Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a

popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fun ...

genre Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other fo ...

that emerged in the early 1970s from the

African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hip-hop includes

rapping Rapping (also rhyming, flowing, spitting, emceeing, or MCing) is an artistic form of vocal delivery and emotive expression that incorporates " rhyme, rhythmic speech, and ommonlystreet vernacular". It is usually performed over a backin ...

often enough that the terms can be used synonymously. However, "hip-hop" more properly denotes an entire

subculture A subculture is a group of people within a culture, cultural society that differentiates itself from the values of the conservative, standard or dominant culture to which it belongs, often maintaining some of its founding principles. Subcultures ...

. Other key markers of the genre are the

disc jockey A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include Radio personality, radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at nightclubs or music fes ...

turntablism Turntablism is the art of manipulating sounds and creating new music, sound effects, mixes and other creative sounds and beats, typically by using two or more Phonograph, turntables and a cross fader-equipped DJ mixer. The mixer is plugged into ...

scratching Scratching, sometimes referred to as scrubbing, is a DJ and Turntablism, turntablist technique of moving a vinyl record back and forth on a phonograph, turntable to produce percussive or rhythmic sounds. A crossfader on a DJ mixer may be used to ...

beatboxing Beatboxing (also, and sometimes, called beat boxing) is a form of vocal percussion primarily involving the art of mimicking drum machines (usually a Roland TR-808, TR-808), using one's mouth, lips, tongue, and voice.instrumental tracks. Cultural interchange has always been central to the hip-hop genre. It simultaneously borrows from its social environment while commenting on it. The hip-hop genre and culture emerged from block parties in ethnic minority neighborhoods of New York City, particularly

Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...

. DJs began expanding the instrumental

breaks Break or Breaks or The Break may refer to: Time off from duties * Recess (break), time in which a group of people is temporarily dismissed from its duties * Break (work), time off during a shift/recess ** Coffee break, a short mid-morning rest ...

of popular records when they noticed how excited it would make the crowds. The extended instrumental breaks provided a platform for break dancers and rappers. These breakbeats enabled the subsequent evolution of the hip-hop style. Many of the records used were

disco Disco is a music genre, genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the late 1960s from the United States' urban nightclub, nightlife, particularly in African Americans, African-American, Italian-Americans, Italian-American, LGBTQ ...

due to its popularity at the time. This disco-inflected music is known as

old-school hip-hop Old-school hip hop (also spelled old skool) (also known as disco-rap) is the earliest commercially recorded hip hop music and the original style of the genre. It typically refers to the music created around 1979 to 1983, as well as any hip hop t ...

. The genre became more stylistically diverse in the 1980s as

electro music Electro (also known as electro-funk, and sometimes referred to as electro-pop)
Gl ...

started to inform

new-school hip-hop The new school of hip hop was a movement in Hip-hop, hip hop music, beginning in 1983–84 with the early records of Run-DMC, Whodini, and LL Cool J. Predominantly from Queens and Brooklyn, it was characterized by drum machine-led minimalism, ofte ...

. The transition between the mid-1980s and 1990s became known as hip-hop's

Golden age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the ''Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages of Man, Ages, Gold being the first and the one during wh ...

as the genre started to earn wide critical acclaim and generate massive sales. The popularity of hip-hop music expanded throughout the late 1990s and into the 21st century, where it became a worldwide phenomenon. Most countries have local variations on the style. By 2017, hip-hop had become the bestselling genre of popular music.

Etymology

"Hip-hop" has been in use since the 17th century to mean a succession of hops. In George Villiers' 1671 play '' The Rehearsal'', Prince Volscius exits a scene awkwardly with one boot on and the other off. The director of the scene exclaims, "to go off hip hop, hip hop, upon this occasion, is a thousand times better than any conclusion in the world". A common variation on "hip hop" is "hippity hop", which was in wide usage by the 19th century. It appears in works like a poem from 1882 where four children sing, "Hippity hop to the candy Shop!" It was a common refrain in skipping games. Many

dance Dance is an The arts, art form, consisting of sequences of body movements with aesthetic and often Symbol, symbolic value, either improvised or purposefully selected. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...

steps include a hop. By the 18th century, "hop" began to be used interchangeably with "dance" as both a noun and a verb. ;Usage An early usage of "hip hop" in recorded popular music is found in The Dovells' 1963 dance song " You Can't Sit Down", "...you gotta slop, bop, flip flop, hip hop, never stop". A decade later,

Disco Disco is a music genre, genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the late 1960s from the United States' urban nightclub, nightlife, particularly in African Americans, African-American, Italian-Americans, Italian-American, LGBTQ ...

s would pepper their sets with exhortations to the crowd, which is why the emerging style was originally known as "disco rap". One of DJ Hollywood's chants was "hip hop de hippy hop the body rock". Lovebug Starsky recalls originating the phrase when he messed up the change between records, "I picked up the mic and just started saying 'a hip hop, hip hop, de hibbyhibbyhibbyhibby hop'". He was claiming credit for inventing the name by 1979. In another version of Starsky's tale, he coined "hip-hop" with

Keef Cowboy Robert Keith Wiggins (September 20, 1960 – September 8, 1989), known by his stage names Keef Cowboy and Cowboy was an American rapper and a member of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. He is widely credited as having invented the term "hip ...

from

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were an American hip hop music, hip hop group formed in the South Bronx of New York City in 1978. The group's members were Grandmaster Flash, Kidd Creole (not to be confused with Kid Creole), Keef Cowboy, ...

as they traded jibes at a friend who was going into the Army. Kidd Creole recalls the scene without Lovebug present, "Cowboy was on the mic playin around doing that Army cadence: Hip/Hop/Hip/Hop...Disco was king at the time, and the Disco crowd referred to us as those 'Hip Hoppers', but they used it as a derogatory term. But Cowboy was the first one I heard do that to music, as part of his crowd response." The phrase was in common usage by the time

The Sugarhill Gang The Sugarhill Gang is an American hip hop group formed in Englewood, New Jersey, in 1979. Their hit " Rapper's Delight", released the same year they were formed, was the first rap single to become a top 40 hit on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, rea ...

recorded "

Rapper's Delight "Rapper's Delight" is a 1979 rap song that serves as the debut single of American hip-hop trio the Sugarhill Gang, produced by Sylvia Robinson. Although it was shortly preceded by the Fatback Band's " King Tim III (Personality Jock)", "Rapper ...

" in 1979. The chorus begins, "I said a hip-hop, the hippie, the hippie/To the hip, hip-hop and you don't stop the rockin'". By the early 1980s, hip-hop's definition had expanded into "the all inclusive tag for the rapping, breaking, graffiti-writing, crew fashion wearing street sub-culture".

Afrika Bambaataa Lance Taylor (born April 17, 1957), also known as Afrika Bambaataa (), is a retired American DJ, rapper, and record producer. He is notable for releasing a series of genre-defining electro tracks in the 1980s that influenced the development of ...

was instrumental in turning the term into a positive force through his

Universal Zulu Nation The Universal Zulu Nation is an international hip hop culture, hip hop awareness group formed by electro (music), electro/hip hop artist Afrika Bambaataa. According to the website of the UZN, the Zulu Nation stands for "knowledge, wisdom, und ...

.
The VIBE History of Hip-Hop
'. Edited by Alan Light. Three Rivers Press, 1999. Their

social movement A social movement is either a loosely or carefully organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a Social issue, social or Political movement, political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to re ...

was anti-drug and anti-violence.Hager, Steven.
Hip Hop: The Illustrated History of Break Dancing, Rap Music, and Graffiti
'. St Martins Press, 1984. As rappers began to dominate hip-hop, the terms became synonymous. However, hip-hop's definition has always applied to its entire culture.Tate, Greg, Light, Alan, Ray, Michael.
Hip-hop
, ''

Encyclopædia Britannica The is a general knowledge, general-knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It has been published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. since 1768, although the company has changed ownership seven times. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, ...

''. Apr 14, 2025 Its four principal elements include rapping, DJing, breakdancing, and graffiti art. Chang, Jeff.
Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation
'. St. Martin's Press, 2005. Knowledge is sometimes described as a fifth element, underscoring its role in shaping the values and promoting empowerment and consciousness-raising through music.

