part of this culture. Respect for the past, specifically black culture, is also crucial.
The Emcee
The emcee, if not the most important element of hip hop today, definitely has obtained the most spotlight. For those, however, that believe that rapping takes no talent has never really listened to greats in the industry. A true hip hop lyricists does not just make a song about women with a basic A/B/A/B rhyme scheme. They utilize everything from internal rhyme, to alliteration, to onomatopoeia, to even allegory. Try to tell a story while using advanced rhyme schemes and literary techniques. It is actually a difficult task. Listen to Eminem’s Kim or Stan and witness how he drag’s you into the story with nothing more than his words.
Listen to Big Pun’s Super Lyrical and listen to how he makes almost every word rhyme while never losing the meaning. Listen to how Atmosphere’s Slug creates an entire album full of complex stories and characters on When Life Gives You Lemons, Paint that S*** Gold. Yes, some rapper’s curse more than others, and yes, some mainstream rappers may not be as talented, but if someone thinks that “Hip Hop is nothing more than a bunch of gibberish” they should sit down and analyze a truly talented emcee’s work before passing judgment.
Larry Ware - I have several passions including writing, music, literature, and society. These passions are enhanced by my slight obsession with gaining ...
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