Hip-hop culture

Hip hop is a subculture and art movement developed by African-Americans and Latinos from the inner-city South Bronx neighbourhood in New York City in the late 1970s. While people unfamiliar with hip hop culture often use the expression "hip hop" to refer exclusively to hip hop music (also called "rap"), hip hop is characterized by anywhere from four to nine distinct elements or expressive realms, of which hip hop music is only one element. DJ 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, which he called "aerosol writin'" (visual art). Other elements of the hip hop subculture and arts movement beyond the main four are: hip hop culture and historical knowledge of the movement (intellectual/philosophical); beatboxing, a percussive vocal style; street entrepreneurship; African-American language and slang; and hip hop fashion and style, among others.

The South Bronx hip hop scene emerged in the 1970s from neighbourhood block parties thrown by the Ghetto Brothers, a Puerto Rico 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 and other minority 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 DJed 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", a rhythmic style of chanting or speaking poetry/lyrics, and beatboxing, a percussive vocal technique used to create beats to go along with an MC or rappers' rhymes. 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 styles of hip hop dress and hair also developed.

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