KRS-One Lawrence "Kris" Parker (born August 20, 1965), better known by his stage names KRS-One (; an abbreviation of "Knowledge Reigns Supreme Over Nearly Everyone") and Teacha, is an American rapper from the Bronx. He rose to prominence as part of the ...

identified additional elements: self-expression, street fashion, street language, street knowledge, and street entrepreneurialism. He also recognized girls' Double Dutch jump rope as a key stylistic component of breakdancing. In addition to borrowing from the culture, hip-hop simultaneously comments on it. From its roots in the Bronx to its current global reach, hip-hop has served as a voice for the disenfranchised, shedding light on issues such as racial inequality, poverty, and police brutality.

Historical background

Hip-hop's initial medium was the turntable. Vinyl records were the primary source for DJs who reworked songs into new material for dancing. The process echoed the appropriation of styles that created

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

decades earlier. The genres hip-hop initially assimilated were wide-ranging, but its primary sources were disco and

funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African-American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African-Americans in the ...

records. Nowhere was this cross-pollination of musics better typified than in the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

island of

Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...

, where

AM radio AM broadcasting is radio broadcasting using amplitude modulation (AM) transmissions. It was the first method developed for making audio radio transmissions, and is still used worldwide, primarily for medium wave (also known as "AM band") transmi ...

signals from

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

, Florida, were audible. In the late 1950s, the U.S. stations played much more invigorating

rhythm and blues Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated within African American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predomina ...

music than the staid

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

which was syndicated by the island's only radio channel, Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation. American DJs like Jocko Henderson and Jockey Jack introduced R&B records and jive talking to the island. Local DJs soon began setting up

sound systems Sound system may refer to: Technology media * Sound reinforcement system, a system for amplifying audio for an audience * High fidelity, a sound system intended for accurate reproduction of music in the home * Public address system, an institution ...

for outdoor parties.Brewster, Bill and Frank Broughton.
Last Night a DJ Saved My Life
'. Headline, 1999. A vibrant music scene emerged. The jive of American DJs transmuted into toasts in

Jamaican Patois Jamaican Patois (; locally rendered Patwah and called Jamaican Creole by linguists) is an English-based creole language with influences from West African, Arawak, Spanish and other languages, spoken primarily in Jamaica and among the Jamaican ...

Jive talk Jive talk, also known as Harlem jive or simply Jive, the argot of jazz, jazz jargon, vernacular of the jazz world, slang of jazz, and parlance of hip is an African-American Vernacular English slang or vocabulary that developed in Harlem, where "jiv ...

popularized black-appeal stations in the post-war era. Its double entendres were a godsend to radio, re-invigorating ratings at flagging outlets. It emerged from traditions like

call and response Call and response is a form of interaction between a speaker and an audience in which the speaker's statements ("calls") are punctuated by responses from the listeners. This form is also used in music, where it falls under the general category of ...

signifyin' Signifyin' (sometimes written "signifyin(g)") is a practice in African-American culture involving a verbal strategy of indirection that exploits the gap between the denotative and figurative meanings of words. A simple example would be insulting ...

the dozens The Dozens is a game played between two contestants in which the participants insult each other until one of them gives up. Common in African American communities, the Dozens is almost exclusively played in front of an audience, who encourage the ...

, capping, and

jazz poetry Jazz poetry has been defined as poetry that "demonstrates jazz-like rhythm or the feel of improvisation" and also as poetry that takes jazz music, musicians, or the jazz milieu as its subject, and is Performance poetry, designed to be performed. So ...

.Neumann, Friedrich.
Hip Hop: Origins, Characteristics and Creative Processes
" ''The World of Music'', vol. 42, no. 1, 2000, pp. 51–63. The transition from oral tradition to the commercial airwaves was exemplified by

WDIA WDIA (1070 AM) is a radio station based in Memphis, Tennessee. Active since 1947, it soon became the first radio station in the United States that was programmed entirely for African Americans. It featured black radio personalities; its success ...

disc jockeys like Nat D. and

Rufus Thomas Rufus C. Thomas, Jr. (March 26, 1917 – December 15, 2001) was an American rhythm-and-blues, funk, soul and blues singer, songwriter, dancer, DJ and comic entertainer from Memphis, Tennessee. He recorded for several labels, including Chess Re ...

. Their on-air jive was honed during their hosting duties at the Palace Theatre's Amateur Night on

Beale Street Beale Street is a street in Downtown Memphis, Tennessee, which runs from the Mississippi River to East Street, a distance of approximately . It is a significant location in the city's history, as well as in the history of blues music. Today, ...

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in Shelby County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. Situated along the Mississippi River, it had a population of 633,104 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in Tenne ...

. D.J's like Chicago's Al Benson ( WJJD), Austin's Doctor Hep Cat (KVET), and Atlanta's Jockey Jack ( WERD) spoke the same rhyming, cadence-laden rap style. They might introduce a great musician like, "Here is a guy that will move you in from the outskirts of town because he breathes natural gas...so droop to listening to a real gone cat whose loaded his knowledge box in the house of the righteous, and can lo blow." Many white DJ's like John R Richbourg on Nashville's

WLAC WLAC (1510 AM broadcasting, AM) is a commercial radio, commercial radio station in Nashville, Tennessee, United States of America. Owned by iHeartMedia, it broadcasts a talk radio radio format, format. The radio studio, studios are in Nashvill ...

emulated the southern 'mushmouth' and jive talk, and switched out

swing music Swing music is a style of jazz that developed in the United States during the late 1920s and early 1930s. It became nationally popular from the mid-1930s. Swing bands usually featured soloists who would improvise on the melody over the arrangement ...

for

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

and

bebop Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early to mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo (usually exceeding 200 bpm), complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerou ...

. The jive-talking rappers of 1950s radio inspired musical comedians like

Rudy Ray Moore Rudolph Frank Moore (March 17, 1927October 19, 2008), known as Rudy Ray Moore, was an American comedian, singer, actor, and film producer.Pigmeat Markham, and Blowfly, along with

soul The soul is the purported Mind–body dualism, immaterial aspect or essence of a Outline of life forms, living being. It is typically believed to be Immortality, immortal and to exist apart from the material world. The three main theories that ...

singer

James Brown James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, musician, and record producer. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th-century music, he is referred to by Honorific nick ...

. They have been called "godfathers" of hip-hop music. The rhythmic speech of rap is an ancient practice, first codified by the

Greeks Greeks or Hellenes (; , ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece, Greek Cypriots, Cyprus, Greeks in Albania, southern Albania, Greeks in Turkey#History, Anatolia, parts of Greeks in Italy, Italy and Egyptian Greeks, Egypt, and to a l ...

. In 20th-century Western music, it was a widely used practice in everything from

sprechstimme (, "spoken singing") and (, "spoken voice"), more commonly known as speak-singing in English, are expressionist musical vocal techniques between singing and speaking. Though sometimes used interchangeably, is directly related to the operatic re ...

to the talking blues. The roots of rapping in

African-American music African-American music is a broad term covering a diverse range of musical genres largely developed by African Americans and their African-American culture, culture. Its origins are in musical forms that developed as a result of the Slavery in ...

are easily traced to the

griots A griot (; ; Manding: or (in N'Ko: , or in French spelling); also spelt Djali; or / ; ) is a West African historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet, and/or musician. Griots are masters of communicating stories and history orally, w ...

in West African culture.

Bo Diddley Ellas Otha Bates (December 30, 1928 – June 2, 2008), known professionally as Bo Diddley, was an American guitarist and singer who played a key role in the transition from the blues to rock and roll. He influenced many artists, including Buddy ...

made several influential talking records, and the gospel group The Jubalaires' 1946 song "Noah" is frequently seen as a forerunner of rap. Other notable talking records were

Muhammad Ali Muhammad Ali (; born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.; January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016) was an American professional boxer and social activist. A global cultural icon, widely known by the nickname "The Greatest", he is often regarded as the gr ...

