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Example research essay topic: The Origins Of Hip Hop And Rap - 983 words

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In the late 1970 s a new, popular form of urban youth culture emerged in the Bronx, New York that changed the face of popular music and American culture. Throughout its development, hip-hop has become a vastly commercialized, inextricable component of popular American culture; however, it took the efforts of many pioneers and innovators to shape modern hip-hop culture and music. By exploring hip-hops origins, one can better understand its evolution and its influence on different social groups throughout the United States. There are many misconceptions about what the term hip-hop entails. Many believe hip-hop is synonymous for rap music; however, hip-hop encompasses all the cultural elements of surrounding rap. In its beginning, the hip-hop subculture included decaying, emceeing, graffiti, and break dancing.

These elements contributed greatly to hip-hop, and therefore must be considered when examining the evolution of hip-hop into the major cultural force it has become. Hip hops origins begin much farther back than the 1970 s. According to Black Arts literary critic Addison Gayle, Jr. , Black Art has always been based on the anger felt by African Americans. Thus, he draws a connection between the Black Arts Movement of the 60 s and hip hop culture. Hip-hop culture absorbed many of the convictions and aesthetic criteria that evolved out of the Black Arts Movement, including calls for social relevance, originality, and an effort to challenge American mainstream artistic culture (Gladney 291). Graffiti, rap music, and break dancing were all forms of artistic expression within the hip-hop culture.

As writer Marvin J. Gladney asserts, Those who pioneered hip-hop were offering artistic expression designed to cope with urban frustrations and conditions (Gladney 292). Scholar Cornell West believes that hip-hop is more than just feelings of frustration, but also an outward protest of the poor living conditions in the black ghetto which is intended to reach its listener on a personal level. He explained: lack rap music is primarily the musical expression of the paradoxical cry of desperation and celebration of the black underclass and poor working class, a cry that openly acknowledges and confronts the wave of personal cold heartedness, criminal cruelty, and existential hopelessness in the black ghettos of Afro American. (West 26) Thus, rap developed as a form of artistic expression articulating the urban impoverished experience.

As New York City expanded due to the influx of immigrants new forms of public transportation were required. Thus, in 1959 the New York Parks Commissioner Robert Moses began building an expressway through the heart of the Bronx (Rhodes). The result was the migration of middle-class Italian, German, Irish, and Jewish people from the neighborhood (Rhodes). African American and Hispanic families began moving into the vacated sections of the Bronx. Then, in 1968, Moses created 15, 382 unit co-op apartment complexes eliminating the presence off a middle-class. Without middle class residents many landlords were forced to sell their buildings to professional slumlords leaving many vacated and rundown buildings (Rhodes).

The Bronx was left in a deteriorated state; these destitute conditions instilled frustration within the impoverished communities. Before hip-hop music was widespread, hip-hops other cultural aspects developed at the forefront of the popular culture around the Bronx. Graffiti played a significant role in helping define hip-hop culture in its early stages. Like many other elements of hip-hops history, the direct roots of the graffiti movement are unclear. Although graffiti had existed for a long period of time, it developed into a significant art form. It was not until 1969 that graffiti began to materialize as a new form of expression for New York youths (Rhodes).

A Greek teenager from New York named Demetrius is attributed with making graffiti famous, after he began spraying his tag name TAKI 183 in various places across the city (Rhodes). Demetrius tag name was comprised of his nickname Taki and the street he lived on 183 rd street (Rhodes). In the early stages of graffiti writing, artists limited themselves to spraying their tag names (Rhodes). Artists earned respect by creating creative lettering styles. The mid- 70 s signaled a change in graffiti, as artists began painting large murals on subway cars (Rhodes). Graffiti writing groups formed, uniting talented artists who created murals that expressed the thoughts and sentiments of the impoverished and disenfranchised city dwellers.

New York Citys Transit Authority reacted to the growing trend of subway car murals by establishing a subway car wash at the Coney Island train yard in 1977 (Rhodes). This discouraged writers from spraying subway cars, and as a result, murals began appearing on handball courts instead. Graffiti writing essentially helped define the visual component of hip-hop culture, and provide voice to an overlooked portion of the New York population. Nowadays, graffiti's prevalence in hip-hop culture has subsided; however, graffiti is still visible in urban settings, and its ability to communicate the sentiments of its artists continues. Although graffiti no longer represents the visual aspects of hip-hop, it has developed its own role in American culture. Unlike the 1977 subway car wash, in recent days the government has funded graffiti murals, officially establishing it as a legitimate art form.

Still, the original art from of tagging and graffiti has lingered within some social groups. Taking has continued to be strongly connected to gangs, acting as a territorial marker. IIn addition tagging has become popular within select urban groups worldwide. Graffiti, however, has developed two different identities. Unlike the murals painted on the subway cars of NYC which depicted the challenges of the people of the ghetto, newer graffiti murals are often solely artistic expression without an underlying political message of protest.

Still, graffiti is often associated with the street culture of hip-hop and continues to provide an artistic outlet expressing similar sentiments expressed in rap music. As the hip-hop movement progressed the emphasis shifted away from graffiti and tagging, and towards the DJ and MC. The disc jockey or DJ, may in many way...


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Research essay sample on The Origins Of Hip Hop And Rap

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