History of Rap

History of Rap
Rap Music, a genre of R&B that includes rhythmic poetry put over a musical
background. The background consists of beats combined with digitally isolated sound
bites from other recordings. The first recording of rap was made in 1979 and the genre
began to take notice in the U.S. in the mid-1980s. Though the name rap is often used
back and forth with hip hop. The name hip-hop comes from one of the earliest phrases
used in rap on the song “Rapper’s Delight” by Sugarhill Gang. “I said a hip hop, hippie
to the hippie, the hip, hip a hop, and you don't stop, a rock it to the bang bang boogie,
say, up jump the boogie, to the rhythm of the boogie, the beat.”. In addition to rap
music, the hip-hop subculture also formed other methods of expression like break
dancing, graffiti art, a unique slang vocabulary, and fashion sense.
Rap started in the mid-1970s in the South Bronx area of New York City. The birth
of rap is, in many ways, like the birth of rock and roll. Both originated in the African
American community and both were first recorded by small, independent record labels
and marketed towards, mostly to a black audience. And in both cases, the new style
soon attracted white musicians that began performing it. For rock and roll it was a white
American from Mississippi, Elvis Presley. For rap it was a young white group from New
York, the Beastie Boys. Their release “Fight for Your Right To Party!” (1986) was one of
the first two rap records to reach the Billboard top-ten. Another early rap song to reach
the top ten, “Walk This Way” (1986), was a collaboration of Run-DMC and Aerosmith.
Soon after 1986, the use of samples was influenced in the music of both black and
white performers, changing past thoughts of what make up a “valid” song.
Rap music was first a cross-cultural product. Most of its important early
practitioners, Kool Herc, DJ Hollywood, and Afrika Bambaataa, were either first- or
second-generation Americans of Caribbean background. Kool Herc and DJ Hollywood
are given credit for introducing the Jamaican style of cutting and mixing into the musical
culture of the South Bronx. Herc was the first DJ to buy two copies of the same record
for just a 15-second break instrumental segment in the middle. By mixing back and forth
between the two copies he was able to double, triple, or endlessly extend the break. By
doing this, Herc made the turntable a musical instrument.
While he was mixing with two turntables, Herc would also perform with the
microphone in Jamaican style—joking, boasting, and using all around group references.
Herc’s parties soon gained notice and were recorded on cassette tapes. Copies of the
tapes quickly made their way through the Bronx, Brooklyn, and uptown Manhattan,
creating a number of similar DJ acts. Among the new DJs was Afrika Bambaataa, the
first Black Muslim in rap. Bambaataa often waged in sound-system battles with Herc.
The sound system competitions were held in city parks, where hot-wired street lamps
supplied electricity, or at local clubs. Bambaataa would sometimes mix sounds from
rock-music and television shows into the standard funk and disco advance that Herc
and most of his followers relied on. By the 1990s any sound source was considered
useable and rap artists borrowed sounds from such disparate sources as Israeli folk
music, bebop jazz records, and television news broadcasts.
In 1976 Grandmaster Flash introduced the technique of quick mixing, in which

sound bites as short as one or two seconds are combined for a unique effect. Shortly
after Flash introduced quick mixing, his partner Grandmaster Melle Mel composed the
first extended stories in rap. Up to this point, most of the words heard over the work of
disc jockeys had been improvised phrases and expressions. In 1978 DJ Grand Wizard
Theodore introduced scratching of records to produce rhythmic patterns.
In 1979 the first two rap records appeared: “King Tim III” by the Fatback Band,
and “Rapper’s Delight,” by Sugarhill Gang. A series of verses by the three members of
Sugarhill Gang, “Rapper’s Delight” became a national hit, reaching number 36 on the
Billboard magazine popular music charts. The spoken content, mostly bragging spiced
with fantasy, came largely from material used by the earlier rappers. The background
for “Rapper’s Delight” was supplied by studio musicians, who copied the basic groove of
the hit song “Good Times” (1979) by a disco group Chic.
Sampling brought into question the ownership of the new sound. Some artists
claimed that by sampling recordings of black artist they were challenging white
corporate America and the recording industry’s right to own black cultural expression.
Rap artists were also challenging other musicians’ right to own, control, and be given
credit for the use of their creations. By the early most artists requested permission for
the use of samples. Some commonly sampled released CDs containing dozens of
sound bites specifically for sampling. One effect of sampling was the sense of musical
history among black youth. Earlier artists were celebrated as cultural heroes and their
older recordings were reissued and repopularized. sampling became a bigger thing and
soon enough, you could barely find a sound without sampling. to this day artist use a lot
of sampling for there songs
"History of Rap and Hip Hop." Hip-hop Network. Web. 13 July 2015.
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www.hiphop-network.com/articles/general/kurtisblowversionofhiphop.asp&ei=rSKjVan-Fsqy-
AH3p4AY&usg=AFQjCNFtccESW2O5B5wNCalvhVR5iV0Bqg&sig2=M>.
"Rap History." Spin. Web. 13 July 2015. <https://www.google.com/url?
sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CEIQFjAG&url=http://
www.plasticlittleraps.com/history-of-rap-music.html&ei=rSKjVan-Fsqy-
AH3p4AY&usg=AFQjCNGJI0WatUkWJ4yyM75fp88oitN4Jw&sig2=cOT9L9de7FCKhszJNpPiKA
>.
"Birthplace of Hip-hop." Web. 13 July 2015.

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In 1976 Grandmaster Flash introduced the technique of quick mixing, in which

"Birthplace of Hip-hop." Web. 13 July 2015.

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