's '' I Am the Greatest'' (1963) and Pigmeat Markham's " Here Comes the Judge" (1968). Ali's patter was an enormous influence on hip-hop. He was known as a "rhyming trickster" due to the funky delivery of his boasts, trash talk, and indelible phrases. Many of his monologues were freestyle improvisations which would become a vital skill

Old-school hip-hop Old-school hip hop (also spelled old skool) (also known as disco-rap) is the earliest commercially recorded hip hop music and the original style of the genre. It typically refers to the music created around 1979 to 1983, as well as any hip hop t ...

rappers. In New York City,

spoken-word Spoken word is an oral poetic performance art that is based mainly on the poem as well as the performer's aesthetic qualities. It is a 20th-century continuation of an ancient oral artistic tradition that focuses on the aesthetics of recitation ...

poetry by artists like

The Last Poets The Last Poets is a poetry collective and musical group that arose in the late 1960s as part of the African-American civil rights movement and black nationalism. The name was inspired by revolutionary South African poet Keorapetse Kgositsile who ...

, Jalal Mansur Nuriddin, and

Gil Scott-Heron Gilbert Scott-Heron (April 1, 1949 – May 27, 2011) was an American Jazz poetry, jazz poet, singer, musician, and author known for his work as a spoken-word performer in the 1970s and 1980s. His collaborative efforts with musician Brian Jackso ...

had a significant impact on the post-civil rights era. They helped establish the cultural environment in which hip-hop music was created. During these proto-rap years in America, Jamaican music regularly featured talking records like

U-Roy Ewart Beckford OD (21 September 1942 – 17 February 2021), known by the stage name U-Roy, was a Jamaican vocalist and pioneer of toasting.Jo-Ann GreeneU-Roy Biography, AllMusic. Retrieved 11 April 2013. U-Roy was known for a melodic style ...

and

Peter Tosh Winston Hubert McIntosh (19 October 1944 – 11 September 1987), professionally known as Peter Tosh, was a Jamaican reggae musician. Along with Bob Marley and Bunny Wailer, he was one of the core members of the band Bob Marley and the Wa ...

's "Righteous Ruler" and

King Stitt Winston Sparkes (17 September 1940 – 31 January 2012), better known as King Stitt, was a Jamaican pioneer DJ. Biography He earned the nickname as a boy because of his stuttering and decided to use it as his stage name. Stitt began deejaying ...

's "Fire Corner" in 1969. Jamaican DJs were also heavily remixing recorded music to generate new sounds.

Duke Reid Arthur "Duke" Reid CD (21 July 1915 – 1 January 1975) was a Jamaican record producer, DJ and record label owner. He ran one of the most popular sound systems of the 1950s called Reid's Sound System, whilst Duke himself was known as The Tr ...

would preside over his sound system, tweaking knobs until the record he was playing became unrecognizable. In the studio, artists like

King Tubby Osbourne Ruddock (28 January 1941 – 6 February 1989), better known as King Tubby, was a Jamaican sound engineer who influenced the development of dub music in the 1960s and 1970s. Tubby's studio work, in which as a mixing engineer he achiev ...

would strip the vocals out of records to create a new version. The public appetite for these remixes became so strong that singles were released with the original on one side and the "

version Version may refer to: Computing * Software version, a set of numbers that identify a unique evolution of a computer program * VERSION (CONFIG.SYS directive), a configuration directive in FreeDOS Music * Cover version * Dub version * Remix * ''V ...

" on the other. The eclectic stew of production techniques came to be known as

dub music Dub is a musical style that grew out of reggae in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is commonly considered a subgenre of reggae, though it has developed to extend beyond that style.Dub: soundscapes and shattered songs in Jamaican reggae, p.&nb ...

, and it is the strongest artistic precedent for hip-hop.

Birth of hip-hop

Breaking

By the 1970s,

The Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...

had been cut in half by the

Cross Bronx Expressway The Cross Bronx Expressway is a major controlled-access highway, freeway in the New York City borough of the Bronx. It is mainly designated as part of Interstate 95 in New York, Interstate 95 (I-95), but also includes portions of Interstate ...

. The construction accelerated "

white flight The white flight, also known as white exodus, is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the Racism ...

" from the neighborhood and concentrated lower income African American,

Latin American Latin Americans (; ) are the citizenship, citizens of Latin American countries (or people with cultural, ancestral or national origins in Latin America). Latin American countries and their Latin American diaspora, diasporas are Metroethnicity, ...

, and

residents in the southern half of the borough. This massive, multi-ethnic,

working class The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...

community is where hip-hop was born. The traditions of these ethnicities all informed the emerging genre. As all music does, hip-hop reflected the social, economic, and political realities of its creators, who were sometimes disenfranchised and marginalized. The dominant genre of the time was

. Even black radio stations were playing hit disco records as they targeted larger suburban audiences. The way Europe stripped the blackness out of

and disco and streamlined it became a target for parody in the black community. George Clinton mercilessly lampooned it as "The Placebo Syndrome" in his P-Funk mythology.George, Nelson. ''The Death of Rhythm & Blues''. Plume, 1988. Even though disco birthed hip-hop, much of the genre's early spirit was a rebellion against its parent. Hip-hop first had to inherit the rich trove of studio and DJ techniques that disco innovated. Dj Kool Herc-03

It became trendy for dancers to use the

instrumental break In popular music, a break is an instrumental or percussion section during a song derived from or related to stop-time – being a "break" from the main parts of the song or piece. A break is usually interpolated between sections of a song, to p ...

in a song to show off their best moves. Some would even forego dancing until the break in a record came on. The practice became known as "breakdancing", and it increased demand for breaks that DJs would soon supply. These dancers became known as "B-birls" and "-boys". "B" could be short for "break", "beat", "battle", or "Bronx" depending on who was using it. One of the most popular clubs was the Plaza Tunnel in the basement of the Concourse Plaza Hotel where DJ John Brown held sway. To keep people moving, he would mix a wide range of records like Jimmy Castor Bunch's "

It's Just Begun ''It's Just Begun'' is the second album by the Jimmy Castor Bunch, released in 1972 on RCA Records. "It's Just Begun (song), It's Just Begun" and "Troglodyte (Cave Man)" have each become staples in hip-hop sampling. Songs from the album have bee ...

The Isley Brothers The Isley Brothers ( ) are an American soul group originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, that began as a vocal trio consisting of the brothers O'Kelly Isley Jr., Rudolph Isley and Ronald Isley in the 1950s. With a career spanning over seven decades, ...

' "Get Into Something",

Earth, Wind & Fire Earth, Wind & Fire (abbreviated as EW&F or EWF) is an American band formed in Chicago, Illinois in 1969. Their music spans multiple genres, including jazz, R&B, soul, funk, disco, pop, Latin and Afro-pop. They are among the best-selling ba ...

's "Moment of Truth", Rare Earth's " Get Ready", Redbone's "Maggie", and Chicago's " I'm a Man". Breakdancers prized originality. They created signature moves that other breakers would only imitate in order to outdo them. The emphasis on creativity extended to DJs who would battle each other. They would even replicate the Jamaican practice of removing record labels to keep their breaks a secret from other DJs. Many early hip-hop DJs were immigrants from the Caribbean. The techniques they used to generate new material from existing vinyl records was familiar to Jamaican

.Davis, Stephen.
Reggae Bloodlines: In Search of the Music and Culture of Jamaica
'. Da Capo Press, 1992. Hip-hop began to develop its own moral code that prized truth and ingenuity over limpid mimicry.

. ''The Gospel of Hip Hop: First Instrument''. Powerhouse Books, 2009. DJs found certain breaks to be extremely popular from records like Baby Huey's "Listen To Me",

's " Give It Up or Turnit a Loose", Dennis Coffey's "Son of Scorpio", Cymande's "

Bra A bra, short for brassiere or brassière (, ; ), is a type of form-fitting underwear that is primarily used to support and cover a woman's breasts. A typical bra consists of a chest band that wraps around the torso, supporting two breast cups ...

", Dynamic Corvettes' "Funky Music Is the Thing", Jeannie Reynolds' "Fruit Song", as well as the

Incredible Bongo Band The Incredible Bongo Band, also known as Michael Viner's Incredible Bongo Band, was a project started in 1972 by Michael Viner, a record artist manager and executive at MGM Records, producer, MGM Records executive and Curb Records founder Mike Cu ...

