What do you know about rap music or its culture; hip hop?
The other day, I found myself thinking about popular rap music, its beginning, its purpose, etc.
So, I decided to read about it and share the information I found with you.
The word “rap”, which is widely believed to be an abbreviation of the words “Rhyme And Poem” or “Rhythmic African Poetry”, actually means “heavy criticism” in English dictionary meaning. Rap music is one of the four sub-branches of hip hop culture. Other branches are break dance, disc jockey and graffiti.
The birth of hip hop
It is thought that the birth of hip-hop is based on the cry and dance figures of Africans to speak with “the creator” and express their admiration for nature. Hip-hop could not find a place for itself in the new world order immediately. Despite this, it spread rapidly within the segment that it addresses as the language of the excluded, marginalized segment.
Hip-hop is a culture and lifestyle created by black people living as a minority in bad conditions in America in the late 1970s to get away from the agenda and have fun. However, when we look at the emergence of hip-hop culture in general, it is seen that this culture was not born as a protest attitude as it is thought. Rather, it emerged as an entertainment culture. Its meaning as a word is “to swing/to shake hips”. It is a contradiction to you too, right? The name of a culture that is born for rebellion is shaking hips…
So how did this culture turn into a protest culture?
This entertainment trend, which was initially initiated with the aim of keeping young people away from the crisis of the political environment and was successful up to a point, has turned into a protest structure with the birth of rap music. Young people have used rap music as a weapon to make their voices heard, also practicing the way African societies sing their own. Rap music is the first element that reveals the rebellion of Africans in hip hop. In this context, rap music may cause us to think that the rebellion is a rhythmic calling.
In general, hip-hop is the expression of rebellion, will, troubles and world view, and people’s self-defense, without physically fighting or harming all this oppression, exclusion. For this reason, it is qualified as “underground”. Hip-hop can be described as coming out of the ground with the shouts of people who are “pushed” and “oppressed”. According to them, hip-hop is the culture of thinking brains, not of numbed brains, and the most powerful element of hip-hop is rap music. In addition, while African youth were defending themselves against the oppression and repulsion they experienced, they started to express their opinions with the words in the songs instead of harming someone. This is the reason why hip-hop culture emerged; avoiding physical violence and fighting, protecting yourself from crime and not harming anyone by verbalizing or dancing what is desired or felt according to the place.
Rap music coming to the stage
Rap music that emerged in the 1970s started with the creation of a new music trend by mixing blues, funk and rhythm by preparing beats (called the rhythmic musical infrastructure playing in the background of rap songs) and rhyming, and freestyle. Before this date, blues and jazz were describing the sadness of submission without rebellion, but with rock music, a bit of movement came into sadness.
In the 1970s, rap music started to take the place of rock music gradually. In other words, rap has emerged as the scream of the crushed.
Rap music is seen as the demand of individuals in hip-hop culture to express themselves and to be recognized in the global arena. Rap music was used as a tool to express themselves and convey their demands for recognition and served the purpose of protecting the oppressed from violence and reducing the tendency to crime.
How did it develop in the next few years? How did it become this popular?
We will follow the development of rap music in the next post ☺
Stay tuned..
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