Hip Hop

Hip hop is a popular dance genre that combines rhythmic music with lively dance moves, but is also a term that refers to a culture and lifestyle. Hip hop, which began as a music genre and spawned the dance form, has become a cultural movement which grew out of urban communities, led predominantly by African Americans and Latinos.

The music form originated in New York City in the 1970s. DJs would isolate percussion music from original disco songs, and the MCs would introduce the DJ and the music, and to entertain the audience. From this, a style evolved and it became known as rapping. Along with the accompanying music, the style of hip hop developed and entered America’s mainstream music. It became popular in the early 1990s and further became one of the bestselling genres by the early 2000s. The dance form of hip hop and the music genre of hip hop are inextricable from one another, and it is difficult to talk about one without mentioning the other.

Hip hop today encompasses an entire lifestyle that consistently incorporates diverse elements of ethnicity, technology, art and urban life. There are four fundamental elements in hip hop:

• Rapping: MCing and urban inspired poetry
• Hip hop music: DJing, beats and beatmaking, and hip hop production
• Hip hop dance: Breakdance and various forms of street dance
• Hip hop art: Urban inspired art, often as graffiti

Hip Hop Music

The music of hip hop is typically rhythmic, with a singer (rapper) rapping lyrics, accompanied by an instrumental track (“beat”) performed by a disc jockey (DJ) or instrumentalists.

Rapping or MCing

Hip hop music is characterized by a strong drum rhythm, “scratching” of vinyl records, and rapping. Originally, the MC’s job was to entertain and stoke up the crowd, accompanying the music rather than being the focus. Some MCs are experts at human beatbox (the human voice imitating percussion sounds using the microphone) or “call and response”. However, now, MCs are also involved in performing music and raps for the audience.

The word “rap” is derived from a slang word of the 1960s, meaning “conversation”. Like conversation, rap music consists of poetic chanting and improvisatory lyrics. Rapping probably originated from West Africa, centuries before the United States existed. During that time, West African folk poets (griots) narrated stories, singing in a rhythmic style, accompanied by drums and a few other instruments. Rapping used to be fixed in simple and clear-cut structures and rhyme schemes, especially in the 1980s. By the 1990s, great change and development was made to rap styles, and rapping became more liberal and complex, breaking out of the original rigidity of the style. Themes and content of rap lyrics also moved from personal experiences to larger issues such as those involving society. Though some controversy centres upon whether rap music, especially “gangsta rap”, promotes violence and bias against women, advocates of rap music admire it as a creative art form which shows social and political awareness in the rappers.

Stylistic features of rapping, like rhythm, rhyme, tone and voice of the rapper, are important to the rap music itself. In hip hop, the ability to create rhymes that consist of many syllables is greatly treasured, unlike that in classical music, where it is considered impractical. Stylistically, rap occupies a grey area among speech, prose, poetry, and song. The best rap of today’s hip hop is delivered with complex cadences, intricate poetic form, and inventive wordplay. In addition to dealing with the subjects associated with traditional poetry, rap lyrics also convey the street life from which hip hop originally emerged. Some prominent rappers include Eminem, Missy Elliot and Queen Latifah.

DJing

DJs (disc-jockeys) used to be described as radio announcers who would introduce and play popular gramophone records. Today, there are a number of factors, including the selected music, the intended audience, the performance setting, the preferred medium, and the development of sound manipulation, that have led to different types of disc jockeys.

In hip hop, the DJ no longer functions as a sound provider, but as a musician who uses turntables and vinyl records as instruments. Turntablism was created by DJ Supreme in 1994 to differentiate between a DJ who only plays records from one who actually uses the turntables to manipulate, improvise and perform music. While turntabling, the DJ would move a playing vinyl record back and forth to produce special scratching sounds. Other techniques of turntabling include beat-mixing and beat-juggling.

The hip hop DJ has to endure the process of obtaining a vast knowledge of music and rhythm (the force), be able to synchronize the grooves and beats, and continually search for new sounds to maintain his status in the culture. Not only does a DJ have to know the music on the record; a DJ must also know exactly where the rhythm is on the record. Developing DJ skills requires hours of practice and listening. Techniques such as needle dropping, cueing records, backspinning, scratching and the like are skills that have evolved out of pure hard work and creativity.

Now, hip-hop DJs spends more time with samplers, computers, synthesizers and drum machines than with turntables. Now some DJs just call themselves producers and the rap artist depends on them to make up beats with the new technology.

