More Than Music

South Bronx, the birth place of hip hop.

In the 1970s, an underground urban movement known as "Hip Hop" began to develop in the South Bronx area of New York City focusing on emceeing, breakbeats and house parties, Jamaican-born DJ Clive "Kool Herc" Campbell is credited as being highly influential in the pioneering stage of hip hop music. Starting at Kool Herc's home in a high-rise apartment at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, the movement later spread across the entire borough. Rap developed both inside and outside of Hip Hop culture, and began in America in earnest with the street parties thrown in the Bronx by Herc and others.Herc created the blueprint for hip hop music and culture by building upon the Jamaican tradition of impromptu toasting, boastful poetry and speech over music.

Street gangs were prevalent in the poverty of the South Bronx, and much of the graffiti, rapping, and b-boying at these parties were all artistic variations on the competition and one-upmanship of street gangs. Sensing that gang members' often violent urges could be turned into creative ones, Afrika Bambaataa founded the Zulu Nation, a loose confederation of street-dance crews, graffiti artists, and rap musicians.

DJ Kool Herc, father of hip hop.

Although the culture gained popularity and spread across America, conservatives began to view hip hop music as something negative because of the way gang and violence are often romanticized. The commercial success of gangsta rap in the early 1990s further enforced the shift of the theme of hip hop music.

A handful of dedicated hip hop fans are disappointed with what mainstream hip hop has become. They recognize that in the face of the community, the music has moved to an overall theme of materialism and wealth more so than black empowerment. “Through the media, we only see the commercial use of marijuana…[hip hop] doesn’t tell a story anymore.” Proclaims Rahmel Huff, a dedicated hip hop fan. What irks most hip hop fans more than anything is that although possessions and money is glorified in mainstream hip hop that is not all that there is left.

While attempting to showcase the diversity of the hip culture and prove that there are a range of artists. I decided to go about doing a vox pop. Click here to check it out.

To get a brief glimpse of hip hop history and the opinions on the current state of hip hop from a few dedicated fans, click here.

Perhaps one of the most popular hip hop websites today is Complex. Not only does it showcase music, it also gives us a glimpse of pop culture, sports and video games. If you’re more interested in hip hop news and new music releases, we have 2DBZ or 2DopeBoyz that provides its visitors with a wide variety of new music and video. Similar to 2BDZ, we have IllRoots. What makes IllRoots a bit different is the fact that they conduct interview with certain hip hop artist that are exclusive to their blog.