's "

Apache The Apache ( ) are several Southern Athabaskan language-speaking peoples of the Southwestern United States, Southwest, the Southern Plains and Northern Mexico. They are linguistically related to the Navajo. They migrated from the Athabascan ho ...

" and "

Bongo Rock "Bongo Rock" is a rock and roll instrumental recorded by Preston Epps, written by Epps and Arthur Egnoian. Released as a Single (music), single in 1959, it charted #14 Billboard Hot 100, Pop in the United States, and #4 in CHUM Chart, Canada. It ...

". DJ Kool Herc figured out a way to prolong these breaks by crossfading between two copies of the same record. Herc's initial claim to fame was his sound system which featured a

McIntosh Laboratory McIntosh Laboratory is an American manufacturer of handcrafted high-end audio equipment that is headquartered in Binghamton, New York, Binghamton, New York (state), New York. It is a subsidiary of McIntosh Group, which in November 2024 was acquir ...

amplifier and two columns of

Shure Shure Inc. is an audio products corporation headquartered in the USA. It was founded by Sidney N. Shure in Chicago, Illinois, in 1925 as a supplier of radio parts kits. The company became a manufacturer of consumer and professional audio-electr ...

speakers. He dubbed it "The Herculords", and it earned him a massive following. DJ Hypnotize and Baby Cee

His method of playing breaks was extremely crude, however. Herc would just estimate where the break was as he tried to extend it. Often, he would have to talk over the transition as the breaks did not match up. It was DJs like

Grand Wizzard Theodore Theodore Livingston (born March 5, 1963), better known as Grand Wizzard Theodore, is an American musician and DJ. He is widely credited as the inventor of the scratching technique. In addition to scratching, he gained credibility for his mastery ...

Jazzy Jay John Byas (born November 18, 1961), also known as The Original Jazzy Jay or DJ Jazzy Jay, is an American hip hop Turntablism, DJ and producer. Background Jazzy Jay was born into a Gullah family in coastal South Carolina. He moved with his famil ...

, and

Grandmaster Flash Joseph Robert Saddler (born January 1, 1958), known by his stage name Grandmaster Flash, is a Barbadian-American musician and DJ. He created a DJ technique called the Quick Mix Theory. This technique serviced the break-dancer and the rapper by el ...

who perfected the trick. They developed a technique known as needle dropping by precisely cuing up the breaks in headphones in order to create a perfect transition between the two phonographs. As the first break finished, they would crossfade to the second turntable which was cued up at the beginning of the break. While the second record played, they would spin the first record backwards to the beginning of the break and crossfade into it when the second break was over. This method allowed a break to be prolonged indefinitely. These extended breaks became known as a "

breakbeat Breakbeat is a broad type of electronic music that uses drum breaks, often sampled from early recordings of funk, jazz, and R&B. Breakbeats have been used in styles such as Florida breaks, hip-hop, jungle, drum and bass, big beat, breakbeat ...

". When a playing record is reversed, the sound is distorted. The effect became trendy and eventually evolved into the hip-hop technique known as "

Block parties

Outside of the dance clubs, the biggest incubator of hip-hop was the

block party A block party or street party is a party in which many members of a single community congregate, either to observe an event of some importance or simply for mutual solidarity and enjoyment. The name comes from the form of the party, which ofte ...

. DJs would hook their sound systems up to the street lights. One prominent host of these parties in the early 1970s was

Disco King Mario Disco King Mario (July 1, 1956 – May 21, 1994) was a prominent Black American DJ and pioneer of hip-hop culture. He is known for being one of the founding fathers of hip-hop. His outdoor parties and park jams made him well known in and around ...

. As a leader of the

Black Spades The Black Spades were a mostly African-American street gang which started in the Bronx in the Bronxdale houses during the late 1960s and gained popularity in the 1970s. The gang began to spread from the Bronx to Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, S ...

from the Bronxdale Houses, Mario relied on the gang to protect his events. Kool Herc first began extending breaks at a back-to-school

rent party A rent party (sometimes called a house party) is a social occasion where tenants hire a musician or band to play and pass the hat to raise money to pay their rent, originating in Harlem during the 1920s. These parties were a means for Black tenants ...

his sister Cindy Campbell hosted in the recreation room of their building at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue on the southwest side of the Bronx. The date of the party, August 11, 1973, has been aggressively marketed as the "Birth of Hip-Hop". The Campbells emigrated from Jamaica when Herc was 12. Initially, Herc denied any connection between the Jamaican music scene and his work. Later in life, he embraced the parallels.Aprahamian, Serouj "Midus". ''The Birth of Breaking: Hip-Hop History from the Floor Up''. Bloomsbury Academic & Professional, 2023. Kool Herc's style attracted a following that outgrew the rec room, and he joined the thriving block party scene. These parties were an outlet for teenagers, where "instead of getting into trouble on the streets, teens now had a place to expend their pent-up energy." Tony Tone, a member of the Cold Crush Brothers, stated that "hip hop saved a lot of lives". For inner-city youth, participating in hip-hop culture became a way of dealing with the hardships of life as minorities within America, and an outlet to deal with the risk of violence and the rise of gang culture. MC Kid Lucky mentions that "people used to break-dance against each other instead of fighting". A typical hip-hop event was a triple bill featuring the DJ, MC, and breakdancers. Graffiti artists would decorate the stage and design flyers and posters. Much of the graffiti, rapping, and

b-boying Breakdancing or breaking, also called b-boying (when performed by men) or b-girling (women), is a style of street dance originated by African Americans and Nuyorican, Puerto Ricans in The Bronx borough of New York City. Breakdancing consist ...

at these parties were artistic variations on the one-upmanship of

street gangs A gang is a group or society of associates, friends, or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collecti ...

. Sensing that gang members' often violent urges could be turned into creative ones, Afrika Bambaataa founded the Zulu Nation, a loose confederation of street-dance crews, graffiti artists, and rap musicians.

Rock Steady Crew {{Infobox musical artist , name = Rock Steady Crew , image = , landscape = yes , caption = , alias = , origin = The Bronx New York, Manhattan New York, U.S. , genre ...

were a group of breakdancers which included members from

Puerto Rico ; abbreviated PR), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a Government of Puerto Rico, self-governing Caribbean Geography of Puerto Rico, archipelago and island organized as an Territories of the United States, unincorporated territo ...

. During the

New York City blackout of 1977 The New York City blackout of 1977 was an electricity blackout that affected most of New York City on July 13–14, 1977. The only unaffected neighborhoods in the city were in southern Queens (including neighborhoods of the Rockaways), which ...

, DJ equipment was heavily looted due to the popularity of the emerging genre. Kool Herc recalls, "The next day there were a thousand new D.J.'s." By 1978, ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...

'' magazine was taking notice of the popularity of "B-beats" in the Bronx.Ford Jr., Robert.
B-Beats Bombarding Bronx
, ''

''. July 1, 1978. 6.Neal, Mark Anthony. ''That's the Joint! The Hip-hop Studies Reader''. Routledge, 2004.

Rapping

Hip-Hop evolved without rap as a requirement of the genre, but the two terms became functionally synonymous. Hip-hop DJs continued the disco DJ practice of intermittently rapping with the crowd. As their duties became more complex, a Master of ceremonies (MC) was often present to introduce the DJ and hype the crowd. Kool Herc found Jamaican toasts did not resonate with dancers. He and Coke La Rock developed an influential rapping style over their funk breaks. MCs relied on call and response chants and eventually developed more sophisticated routines. As with other practitioners of hip-hop, MCs strove to set themselves apart with their creativity and competitiveness. Just as many of the best breakdancers were women, the birth of hip-hop included female rappers like the

Funky 4 + 1 Funky 4 + 1 was an American hip hop group from The Bronx, New York, composed of Jazzy Jeff, Sha-Rock (b. Sharon Green), D.J. Breakout, Guy Williams, Keith Keith, The Voice of K.K., and Rodney Cee (Stone). The group originally started with K.K ...

