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Learn The History of Rap Music
Have you ever heard of the griots? These were travelling poets and singers in Africa going back for hundreds of years. They would travel around rapping about life, the forgotten pioneers of rap music I believe. It was in New York City that hip hop emerged, during the 1970s. As block parties were becoming popular, DJ's started mixing different funk and soul music together, in particular they experimented with isolating the breaks.
In jamaican music they were already doing this technique, and New York was filled with jamaicans, so it makes sense that rap music originated there, right in the bronx. Dj Kool herc was a popular figure who quickly become the block parties most known Disc Jockey.
Overtime more advanced turntablism emerged, and people started MCing along with the beats. It didn't make sense to sing, nor did it make sense to just speak. Rapping was born, a type of spoken poetry. Now this rap was not similar in content to the griots of africa, as these were people in the ghetto's of new york city talking. It gave people a platform to release frustrations, and basically rap about all the things they wanted in life, as If they had them.
Rap music has always had a materialistic edge to it, being a voice for all the disenfranchised youth in the world. During the early 1990's hip hop really exploded, with artists like Dr Dre, KRS One, Public Enemy, Krs 0ne, Notorious Big, and Tupac Shakur leading the way.
Today there is no more popular form of music, rap music has all the biggest chart hits and the most dedicated following, with thousands of youth (millions even) who aspire to become a famous rapper and leave the ghetto. Many popular artists were former drug dealers or gang bangers, now rich and famous only thanks to words and a microphone. Thats how powerful hip hop can be.
With the increase in technology, it is now possible to record your own music at home. In the early 1990s, your only real choice was analog, which involved renting out studio space because affording a large mixer and tape reels was not practical or common. Nowadays, anybody can get a $300 studio going at home. This has had both positive and negative consequences for rap music.
On the plus side, armed with a home studio and the internet everybody has a much greater chance at exposure, or at least the opportunity to be exposed. On the flip side, you could say the market is getting flooded with crap, but hey nobody is forcing you to listen, so its not all that bad.
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