What is Hip Hop? A musing on where Hip Hop was and where its been from an outsiders perspective.

As the first blog on the subject of hip hop, I thought it would be good to define what I think hip hop is and where its been.

What is hip hop?

Never really stopped to think about it. Its music right? Something that sounds like rap but without the gangsta themes. Its urban music that samples other music, changes the beat and lyrics around a bit and tries to pass itself off as something new.

Well, come to find out, its more than that. A lot more.

We can't just keep hip hop relegated to the music can we? Its more than that. Its a collection of art that spans music, painting, dance and partying? Yes, it seems it was all done to kick the boredom that was the Bronx NY in the 1970's. Music that was perfected to keep the party hopping, dance moves that would impress anyone, and graffiti just because it looks cool.

I'll get to the dancing and painting in another post. Today I'll just drop some thoughts on the music.

What I've learned so far about the history of hip hop goes something like this:

The first practitioners were trying to make some money throwing parties and needed to out perform the other guys in the neighborhood. The partiers love the bass, so buy a huge sound system. Turn down the treble, jack up the bass. But what about the music itself? How about just listening to that one part of the song that everyone wants to hear? We'll call it the 'break'. Heck why not put it on a loop and listen to it over and over? Now, that sounds good and all, but what about the words? A song this catchy needs some lyrics to round it out. Something with its own cadence, and tight rhymes that'll complement the beat. We can call that rapping. Wait a second... did we just invent a new genre of music?

By only using the best parts of the music, they created something that was more to the point. It was the first time anyone had thought of doing anything like that with music. And I would argue that it wasn't just a beginning of a new genre of music. It was a new way to look at music

Now lets talk about how those ideas changed the face of modern music. Forget hip hop and rap for a second. What about techno music? Same themes; more bass, breaks put on a loop and lots of record scratching. Modern pop music? Think about how much Brittney Spears or Kesha use beat sampling and lyrical motifs similar to rapping. Modern rock? Forget about it! Limp Bizkit, Disturbed, Slipknot and almost everyone else in the genre use bass, rapping, and sampling.

The ideas introduced by hip hop have evolved and permeated almost all modern music, but hip hop itself has managed to stick around and stay relevant. We hear hip hop music on the radio. We also hear it in commercials, in movies and on television. Next time you see a TV commercial listen to the background music and tell me what you hear.

Does this mean that hip hop has sold out? Not really. We still have Common, Snoop, RZA and others that keep the art of hip hop alive. But what 'selling out' does say is that its become such a mainstream art form that its almost universally accepted. So much so, people want hip hops musical motifs attached to their products.

Well thats all I can think of saying right now. I might go back to the books and the stereo and see if I'm inspired to blog about other things hip hop. For now I'll leave with a few things that I find interesting and hope you'll check out.

Banksy. One of the best graffiti artists in the world today. This is a link to his website, but you'd do yourself a favor to google his name as well.

The reverse graffiti project. When graffiti isn't vandalism.

This video explanes the history of the worlds most important 6 second drum loop