's MC Sha-Rock. Sugar Hill Records signed The Sequence, a trio that included

Angie Stone Angela Laverne Stone (née Brown; December 18, 1961 – March 1, 2025) was an American singer-songwriter, rapper, actress, and record producer. With a career spanning over four decades, she has been credited with revolutionizing the sound of Ol ...

. Their single " Funk You Up" was the first hip-hop hit by an all-female group. Often these were collaborations between former

gang A gang is a social group, group or secret society, society of associates, friends, or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over Wiktionary:territory#Noun, territory in a ...

s, such as Afrikaa Bambaataa's

—now an international organization.

Melle Mel Melvin Glover (born May 15, 1961), better known by his stage name Grandmaster Melle Mel or simply Melle Mel (), is an American rapper who was the lead vocalist and songwriter of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. Career Glover began per ...

, a rapper with the Furious Five is often credited with being the first rap lyricist to call himself an "MC". Although there were some early MCs that recorded solo projects of note, such as DJ Hollywood,

Kurtis Blow Kurtis Walker (born August 9, 1959), known professionally by his stage name Kurtis Blow, is an American rapping , rapper, songwriter, and record producer. Walker is the first commercially successful rapper and the first to sign with a major rec ...

, and Spoonie Gee, the frequency of solo artists did not increase until later with the rise of soloists with stage presence and drama, such as LL Cool J. Most early hip-hop was dominated by groups where collaboration between the members was integral to the show. The first hip-hop artist to appear on national television were the group Funky 4 + 1, who appeared on ''Saturday Night Live season 6#Episodes, Saturday Night Live'' in 1981.

Recordings

Hip-hop was a live music genre for its first several years. By 1977, Bootleg recordings, bootleg tapes made from the Soundboard recording, soundboards of hip-hop DJs were being circulated beyond New York City. The first dub recording, also known as a "mixed plate", was released by DJ Disco Wiz and Grandmaster Caz. In March 1979, Fatback Band released "You're My Candy Sweet" as a single. The A-side and B-side, B-side was called "King Tim III (Personality Jock)", and it is generally considered the first commercially released rap song. Three months later, Chic (band), Chic released "Good Times (Chic song), Good Times". It became a #1 single on August 18. The track quickly became a favorite for rappers. As it climbed the pop charts on August 2, Sylvia Robinson, the singer and owner of Sugar Hill Records (hip-hop label), Sugar Hill Records, hired a band to Sound-alike, recreate "Good Times" in the studio. Looking to cash in on the hip-hop trend, Robinson assembled

to rap over the instrumental. They recycled phrases from other rappers like The Cold Crush Brothers.Toop, David.
The Rap Attack: African Jive to New York Hip Hop
'. Boston: South End Press, 1984. It was a Top 40 single, and what had become passé in the Bronx exploded in popularity around the country. The arrival of mainstream hip-hop recordings has been described as "The First Death of Hip-Hop". One of the composers of "Good Times", Nile Rodgers had been exposed to hip-hop in 1978 when Debbie Harry and Chris Stein from Blondie (band), Blondie took him to a show. Rodgers and his co-writer Bernard Edwards sued Sugar Hill Records for copyright infringement and won songwriting credit on "Rapper's Delight". In 1971, one city councilman had dubbed Philadelphia "The Graffiti Capital of the World". It was one of the first hip-hop centers outside of New York, and by 1979, hip-hop recordings such as Jocko Henderson's "Rhythm Talk" and Lady B's "To the Beat, Y'all" were emerging from the city. Mercury Records was the first Record label, major label to sign a rapper. In 1979, they released

's "Christmas Rappin'" which sold 400,000 copies. The song peaked at #30 on the UK charts on December 15 that year and went on to become a holiday classic.

1980s: The end of old-school

The period from 1973 to 1983 is referred to as "old-school hip-hop". The genre exploded in popularity. Kurtis Blow's "The Breaks (song), The Breaks" (1980) was the first hip-hop single Music recording certification, certified gold.''The Anthology of Rap''. Edited by Adam Bradley, and Andrew DuBois. Yale University Press, 2010. 24.

As hip-hop became mainstream, it also grew vastly eclectic. Part of this evolution was enabled by technology. The 1980s saw the miniaturization of recording technology, making samplers, synthesizers, and drum machines affordable. Devices like the Akai MPC 2000, Linn 9000, and Roland TR-808 drum machine became beloved tools for hip-hop creators. In 1980, the Roland Corporation launched the TR-808 Rhythm Composer. It was one of the earliest Programming (music), programmable drum machines, with which users could create their own rhythms rather than having to use preset patterns. Though it was a commercial failure, over the course of the decade the 808 attracted a cult following among underground musicians for its affordability on the used market, ease of use, and idiosyncratic sounds, particularly its deep, "booming" bass drum. Popularized by hits like Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing", it became a cornerstone of the emerging electronic, dance, and hip-hop genres. The 808 was eventually used on more hit records than any other drum machine. Its popularity with hip-hop in particular has made it one of the most influential inventions in popular music, comparable to the Fender Stratocaster's influence on rock.

Diversification of styles

's "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel" (1981) typified the diversification of hip-hop in the new decade. The single consists entirely of sampled tracks. Hip-hop and electronic dance music were fused in songs like Soulsonic Force, Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic Force's "Planet Rock (song), Planet Rock" (1982). Bambaataa was inspired by Ryuichi Sakamoto's "Riot in Lagos". He incorporated elements from Kraftwerk's "Trans-Europe Express (album), Trans-Europe Express" and "Numbers". "Planet Rock" helped spawn

electro music Electro (also known as electro-funk, and sometimes referred to as electro-pop)
Gl ...

, which included songs like Planet Patrol's "Play at Your Own Risk" (1982), and C Bank's "One More Shot" (1982). This fusion would often overlap with Afrofuturism in songs like "Nunk (song), Nunk" and "Light Years Away (Warp 9 song), Light Years Away" by Warp 9.Toop, David. ''Rap Attack 3: African Rap to Global Hip Hop''. Serpent's Tail, 2000. 146ff. Electro helped spread hip-hop beyond America, when UK DJs like Greg Wilson started spinning records like "Planet Rock", Extra T's "ET Boogie", and Man Parrish's "Hip Hop, Be Bop (Don't Stop)". As rap matured, metaphorical lyrics about a wider range of subjects moved the style beyond the boasts and chants of old school. The influential single "The Message (Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five song), The Message" (1982) by

, with its focus on the misery in housing projects, was a pioneering force for Political hip hop#Conscious hip hop, politically conscious rap. Hip-hop continued in the tradition of rock and roll by outraging conservatives who feared romanticizing violence and law-breaking. Independent record labels like Tommy Boy Entertainment, Tommy Boy, Prism Records and Profile Records became successful in the early 1980s, releasing records at a furious pace in response to the demand generated by local radio stations and club DJs. Producers like Arthur Baker (musician), Arthur Baker, John Robie, Lotti Golden and Richard Scher pushed the genre in new directions. Some rappers eventually became mainstream pop performers. The 1981 songs "Rapture (Blondie song), Rapture" by Blondie (band), Blondie and "Christmas Wrapping" by the New wave music, new wave band the Waitresses were among the first pop songs to use rap. Breakdancing remained the vanguard of hip-hop worldwide. Breakdance crews like Black Noise (group), Black Noise and Prophets of Da City in South Africa helped spread the genre.''Hip Hop Africa: New African Music in a Globalizing World''. Edited by Eric Charry. Indiana University Press, 2012. They recognized the connections in the African diaspora between practices like breakdancing and capoeira. Musician and presenter Sidney Duteil, Sidney became France's first black TV presenter with his 1984 show ''H.I.P. H.O.P.'' on TF1. Radio Nova (France), Radio Nova helped launch other French hip-hop stars including Dee Nasty. Along with his radio show, his ''Rapattitude'' compilations and 1984 album ''Paname City Rappin popularized hip-hop in the country. Hip-hop reached Japan by 1982 when DJs Hiroshi Fujiwara started playing it in dance clubs.