Hip Hop Dance

Breakdancing

Breakdance is the best known of all hip hop dance styles, and is considered a cornerstone of hip hop culture itself. The breakbeats of hip hop DJing gave birth to the dance form known as “breaking” or “B-boying”. B-boys would dance during the breaks spun by the DJs, hence the “B” stands for “Break”. Breaking is a high-energy combination of complex footwork, spins, kicks and “freezes” holding a position balanced on hands, head or shoulders. Breaking has a standard repertoire of moves, but originality and humour are also highly regarded. Breakers can draw inspiration from anywhere, but especially from the music and their own opponents.

Old school hip hop dances are those styles that evolved in the 1970s and 1980s and were primarily danced to funk and old school hip hop music. In the 1980s, many funk dance styles that originally evolved separately from hip hop, such as “popping” and “locking” developed on the West Coast of the US, came to be lumped together under the “breakdancing” banner. In fact they are very different forms of hip hop dance, consisting of robotic movements, waving limbs and various styles of moonwalking. But they eventually became incorporated with the hip hop culture as well, and could be seen combined with breakdance.

In the 1990s, as hip hop music evolved and grew further away from funk, it got slower, heavier and more aggressive. This modern hip hop music has given birth to new styles of hip hop dancing partly inspired by the old school styles, many of them focusing on upright dancing as opposed to breakdance which is better known for its floor-oriented movements.

There are four foundation styles of B-boy dance. The first is “toprock”, a term referring to the upright dancing that B-boys do when they enter a circle. The second style, “downrock” or “footwork”, refers to dancing performed on the floor. The third style, known as “freeze”, refers to poses that B-boys throw into their dance sets to add punctuation to certain beats and shock the crowd. The final element, known as “power”, refers to moves that involve spinning or fast rotations.

A related dance form which influenced B-boying is Uprocking/Rocking/The Rock Dance, also performed while standing, and a style of dance in which both dancers fabricate ways of beating the opponent using fictional weaponry and embarrassing situations in rhythm with the music. This style involves moves called “yerks” [pronounced "jerks"] which are a set of motions executed to the break of a track and are where most of the battling occurs, outside of the break of a track is where the freestyle element of the dance is executed with great musicality throughout.

Breakdancing is generally unstructured and highly improvisational, allowing the incorporation of many different elements. A basic routine might include toprock, a transition into downrock, a display of power moves, and finally a climactic freeze or suicide.

Toprock refers to any string of steps performed from a standing position, relying upon a mixture of coordination, flexibility, style, and most importantly, rhythm. It is usually the first and foremost opening display of style, and it serves as a warm-up for transitions into more acrobatic maneuvers. In contrast, downrock includes all footwork performed on the floor as in the six-step. Downrock is normally performed with the hands and feet on the floor. In downrock, the breakdancer displays his or her proficiency with foot speed and control by performing footwork combinations. These combinations usually transition into more athletic moves known as power moves.

Power moves refer to moves that require momentum and physical power to execute. In power moves, the breakdancer relies more on upper body strength to dance, using his or her hands to do moves. Power moves include the windmill, swipe and flare. Because power moves are physically demanding, breakdancers use them as a display of upper body strength and stamina. Many moves are borrowed from gymnastics, such as the flare, and martial arts, with impressive acrobatics such as the butterfly kick.

Freezes halt all motion in a stylish pose. The more difficult freezes require the breakdancer to suspend himself or herself off the ground using upper body strength, in poses such as the handstand or pike. Whereas freezing refers to a single pose, locking entails sharp transitions between a series of freezes.

Suicides are another type of end to a routine. Breakers will make it appear that they have lost control and fall onto their backs, stomachs, etc. The more painful the suicide appears, the more impressive it is, but breakdancers execute them in a way to minimize pain. In contrast to freezes, suicides draw attention to the motion of falling or losing control, while freezes draw attention to the final position.

“Battles” refer to any level of competition in which breakdancers in an open space (typically a circle or square) participate in quick-paced, turn-based routines, whether improvised or planned. Participants vary in number, ranging from head-to-head duels to battles of opposing breakdance crews or teams. Winners are determined by the side exhibiting the most proficient combinations of moves. Battles are also known as (known as “jamming” in other dance cultures. “Cyphers”, on the other hand, are open-forum, mock exhibitions where competition is less emphasized.

Street Dancing

Street dance refers to dance styles that evolved outside of dance studios at more common places like streets, school yards and nightclubs. Often improvisatory and social in nature, street dance encourages interaction and contact with the audience and the dancers. Unlike many other dance forms, most street dances encourage individuality and originality, and that dancers interpret the existing moves freely and even invent new ones to create a personal style of their own. Improvisation is the heart of most street dances, though choreography is also seen, mostly mixed with improvisation or used for prepared shows.

Generally, a street dance is based on a unique style or feel that are expressed through the dance, usually tied to a certain genre of music. As new moves evolve based on this feel, the dance is under constant development, and if the feel starts to change it might give birth to a completely new dance form.

