Rappin' Society

Rappin’ Society

One of the most popular music forms today is rap. It is one of the most profitable and chart topping genres of music. From MTV and even VH1, rap has rooted it self as a permanent feature in the eye of our society. Rap music is also one of the founding corner stones to networks like BET (Black Entertainment Television). But how is it this relatively young form of music, which most middle class hoped would be a passing fad, manage to establish it self and become this hugely successful market of its own? To answer these questions, rap must be introspectively explored, from its origins through its evolution into the rap of today.

First, let us clarify any confusion one may have differentiating rap and hip hop. Hip-hop was born in the late seventies and originally, according to MacAdam’s The Birth of Cool, “Thelonious Monk says that he actually called the music ‘bi-bop,’ but ‘everybody must’ve misheard’”. Hip-hop was a sub-culture, born to the youth in urban areas. It spread from New York to Los Angeles and included other urban cities between them like Chicago and Detroit. The characteristics of this hip-hop culture included rap, break dancing, taggin’ (graffiti), and certain fashion amongst these inner-city youth. Thus, music can be hip-hop style but not rap. An example of being hip-hop but not rap is the group TLC, where mostly song dominates over the typical spoken rhythm/rhyme of rap.

Rap has been rumored to have multiple origins and roots. Robin Kelly’s approach traces back to and calls for “…go[ing] back to the blues, to the baaadman tales of the late nineteenth century, and to the age-old tradition of ‘signifying’ if we want to discover the roots of the ‘gangsta’ aesthetic of hip hop.” He traces some of the early works to 1938 folklorist Alan Lomax and on to 1958 Lloyd Price’s “classic black baaadman narrative, ‘Stagger Lee’”. This theme is also evident in multiple other sources which trace rap’s roots to African culture and tradition of utilizing and valuing the spoken word. Griots are, according to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, “any of a class of musician-entertainers of western Africa whose performances include tribal histories and genealogies”. According to African-American Arts: Music