New school

The second wave of hip-hop began around 1983–4 and became known as new-school hip-hop, new school. The taunting and boasting of old-school hip-hop got more aggressive in the 1980s. New York artists like Run-DMC and LL Cool J typified new school. Drum machine minimalism was typical for the new school, a stark opposition to old school's funk and disco breaks. New-school artists also made shorter, radio-friendly songs and more cohesive LP albums that became fixtures of mainstream music. Run-DMC's third album ''Raising Hell (album), Raising Hell'' was the first in the genre to be certified platinum on July 15, 1986. It also featured the massive hit collaboration with Aerosmith on "Walk This Way#Run-DMC/Aerosmith version, Walk This Way". The same year, rap notched its first No. 1 album with Beastie Boys' ''Licensed to Ill''. Rap was getting so marketable that it was being used in national advertising. Sprite (soda), Sprite hired

to appear in one of their commercials in 1986. Other soft drink companies would soon follow. Marlon Williams aka Dj Marley Marl

New school rappers often established themselves by simultaneously honoring and battling their old school forbearers. LL Cool J relished sparring with Kool Moe Dee. The feud boosted sales for both artists. The cover of Kool Moe Dee's 1987 album, ''How Ya Like Me Now'', featured LL Cool J's Kangol hat under the wheel of Moe Dee's Jeep Wrangler. LL's response was the vicious B-side "Going Back to Cali (LL Cool J song), Jack the Ripper". sampler (musical instrument), Samplers like the AKAI S900 and E-mu SP-1200 empowered creativity through greater processing power. Breakbeats were no longer reliant on a DJ and two turntables. They could be made in seconds with a sampler. Marley Marl used Sampling (music), samples in combination with drum machines to create more variegated grooves.

Cypress Hill was formed in 1988 in the suburb of South Gate outside Los Angeles. Brothers Sen Dog, Senen Reyes and Ulpiano Sergio (Mellow Man Ace) moved from Havana, Cuba to South Gate with their family in 1971. They teamed up with Lawrence Muggerud (DJ Muggs) and Louis Freese (B-Real), a Mexican/Cuban-American native of Los Angeles. After the departure of "Ace" to begin his solo career, the group adopted the name of Cypress Hill named after a street running through a neighborhood nearby in South Los Angeles. In 1989, 19-year-old Queen Latifah released her debut album ''All Hail the Queen''. That same year, the The Recording Academy, National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences decided to create a Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance. The inaugural statue was given in 31st Annual Grammy Awards, 1989 to DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince for "Parents Just Don't Understand".

Golden age

The period after hip-hop became mainstream in 1986 until the middle of the 1990s is considered its "golden age".Duinker, Ben, and Denis Martin.
In Search of the Golden Age Hip-Hop Sound (1986–1996)
. ''Empirical Musicology Review'', vol. 12, no. 1-2, September 2017. 80-100. The era is marked by increased diversity and innovation and the vast expansion of hip-hop's influence. ''Rolling Stone'' described the fecund era as one where "it seemed that every new single reinvented the genre". There were strong themes of Afrocentrism and political militancy in golden age hip-hop lyrics. The music was experimental and the sampling (music), sampling drew on eclectic sources. There was often a strong jazz rap, jazz influence in the music. Notable golden age artists include Public Enemy,

, Boogie Down Productions, Eric B. & Rakim, Brand Nubian, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, Gang Starr, Big Daddy Kane, Digable Planets, and the Jungle Brothers. Albums became an important artistic marker during this period. 1987 alone produced landmark albums like Boogie Down Productions' ''Criminal Minded'', Public Enemy's ''Yo! Bum Rush the Show'', and Eric B. & Rakim's ''Paid in Full (album), Paid in Full''. The sustained artistic statement of an album became the genre's measuring stick.

Gangsta rap

Gangsta rap is a subgenre of hip-hop that reflects the violent environment of inner-city American black youths. Gangsta rap commingled stories of crime and street life with political and social commentary. In 1985, Schoolly D released "P.S.K. What Does It Mean?", which is often regarded as the first gangsta rap song. His lyrics reflected the street vernacular, including the word "nigga". Ice-T's "jaw dropped" when he first heard the song, and it inspired his 1986 track "6 in the Mornin'". Boogie Down Productions ''Criminal Minded'' (1987) set a precedent by featuring guns on its cover. On their 1988 follow-up ''By All Means Necessary'',

is holding an uzi, but the album also sees the emergence of his anti-violence persona "The Teacher". FBI letter about N

N.W.A is the group most frequently associated with gangsta rap. Their lyrics were incessantly profane and more violent, sexually explicit, and openly confrontational than their peers. These lyrics were placed over rough, rock guitar-driven beats, contributing to the music's hard-edged feel. Their blockbuster 1989 album ''Straight Outta Compton'' established Los Angeles as a legitimate rival to hip-hop's capital New York City. It also sparked the first major controversy regarding hip-hop lyrics, largely due to the song "Fuck tha Police". Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI Assistant Director Milt Ahlerich wrote a letter to Priority Records lamenting the album's "discouraging and degrading" impact on law enforcement. Ice-T encountered censorship even during his live performances, much like Jim Morrison. In reaction to Parents Music Resource Center's new "Parental Advisory" stickers, he rapped, "that sticker makes 'em sell gold." His 1992 heavy metal song "Cop Killer (song), Cop Killer" prompted so much backlash that Time Warner Music balked at releasing his next hip-hop album ''Home Invasion (album), Home Invasion''. Both President of the United States, Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton criticized gangsta rap. Sister Souljah argued, "The reason why rap is under attack is because it exposes all the contradictions of American culture ...What started out as an underground art form has become a vehicle to expose a lot of critical issues that are not usually discussed in...a political system that never intends to deal with inner city urban chaos".

Mainstream breakthrough

1990 was "the year that rap exploded". Public Enemy released ''Fear of a Black Planet'', which was a critical and commercial hit. The ''Los Angeles Times'' declared, "an explosion of energy and imagination in the late 1980s leaves rap today as arguably the most vital new street-oriented sound in pop since the birth of rock in the 1950s".Hilburn, Robert.
Rap—The Power and the Controversy: Success has validated pop's most volatile form, but its future impact could be shaped by the continuing Public Enemy uproar
. ''Los Angeles Times''. February 4, 1990. ''Time (magazine), Time'' concurred, "Rap is the rock and roll, rock 'n' roll of the day. Rock 'n' roll was about attitude, rebellion, a big beat, sex and, sometimes, social comment." Rap had the best-selling single of the previous year, Tone Lōc's "Wild Thing (Tone Lōc song), Wild Thing". By February 1990, nearly a third of the songs on the ''

'' Hot 100 were hip-hop. MC Hammer's third album, ''Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em'', was a monster smash. It hit #1 on the Billboard 200, album chart. Its lead single, "U Can't Touch This", became a global phenomenon after it was released in May 1990. It reached the List of Billboard Hot 100 top-ten singles in 1990, Top Ten in the U.S. and #1 in several countries. MC Hammer was one of the first rappers to become a household name. ''Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em'' was the first hip-hop album RIAA certification, certified diamond album, diamond by the RIAA for sales of over ten million. By 1996, it sold 18 million units. In November, Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" became the first hip-hop single to hit #1 on the Billboard charts, ''Billboard'' charts. Dr. Dre's ''The Chronic'' was released in 1992, establishing the G-funk style and going triple platinum. Snoop Dogg's 1993 album ''Doggystyle'' helped the subgenre continue to dominate the charts, but black radio stations kept hip-hop at a distance. Russell Simmons felt, "Black radio hated rap from the start and there's still a lot of resistance to it". Despite the lack of support from some black radio stations, hip-hop became a best-selling music genre in the mid-1990s and the top selling music genre by 1999 with 81 million CDs sold. By the late 1990s hip-hop was artistically dominated by the Wu-Tang Clan, Sean Combs, Diddy and Fugees, the Fugees. The Beastie Boys continued their success throughout the decade crossing color lines and gaining respect from many different artists. Record labels based out of Atlanta, St. Louis, and New Orleans also gained fame for their local scenes. The midwest rap scene was known for fast vocal styles from artists such as Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Tech N9ne, and Twista. Southern hip hop, Southern rap became popular in the early 1990s. The first Southern rappers to gain national attention were the Geto Boys out of Houston, Texas. Southern rap's roots can be traced to the success of Geto Boy's early albums. The group's strongest member was Scarface (rapper), Scarface who later went solo. Atlanta hip-hop, Atlanta hip hop artists were key in further expanding rap music and bringing southern hip-hop into the mainstream. Releases such as Arrested Development (hip hop group), Arrested Development's ''3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life Of...'' (1992), Goodie Mob's ''Soul Food (Goodie Mob album), Soul Food'' (1995), and Outkast's ''ATLiens'' (1996) were all critically acclaimed. When Outkast won the Best New Rap Group at the 1995 Source Awards, it signaled a power shift in Atlanta's direction. During the golden age, elements of hip-hop continued to be assimilated into other genres of popular music. The first waves of rap rock, Punk rock subgenres, rapcore, and rap metal went mainstream. Run-DMC, the Beastie Boys, and Rage Against the Machine were among the most well-known bands in these fields. In Hawaii, bands like Sudden Rush created the na mele paleoleo style which fused hip-hop with Hawaiian language and Hawaiian sovereignty movement, sovereignty issues.

