Hip hop and rap â€" one of the most popular today’s music genres by ken wilson

Everyone has listened, at least once, a hip hop song and, whether it is among your favorite genres or not, you cannot deny that hip hop and rap have a lot of fans. The fact that many hip hop artists are famous worldwide and their songs are in the top charts proves there are many hip hop listeners. Ever since it birth, in the 1970s in New York City, this new kind of music has gained popularity. The roots of underground hip hop go back to the West African music. “Griots” are African traveling singers and poets, whose style resembles today’s hip hop. The block parties, very common in the New York neighborhood Bronx, helped to the development of rap music. These parties were accompanied by funk and soul music. Then, the DJs realized that they could isolate the percussion break of these songs and this was the beginning of hip hop’s history.
Although confusion between them is often made, hip hop and rap are technically not the same thing. Rap is a component of hip hop music, a vocal style in which the performer makes rhymes to the beats. However, hip hop also includes backing beats being performed by a turntable DJ. Many people don’t know that at the beginning of underground hip hop, the MC didn’t have the leading role. In fact, his job was to introduce the DJ and his music and entertain people between the songs. Of course, the situation has changed a lot since then, as today there are lots of popular MCs and hip hop couldn’t be imagined without the rapping or emceeing part.

Although hip hop and rap was born and developed in the USA, after the 1980s, it began to spread into the whole world. Today, countries like Germany, Turkey, France, and Italy have given internationally known underground hip hop artists. A few examples would be Die Fantastichen Vier (Germany), the Breton band Manau and MC Solaar (France), Cartel (Turkey). However, the United States have kept their monopoly on hip hop music, as the overwhelming majority of the worldwide famous rappers live here: Dr. Dre, Puff Daddy, Eminem, Snoop Dog, Busta Rhymes, The Wu-Tang Clan, Nelly, 50 Cent and the list could go on.

Of course, underground hip hop has changed since the 1970s; styles have been diversified. Rapcore (a fusion between hip hop and heavy metal) is now popular, with famous representatives like Rage Against The Machine, Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit. Another interesting combination is jazz rap, which begun with De La Soul and Gang Starr. Although it hasn’t reached mainstream success, alternative hip hop has given some famous artists such as The Roots and Mos Def. Without any doubt, the most successful form of hip hop and rap has been gangsta rap, “invented” by Dr. Dre in 1992.This is the style that most of the hip-hopers embrace today.

All in all, whether you love it or despise it, underground hip hop is something you can’t ignore. Millions of people from all over the world listen to hip hop and rap. Some of them are Afro-American males, but that is not a rule. Hip hop is also popular in Scandinavian countries, like Denmark and Swedish and continues to spread into new lands, like Russia, Japan and China. The ghetto music has really conquered the world.