Hip hop culture - Thesis Proposal Example

Hip Hop Culture A Conceptual Analysis of Anxiety Many studies proved that stereotypes were mainly used by people to respond to others. Police sometimes consider minority citizens as possible criminals while the minority considers the police as tyrants. Social discrimination and stereotyping affect the response of people to members of the inside and outside of the group and leads to favoritism and negative connotation to others (Holmes and Smith, 2008, p. 13). Because of the stereotypes and social discrimination prevailing in the society, hip hop was born.

Hip hop culture started as an urban culture in the streets of New York from the people who were drug users. Hip hop was the product of the activism and creativity of the people the drug-infested streets during the 1960s and 1970s. The places where gangs once fled, parties and outdoor jams were held. The wars among the groups were transformed into street dancing with DJs with colorful designs made by graffiti artists. Hip hop culture experienced various transformations from just an ordinary street culture into multibillion-dollar businesses and became famous around the globe (Price, 2006, xi).

The popularity of hip hop gave itself a reputation as a great cultural movement that is against the mainstream beliefs. Beyond the popularity and high record sales, the very soul of the movement is still vague. The identity and destiny of the hip hop is not clear. The heated debates happened within the hip hop culture (Watkins, 2005, p. 5). Hip hop really started as a series of artistic activities like dance, music and graffiti which were all very important in showing the African popular culture.

In the beginning it was hard to understand the existence of the culture (Dimitriadis, 2009, p. 22). Some people in the society consider the influence of hip hop to be exaggerated; it has made the very core of the African and American youth than any historical and political events. Hip hop was able to hone the youth while promoting the unique valued aspects of various communities. It has been found out that the basic ideology of hip hop is “Get in where you fit in”. Although the basic ideology of African American culture is about equality in the society, hip hop is about inclusion of all people who respect hip hop (Morgan, 2009, p. 48). DJs flourished in the hip hop culture.

One of them is Joseph Saddler better known as Grandmaster Flash. He invented mixing wherein two or more music are played and recorded together. He also invented punch-phasing which is adding some popping sounds to audio tracks (Hatch, 2006, p. 24). It is said that hip hop culture has five elements: MC’ing or rapping, Jing or spinning, breakdancing or streetdancing, graffiti art or writing and overstanding (Alim, 2006, p. 4). MC’ing covers talking over the beats, rapping and beat boxing. It was originally created to entertain the crowds and mixed the talking with breaking beats.

Basically it was a call-and-response wherein the MC would say “Everybody in the house say yeah” while the audience would answer “Yeah” (Snoman, 2009, p. 297). When there was no MC’ing, DJ’ing existed first. DJ’ing referred to a disk jockey who is a radio announcer who plays recorded songs for the radio listeners. DJ’ing is also known as spinnin or spinning which contained a complex skill that was beyond playing recorded music. The art originated from a Jamaican DJ known as Kool Here who distributed used music for house parties (Pemberton, 2008, p. 50). Breakdancing is another element of hip hop which has “elaborate spins, balances, flips, contortions, and freezes performed by break-dancers,” (Defrantz, 2004, p. 75). Some people said hip hop was started by black people and they were addressed to the black youth as the primary audience.

Some argue that the white youth were the primary audience because some claims were made that more Whites were living in the United States than Black people and some prominent Whites influenced the popularity of hip hop in the mainstream. The claims were hard to verify because of the following: the vague ten percent off the Soundscan radar, unaccounted music downloading, the undetected mix-tape popularity, and customers buying outside the recorded sales areas, the Black youths as cool trendsetters, hip-hop fashion, and the effects of hip hop on the lives of Black youths (Kitwana, 2005, pp. 88-100). The concepts presented are the important components of the hip hop culture.

Each factor makes hip hop a unique and independent genre not only in the music scene but in the social structure.ReferencesAlim, S. (2006). Roc the mic right: The language of hip hop culture. Routledge: New York.Defrantz, T. (2004). The black beat made visible: Hip hop dance and body power. In A. Lepecki (Ed.), Of the presence of the body: essays on dance and performance theory (pp. 64-81). Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Dimitriadis, G. (2009). Performing identity/performing culture: Hip hop as text, pedagogy, and lived practice.

New York: Peter Lang Publishing.Hatch, T. (2006). A history of hip-hop: The roots of rap. USA: Red Brick Learning.Holmes, M and Smith, B. (2008). Race and police brutality: roots of an urban dilemma. USA: State University of New York.Kitwana, B. (2005). Why White kids love hip-hop: Wankstas, wiggers, wannabes, and the new reality of race in America. New York: Basic Civitas Books. Morgan, M. (2009). The real hiphop: battling for knowledge, power, and respect in the LA underground. USA: Duke University Press.

Pemberton, M. (2008). "Now I aint sayin shes a gold digger": African American femininities in rap music lyrics. USA: Florida State University. Price, E. (2006). Hip hop culture. California: ABC-CLIO Inc.Snoman, R. (2009). Dance music manual: tools, toys and techniques. Oxford: Focal Press. Watkins, S. (2005). Hip hop matters: Politics, pop culture, and the struggle for the soul of a movement. Massachusetts: Beacon Press.