East v. west

In the early 1990s, east coast hip-hop was dominated by the Native Tongues posse, which was loosely composed of De La Soul, Prince Paul (producer), Prince Paul, A Tribe Called Quest, the Jungle Brothers, 3rd Bass, Main Source, and Black Sheep (hip hop group), Black Sheep and KMD. Although originally a "daisy age" conception stressing the positive aspects of life, darker material soon crept in. In 1993, Wu-Tang Clan's ''Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)'' pioneered a Hardcore hip-hop, hardcore rap response to the west coast's gangsta rap, gangsta. New York hip-hop experienced a renaissance the following year with the release of two landmark albums: Nas' ''Illmatic'' and The Notorious B.I.G., Notorious B.I.G.'s ''Ready to Die''. The 10-member Wu-Tang Clan also started creating a hip-hop universe of solo albums that served as advertisements for each other. Some of the standout titles were Raekwon's ''Only Built 4 Cuban Linx...'', Ghostface Killah's ''Ironman (Ghostface Killah album), Ironman'', and GZA's ''Liquid Swords''. RZA had a hand in producing most of their efforts, and his style became massively influential. Prominent producers during this period were DJ Premier (Gang Starr, Jeru the Damaja), Pete Rock (CL Smooth), Buckwild (music producer), Buckwild, Large Professor, Diamond D, and Q-Tip (musician), Q-Tip. Nas' ''Illmatic'', O.C. (rapper), O.C.'s ''Word...Life'', and Jay-Z's ''Reasonable Doubt (album), Reasonable Doubt'' all relied on this talent pool. A lazy media narrative emerged that rappers on the coasts were feuding with each other. As Kool Moe Dee and LL Cool J had previously found, playing into a rivalry was good for sales. It became fashionable to emphasize the east coast versus west Coast beef, but it did not remain a lyrical battle. On November 30, 1994, in New York City, Tupac Shakur was shot five times. He blamed the attack on a cohort that included Sean Combs and the Notorious B.I.G.. Tupac left Interscope Records for Suge Knight and Dr. Dre's Death Row Records on the west coast. Tupac's February 1996 debut for the label, ''All Eyez on Me'', was promoted by relentlessly highlighting his grievances with east coast personalities. The ploy was successful and led to monster sales. On September 7, 1996, Murder of Tupac Shakur, Tupac was killed in Las Vegas. On March 9, 1997, Murder of the Notorious B.I.G., the Notorious B.I.G. was killed in Los Angeles. Though the coastal feud involved dozens of people in countless imbroglios, the twin tragedies of Tupac and Biggie are at the core of the episode. Their deaths are used as markers for the end of the golden age of hip-hop.

2000s: bling and blog

Commercialization and new directions

Now a mainstream genre and dominating the charts, hip-hop became commercially oriented in the late 1990s. The musical approach was typified by Sean Combs who ruled the 1997 charts by repurposing old hits into new ones. Diana Ross' "I'm Coming Out" became "Mo Money Mo Problems". Herb Alpert's "Rise (instrumental), Rise" became "Hypnotize (The Notorious B.I.G. song), Hypnotize". The Police's #1 hit "Every Breath You Take" became "I'll Be Missing You". The shiny suits he and his protege Mase wore became a punchline for the period. The same year, Will Smith's single "Gettin' Jiggy wit It" gave a catchier name for the era. In New Orleans, two upstart labels came to prominence. Master P built No Limit Records into a multimillion-dollar enterprise. Cash Money Records supercharged its sales by signing a distribution deal with Universal Records (1995−2006), Universal in 1998. Their roster included Birdman (rapper), Birdman, Lil Wayne, B.G. (rapper), B.G., and Juvenile (rapper), Juvenile. In 1999, the slick consumerism of the jiggy era was indelibly rechristened by B.G. (rapper), B.G. in his song "Bling Bling (song), Bling Bling". The slang immediately resonated, and the "bling" label stuck. Eminem-01-mika

Dr. Dre began 1999 by producing Eminem's debut ''The Slim Shady LP'' which went quadruple platinum. In November, he released his 6x platinum album ''2001 (Dr. Dre album), 2001''. Dre also produced Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP, second album and 50 Cent's ''Get Rich or Die Tryin''', which debuted in 2003 at number one on the Billboard 200, U.S. Billboard 200 charts. During the bling era, it became commonplace to pair an R&B singer with a rapper. Either the rapper would appear in a remix of the singer's hit, or the singer would perform the hook on a rapper's song. Pairings included Ashanti (singer), Ashanti and Ja Rule, Beyonce and Jay-Z, and Mariah Carey alongside a steady stream of rappers like Mystikal, Cam'ron, and Busta Rhymes. Jay-Z became culturally dominant with his record label, clothing line, and various business interests. His albums consistently charted #1, and with the release of ''The Blueprint 3'' in 2009, he broke Elvis Presley's record for most number one albums by a solo artist.

Alternative

Alternative hip-hop artists such as MF Doom, the Roots, Dilated Peoples, Gnarls Barkley, Mos Def, and Aesop Rock began to achieve significant recognition. Other alternative artists like Outkast, Kanye West, and Gnarls Barkley also began to earn mainstream sales. Outkast's 2003 album ''Speakerboxxx/The Love Below'' won Grammy Award for Album of the Year at the 46th Annual Grammy Awards and has been certified 13x platinum. When Kanye West's ''Graduation (album), Graduation'' and 50 Cent's ''Curtis (50 Cent album), Curtis'' were both released on September 11, 2007, West's idiosyncratic album sold quicker. West's next album, ''808s & Heartbreak'', was even quirkier and established a rush towards more creative hip-hop productions. West borrowed the Auto-Tune vocal effect that rapper T-Pain had popularized. T-Pain cites new jack swing producer Teddy Riley and funk artist Roger Troutman's use of the talk box as inspirations for his use of the technique. Even Jay-Z began talking wistfully about making an alternative album. The alternative hip-hop movement was not limited only to the United States, as rappers such as Somali people, Somali-Canadian poet K'naan, Japanese rapper Shing02, and Sri Lankan British artist M.I.A. (rapper), M.I.A. achieved considerable worldwide recognition. In 2009, Time (magazine), ''Time'' magazine placed M.I.A in the Time 100 list of "World's Most Influential people" for having "global influence across many genres." Global-themed movements have also sprung out of the international hip-hop scene with microgenres like "Islamic Eco-Rap" addressing issues of worldwide importance through traditionally disenfranchised voices. Glitch hop is a fusion genre of hip-hop and glitch music that originated in the early to mid-2000s in the United States and Europe. Musically, it is based on irregular, chaotic breakbeats, glitchy basslines and other typical sound effects used in glitch music, like skips. Glitch hop artists include Prefuse 73, Dabrye and Flying Lotus. Wonky (music), Wonky is a subgenre of hip-hop that originated around 2008. It differs from glitch hop with more melodic material and unstable synths. Scottish artists like Hudson Mohawke and Rustie are prominent in the genre. The subgenre known as crunk exploded in the 2000s when songs by Lil Jon and Ying Yang Twins became huge hits. It originated in Tennessee in the southern United States in the 1990s, influenced by Miami bass. Crunk is almost exclusively "party music", favoring call and response hip-hop slogans in lieu of more substantive approaches. A variant of crunk known as snap music emerged in Atlanta in the 1990s. The dawn of social media in 2003 spread the genre as artists like Soulja Boy started uploading their music directly to sites like YouTube and MySpace.

