Hip Hop Culture: Vision and Voice

Study Notes

Hip Hop is a global culture, encompassing music, dance, art, and more.
It originated in the Bronx borough of New York City in the early 1970s.
DJ Kool Herc's 1973 dance bash is a pivotal moment in Hip Hop's development, establishing techniques like extending percussion breaks.
DJs quickly developed competitiveness using available resources to create something new and cool, imitating others while innovating.
Hip Hop has evolved as an artistic style involving various elements, including DJing, rapping/MCing, breaking, writing/graffiti, and theatre/literature.
This artistic style conveys perspectives on life, social issues, and personal experiences.
Today, six elements are usually acknowledged to constitute Hip Hop culture: DJing, MCing, breaking, writing, theatre/literature, and knowledge of self.
Knowledge of self encompasses moral, social, and spiritual principles.
Hip Hop continues to shape the world, transcending its origins.

Breaking is a dynamic dance style within Hip Hop.
Its origins trace back to the early 1970s in the Bronx, with figures like Richard Colón playing key roles.
Early break dancers frequently honed techniques in public spaces, often in response to competition, and evolved and innovated, blending other styles.
Notable aspects of breaking are its acrobatic moves, quick footwork, and imaginative physical expressions.
Influences like the Charleston, Lindy Hop, and James Brown's dance moves have had an impact on breaking.
This dynamic style continues to influence various contemporary performance forms and is highly important to the culture.

DJs are central to Hip Hop, creating music with turntables, blending effects, sampling sounds, and employing other skills.
Early Hip Hop DJs experimented with extended breaks and altered the rhythm of recordings to create unique sounds.
Techniques like scratching, beat juggling, and beat matching are pivotal in the skillset of a DJ, crucial parts of creating rhythmic transitions, manipulating sounds, and creating unexpected musical variations.
DJs in Hip Hop often use unique methods and musical creativity resulting in improvisation, pushing boundaries of entertainment.

DJs use scratching in Hip Hop to creatively manipulate records and emphasize certain musical segments.
Techniques and skillsets of DJs have allowed for music to evolve beyond expectations and become more engaging.
Turntablism is a style of music characterized by the manipulation of sounds using turntables, such as remixes or sampled elements.

Graffiti, a form of visual expression within Hip Hop, developed in the 1970s in New York City.
Writers/artists, in many cases teenagers, utilized walls and trains throughout the borough as canvases.
Their designs reflected their neighborhoods, showcasing distinct styles and incorporating improvisation.
Graffiti writing's contribution to shaping the visual aesthetic of Hip Hop is significant.

MCs, also known as rappers, are vocalists that express poetic lyrics over a musical beat.
MCs' "flow" (rap style) is crucial to their performance, emphasizing their rhyming techniques, rhythms, and delivery.
MCs' styles and roles have developed within Hip Hop, becoming an essential element of the genre's expression.

"Knowledge" is a central element of Hip Hop teaching the community about its identity and cultural expressions.
It emphasizes self-awareness, appreciation for history, and the importance of social responsibility.
Pioneering figures such as Bambaataa are credited with influencing this philosophy within Hip Hop culture.