Hip Hop History: Gang Violence

Hip Hop has become the most popular music genre for the first time in history this past year. Hip hop has given opportunities for minority groups to voice opinions through music. Hip hop is an important factor of society because it is a voice for the people and it is an influence to artist from other cultures and genres. Hip hop is a culture born from the ashes of disco, funk, blues, and jazz music. Rory PQ states that “…many funk groups began playing disco music because it was the latest trend.

” This was in the 70sin New York , that’s around the time the city’s economy was falling apart. Middle class whites were moving to the suburbs, and gang violence was becoming a bigger issue than it was before. Due to this gang violence Rory PQ says that “disco’s and night clubs started closing there doors” and the closings around the city encouraged the youth to bring the party to their homes every weekend.

That is when the youth began to purchase used or cheap “sound systems” that allowed them to play records, skip, rewind, and mix them by hand. This is when hip hop started to be created. In the south Bronx is where it all started, a young African American woman named Cindy started to host back to school parties in her families apartment, and that’s when history was about to be made. On August 11, 1973 Cindy’s brother who was known around the city as “Kool Herc” began playing music at these parties, he was the first person to start using these popular funk and disco records in a peculiar and unfamiliar way.

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As he played these tracks “he tried something new he called “merry go round”. He used two turntables playing the same break beat section of the James Brown record clap your hands” says Cole Mize of cole mize studios.

This caught the party people by surprise, but in a good way. These parties started happening more frequently and Herc became more and more popular, so popular that people started putting “dj” in front of his name meaning “disc jockey” because he was the only person who they knew could mix and scratch records the way he did with just his hands and two turntables. Soon his talents spread from his apartment to the entire state of New York by word of mouth. Dj Herc and his good friend Coke La Rock began spitting bars into a microphone while Herc was Djing. Soon DJs and rappers started showing up to every block party in the state but record labels didn’t think the demand for rap and hip hop were big enough, until the first rap song came out. “King Tim III” by the fathead band was a hit and hip hop became a big thing around the east coast.

Austin McCoy, a publisher for Oxford Research Encyclopedia, states in the article “Rap Music”: Rap music invaded American popular and political culture during the 1990s. By the end of the decade, rap simultaneously grew both more national and more regional. Publications such as The Source, Vibe Magazine, and XXL, as well as television shows such as Yo! MTV Raps and Black Entertainment Television’s Rap City, helped construct what some have called the “hip hop nation.” At the same time, regionally based record labels and rap artists developed rap music that was distinct from New York’s and California’s sounds. This decade also saw the proliferation of black-run rap record labels, which were often subsidiaries of larger conglomerates. (Austin)

As a result of raps popularity the minority community finally had a voice, but not by themselves as a group, they had a voice through the music being played on hundreds of radio stations throughout the nation. Hip hop intersected with electoral politics in the 90s. The democratic candidate Bill Clinton once confronted hip hop culture, his actions directly showed that he would not stand back due to racial politics. Rap music entered a dark place when rappers began producing songs that expressed their feelings on police brutality and other situations happening across the United States in places where poverty and minority groups were obviously targeted by upper class white males and females. “Cop killer” by Ice-T and Bodycount is the best example of when hip hop/rap began to become a voice for the community. There were arguments on whether the song “cop killer” was protected by the first amendment rights because the song says “…

I’m cop killer… fuck the police… die, pig, die” songs like this were made out of anger towards the police for murders of African American men such as Darryl Gates, and Rodney King. Words from the peoples mouths were spoken in this song without anyone speaking out besides two artist that felt the pain of African Americans. Hip hop music is a genre of music that has come from being hated by record labels, radio stations, majority groups, and even politicians, but now hip hop is the face of our nations musical reputation. Rap music is important to the community because it was and still is a voice for the people through artist from NWA to J- Cole. From the east coast to the rest of the world rap music has become a staple in the brain of our society.

Works Cited

1. Bmxe. “BMXE – The History of Hip Hop Music.” Genius, Genius Media Group Inc., 24 Nov. 2014, genius.com/Bmxe-the-history-of-hip-hop-music-annotated.
2. “Hip Hop Is Born at a Birthday Party in the Bronx.” Edited by History.com, History.com, A&E Television Networks, 16 Nov. 2009, www.history.com/this-day-in-history/hip-hop-is-born-at-a-birthday-party-in-the-bronx.
3. McCoy, Austin. “Rap Music.” Oxford Research Encyclopedias, 10 Nov. 2017, oxfordre.com/americanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-287.
4. Mize, Cole, and About cole mizeindie rap artist. “History of Rap – The True Origins of Rap Music.” ColeMizeStudios, 29 Oct. 2015, colemizestudios.com/how-did-rap-start/.
5. PQ, Rory. “Origins of Hip-Hop Culture | Dubspot.” Dubspot Blog, 27 Sept. 2016, blog.dubspot.com/hip-hop-culture/.
6. Stolworthy @Jacob_Stol, Jacob. “A History of Hip-Hop as Google Celebrates 44 Years of the Music Movement.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 18 Oct. 2017, www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/history-of-hip-hop-music-new-york-dj-kool-herc-google-doodle-clive-cindy-campbell-a7887501.html.
7. Zuberi, Tukufu. “Birthplace Of Hip Hop.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 2012, www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/investigation/birthplace-of-hip-hop/.