Like breakdancing, many street dances involve battles of some sort, where crews dance against each other, with the observing crowd or a group of judges deciding the winner. Battles normally take place in a circle of free space on the dance floor, with the dancers taking turns to enter and execute their moves. Normally, if the street dance style is not a partner dance, only one dancer performs at a time, except when people from the same crew performs a choreographed routine. There are some exceptions to this, such as uprocking, which uses a line formation with the dancers facing each other on fixed positions on a straight line, dancing simultaneously.

Today, many dance studios offer hip hop classes of some sort. They might focus on a specific style such as breakdancing or combine elements of various street dance styles. As hip hop dancing is such a broad genre, the teacher has much freedom and room for personal interpretation, and often mixes various styles freely, even mixing them with other dance forms such as jazz.

Some criticize this type of teaching as being too strict and too choreographed, losing important elements such as improvisation and personal interpretation on the students’ side. Because of this, some dislike labeling these dance classes as “hip hop” as it might not actually include all aspects of the traditional hip hop dances, especially when the teacher mixes it with dance styles not originally related to hip hop. However, despite the controversy, studio-choreographed hip hop is still widely accepted today by many.

Hip Hop Fashion

Hip hop music and dance go with the fashion; one does not exist without the other. Present-day hip hop fashion is not simply limited to one particular group of people but to anyone who has decided to identify with the culture.

In the early 1980s, established sportswear and fashion brands, such as Le Coq Sportif, Kangol and Adidas, attached themselves to the emerging hip hop scene. Popular accessories included large glasses (Cazals or Gazelles), Kangol bucket hats, nameplates, name belts, and multiple rings. In the early 1990s, pop rappers such as The Fresh Prince, Kid ‘n Play, and Left Eye of TLC popularized baseball caps and bright, often neon-colored, clothing. Kris Kross also established the fad of wearing clothes backwards. Gangsta rap then became one of the most prevalent styles of hip hop, and by the mid-1990s, hip hop fashion had taken on significant influence from the dress styles of street thugs and prison inmates. West Coast gangsta rappers adopted the style of Los Angeles cholos (Chicano gangsters), including baggy pants, black ink tattoos, bandannas, and shirt tails outside one’s pants. Dark denim prison gear was also popular. The style of sagging one’s pants, or wearing them baggy and low without a belt, was also style that originated in prisons. This style of fashion, along with its associated hand signs and territorial or “homeboy” mentality, was adopted by African-American youth in Los Angeles initially, and later by the hip hop community at large.

Today, hip hop fashion is worn by a large proportion of young people around the world. There are now a significant number of retailers that are dedicated to the sale of hip hop inspired fashions such as Dr. Jays. Recent trends in hip hop fashion have geared toward a tighter, hipster-inspired style of dressing (called “prep-hop”), which is coming to include Nike Dunks, polo shirts (often worn with popped collar), sportcoats, large ornamental belt buckles, skull and skeleton decorations, elaborately decorated zip-up hoodies, trucker hats (Von Dutch), fitted caps (New Era Cap Company), tighter denim jeans, and shorter length t-shirts with shorter arm sleeves. In some circles, the baggy style has faded away, with the growing influence of rappers such as Kanye West, Common and Andre 3000, often sporting such colorful fitted prep-hop and hipster-inspired clothing, and tighter-fitting skater influenced styles in the case of Pharrell. One of the major players in this type of clothing is Bape, which has garnered much exposure in hip hop videos. Yet, the baggy style remains active in other places despite recent trends.

Hip Hop Art

Graffiti is also known as the visual element of hip hop. Graffiti is an art form where anything can serve as a canvas: rocks, walls, billboards, phone booths, cars, roads, etc. Once seen as vandalism, graffiti has begun to become accepted as art and in some cases has moved from walls and subway cars to galleries and museums. This art form has since spread around the world, especially in the US and in Europe.

Some of the most common styles of graffiti have their own names. A “tag” is the most basic writing of an artist’s name in either spray paint or marker as a personalized signature. Another form is the “throw-up”, also known as a “fill-in”, which is normally painted very quickly with two or three colors, sacrificing aesthetics for speed. A “piece” is a more elaborate representation of the artist’s name, incorporating more stylized “block” or “bubble” letters, using three or more colors. A more complex style is “wildstyle”, a form of graffiti involving interlocking letters, arrows, and connecting points. A “blockbuster” is a “fill-in” that intentionally takes up an entire wall, sometimes with the whole purpose of blocking other “taggers” from painting on the same wall.

Compiled by Ryan Tan 10 August 2007

References and Extracts from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop_music

http://www.daveyd.com/raphist2.html