Rap artist

Rapping (or rhyming, spitting,emceeing,MCing, ) is a musical form of vocal delivery that incorporates "rhyme, rhythmic speech, and street vernacular," which is performed or chanted in a variety of ways, usually over a backbeat or musical accompaniment. The components of rap include "content", "flow" (rhythm, rhyme and cadence), and "delivery". Rap differs from spoken-word poetry in that rap is usually performed in time to an instrumental track. Rap is often associated with, and is a primary ingredient of hip-hop music, but the origins of the phenomenon predate hip-hop culture. The earliest precursor to modern rap is the West African griot tradition, in which "oral historians", or "praise-singers", would disseminate oral traditions and genealogies, or use their formidable rhetorical techniques for gossip or "praise or critique individuals." The person credited with originating the style of "delivering rhymes over extensive music", that would become known as rap, was Harlem, New York native, Anthony "DJ Hollywood" Holloway.

Rap can be delivered over a beat, typically provided by a DJ, turntablist or Beatboxer, or without accompaniment. Stylistically, rap occupies a gray area between speech, prose, poetry, and singing. The word (meaning originally "to hit"), is used to describe quick speech or repartee, predates the musical form. The word had been used in British English since the 16th century. It was part of the African American dialect of English in the 1960s meaning "to converse", and very soon after that in its present usage as a term denoting the musical style. Today, the terms "rap" and "rapping" are so closely associated with hip-hop music that many writers use the terms interchangeably.

The English verb rap has various meanings, such as "to strike, especially with a quick, smart, or light blow", as well "to utter sharply or vigorously: to rap out a command". The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary gives a date of 1541 for the first recorded use of the word with the meaning "to utter (esp. an oath) sharply, vigorously, or suddenly". Wentworth and Flexner's Dictionary of American Slang gives the meaning "to speak to, recognize, or acknowledge acquaintance with someone", dated 1932, and a later meaning of "to converse, esp. in an open and frank manner". It is these meanings from which the musical form of rapping derives, and this definition may be from a shortening of repartee. A rapper refers to a performer who "raps". By the late 1960s, when Hubert G. Brown changed his name to H. Rap Brown, rap was a slang term referring to an oration or speech, such as was common among the "hip" crowd in the protest movements, but it did not come to be associated with a musical style for another decade.

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