The internet sales decline

Social media led to the decline of fans purchasing physical media like CDs and vinyl. Starting in 2005, hip-hop sales plummeted, prompting concerns that the genre might be dying. While all music sales declined, hip-hop's losses were greater, totaling a 21% decrease from 2005 to 2006. 2006 was the first time in five years that the top ten albums did not include hip-hop. Peer-to-peer file sharing also wreaked havoc with record sales. Digital downloads returned singles to the forefront of music sales. Downloads of individual tracks from Flo Rida's 2009 album ''R.O.O.T.S.'' totaled in the millions, while the album itself did not even go gold. Despite the fall in record sales throughout the music industry, hip-hop artists still regularly topped the Billboard 200, ''Billboard'' 200 charts. In 2009, Rick Ross, Black Eyed Peas, and Fabolous all had No. 1 albums. Eminem's album ''Relapse (Eminem album), Relapse'' was one of the fastest selling albums of 2009. The internet corroded music sales but democratized distribution. Audiences started to find artists directly through music blogs and social media. Emerging artists like Wale (rapper), Wale, Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, Lupe Fiasco, The Cool Kids (duo), the Cool Kids, Jay Electronica, and B.o.B also possessed a sensitivity and vulnerability that was taboo in the bling era.

2010s–2020s: The streaming era

Lil Nas X back stage at the MTV Video Music Awards 2019

Trap music became a mainstream sensation in the 2000s, and started topping the charts in the 2010s. It is typified by double-time, double or triple-time sub-divided hi-hats, heavy kick drums from the Roland TR-808 drum machine, layered synthesizers and an overall dark, ominous or bleak atmosphere. Major trap artists include Lil Nas X, Waka Flocka Flame, Future (rapper), Future, Chief Keef, Migos, Young Thug, Travis Scott, and Fetty Wap. Major trap producers included Metro Boomin, Pi'erre Bourne, London on da Track, and Mike Will Made It, Mike Will Made-It. Trap has been dismissed as "mumble rap" because of its often garbled diction. Snoop Dogg noted that he could not tell artists apart, and Black Thought lamented trap's lack of lyricism. Atlanta hip-hop, Atlanta hip hop dominated the charts during the 2010s. On July 17, 2017, ''Forbes'' reported that hip-hop/Contemporary R&B, R&B had usurped rock as the most consumed musical genre, becoming the most popular genre in music for the first time in U.S. history. In 2021, Pop Smoke's posthumous album popularized Brooklyn drill. The 2020s decade began with Roddy Ricch as the first rapper to have a Billboard Hot 100, ''Billboard'' Hot 100 number-one entry. Streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music became the dominant music distributors in the 2010s. The 2017 Grammy Award for Best Rap Album went to a streaming album for the first time, Chance the Rapper's ''Coloring Book (mixtape), Coloring Book''. Artists like Kanye West and Drake started to eschew physical releases as well. Many hip-hop artists relied on SoundCloud to freely distribute their music without a record label. Post Malone, Lil Uzi Vert, XXXTentacion and many others started their careers on SoundCloud. In 2021, the most streamed rappers were Doja Cat and Lil Nas X. The most streamed rap album of all time on Spotify is XXXTentacion's second album, ? (XXXTentacion album), ''?'' (2018).

World hip-hop music

Hip-hop spread from the Bronx to the world. It is constantly being reinvented in nearly every country on the planet. The one thing virtually all hip-hop artists worldwide have in common is that they acknowledge their debt to the Black and Latino people in New York who launched the global movement. In many Latin American countries, as in the U.S., hip-hop has been a tool with which marginalized people can articulate their struggle. Cuban hip-hop grew steadily during the Special Period that came with the fall of the Soviet Union. Brazilian hip-hop, Brazilian hip hop is heavily associated with racial and economic issues in the country, where a lot of Afro-Brazilians live in economically disadvantaged favelas. Puerto Rican reggaeton evolved from several genres, particularly Jamaican Dancehall and hip-hop.Castillo-Garsow, Melissa et al. ''La verdad: an international dialogue on hip hop Latinidades''. Columbus, 2016. Venezuelan rappers generally modeled their music after gangsta rap, embracing and attempting to redefine negative stereotypes about poor and black youth as dangerous and materialistic and incorporating socially conscious critique of Venezuela's criminalization of young, poor, Afro-descended people into their music. Blockfest 2017

Haitian hip-hop developed in the early 1980s. Master Dji and his songs "Vakans" and "Politik Pa m" popularized the style. What later became known as "Rap Kreyòl" grew in popularity in the late 1990s with King Posse and Original Rap Stuff. Due to cheaper recording technology and flows of equipment to Haiti, more Rap Kreyòl is growing. French hip-hop also developed in the 1980s. The annual Blockfest in Tampere, Finnish hip-hop, Finland is the largest hip-hop music event in the Nordic countries. YoungstaCPT BlackNation 01

African hip-hop#Nigeria, Nigerian hip-hop gained popularity in the 80s, 90s and 2000s through artists like The Remedies, JJC Skillz, M.I Abaga and Sound Sultan, encompassing the incorporation of local languages and traditional hip-hop beats. In the 2010s and 2020s it developed further with rappers like Naeto C, Reminisce (rapper), Reminisce, Olamide, Phyno, Blaqbonez and Odumodublvck. African hip-hop#South Africa, South African hip-hop overlaps with kwaito, a music genre that emphasizes African culture and social issues. Rappers such as Pope Troy have harnessed the use of socio-economic issues plaguing the political spheres of South Africa and hip-hop as a whole whilst balancing his lingual approach in order to communicate with the masses about the technical aspects that are creating the issues, South African hip-hop has evolved into a prominent presence in mainstream Music of South Africa, South African music. Between the 1990s and 2010s, it had transcended its origins as a form of political expression in Cape Town to produce artists like Hip Hop Pantsula, HHP, Riky Rick and AKA (rapper), AKA. Prominent South African rappers include Stogie T, Reason (South African rapper), Reason, Da L.E.S, Cassper Nyovest, Emtee, Fifi Cooper, A-Reece, Shane Eagle, Nasty C, K.O (rapper), K.O, YoungstaCPT and Big Zulu. In the 2010s, hip-hop became popular in Canada particularly in Toronto, which has a large Afro-Caribbean and African population. The city expressed a new sub-genre called Toronto sound (hip hop), Toronto sound. After Drake (musician), Drake achieved mainstream success, the Toronto sound began with works by producers T-Minus (producer), T-Minus and Boi-1da.Cowie, Del.
The Decade in Canadian Hip-hop, 2010–2020
, ''Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, Socan Magazine''. February 1, 2021.

References

External links

Afrika Bambaataa talks about the roots of Hip Hop
, ''The Cornell Daily Sun''. November 27, 2012. *Daniels, Matt.
The Largest Vocabulary in Hip-Hop
, ''The Pudding''. *Deflem, Mathieu.
Rap, Rock, and Censorship: Popular Culture and the Technologies of Justice
" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Law and Society Association, Chicago, May 27–30, 1993 *George, Delano.
When did Reggae become Rap?
, ''Jamaicans.com''.

by Davey D.

by Davey D.
Kool Herc Interview by Frank Broughton
Kool Herc, interview by Tim Westwood, ''Radio 1 Rap Show'', ''BBC Radio 1''. December 28, 1996.
KRS gives 9 elements of Hip Hop at Harvard
video of 1999 Harvard lecture at YouTube.
The Roots of Hip Hop
lesson plan, TeachRock.
WhoSampled
User-generated database of commercial music samples, covers, and remixes. {{Authority control Hip-hop, African-American cultural history Musical improvisation Radio formats American styles of music Music of New York City African-American music Hispanic American music