Four elements of hip hop

Hip hop or hip-hop is a subculture and art movement developed in South Bronx in New York City during the late 1970s. While the term hip hop is often used to refer exclusively to hip hop music (also called rap), hip hop is characterized by nine elements, whereas which hip hop music exhibits only four elements (rapping, djaying, beatboxing and breaking).Afrika Bambaataa of the hip hop collective Zulu Nation outlined the pillars of hip hop culture, coining the terms: "rapping" (also called MCing or emceeing), a rhythmic vocal rhyming style (orality); DJing (and turntablism), which is making music with record players and DJ mixers (aural/sound and music creation); b-boying/b-girling/breakdancing (movement/dance); and graffiti art. Other elements of hip hop subculture and arts movements beyond the main four are: hip hop culture and historical knowledge of the movement (intellectual/philosophical); beatboxing, a percussive vocal style; street entrepreneurship; hip hop language; and hip hop fashion and style, among others.

The South Bronx hip hop scene emerged in the mid-1970s from neighborhood block parties thrown by the Ghetto Brothers, a Puerto Rican group that has been described as being a gang, a club, and a music group. Members of the scene plugged in the amplifiers for their instruments and PA speakers into the lampposts on 163rd Street and Prospect Avenue and used their live music events to break down racial barriers between African-Americans, Puerto Ricans, Whites and other ethnic groups. Jamaican immigrant DJ Kool Herc also played a key role in developing hip hop music. At 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, Herc mixed samples of existing records and deejayed percussion "breaks", mixing this music with his own Jamaican-style "toasting" (a style of chanting and boastful talking over a microphone) to rev up the crowd and dancers. Kool Herc is credited as the "father" of hip hop for developing the key DJ techniques that, along with rapping, founded the hip hop music style by creating rhythmic beats by looping "breaks" (small portions of songs emphasizing a percussive pattern) on two turntables. This was later accompanied by "rapping" or "MCing" and beatboxing. An original form of dancing called breakdancing, which later became accompanied by popping, locking and other dance moves, which was done to the accompaniment of hip hop songs played on boom boxes and particular fashion styles also developed.

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