Same Thing To Hip example essay topic

... es of the hip-hop movement. Now, the songs the average hip-hop listener hears have generic scratches your younger brother could lay down on his Fisher-Price record player. Without much attention from outside the hip-hop community, dj-ing has become and has become an art form all of its own. Grandmaster Theodore may have invented the scratch while fooling around with his James Brown records in 1976, but in the past ten years Dj collectives such as the X-, Inv isbl Scratch Pik lz, and a wide range of other American and foreign Djs have made it the spectacle it is today.

There is a movement now to bring the turntables back into the public eye because these Djs are as talented as the world's greatest guitarists, and in fact, as it is called now is already considered neo-jazz. Who would have thought that a simple scratch would have led to two turntables and a mixer evolving into the world's newest instrument. If you ask anyone who is knowledgeable about, the will tell you that the 1's and 2's are an instrument. If you doubt this, I encourage you to pick up any mix tape by Dj Q-Bert or Grandmaster Roc Raid a. Using the turntables and mixer, they take hip-hop classic tracks and ones from other genres and turn them into completely new songs by manipulating sounds and vocals on the records. To witness this in person, is the equivalent to witnessing a David Copperfield magic show.

You wonder how one person can create so many sounds with two hands, two turntables and one mixer. Turntablism is a staple in underground hip-hop, with groups like Dilated Peoples basing their tracks on what Dj Babu does with the wax. What is imperative now is for to get more exposure on TV and on record, because I believe that by promoting this art form, underground emcees will get more exposure as well. Chapter 3: What is an Emcee? An Emcee or Master of Ceremonies (MC) throughout the history of hip-hop has been defined as the one who can control the crowd with his voice and crush opponents with his lyrics. The greatest emcees of all time like Rakim, Big Daddy Kane and KRS-One have been successful for their ability to create cadences that were unheard before their time.

They had seemingly endless vocabularies and set the trend for later emcees who would try to emulate the way they wrote and the way the spoke. They had the intelligence, confidence, and storytelling capability to leave crowds and listeners in awe of their lyrical content, whether it was at a fast pace or slowed down. Notice that the emcees I mentioned have been around for years. If I were to pick out two emcees today who could compare to that kind of battle emcee ability that Rakim, Kane, and KRS have it would have to be Cani bus and Eminem. Most hip-hop fans in the 80's and early 90's would be able to recognize the three I listed above and then some, and that is the problem now. There is an enormous amount of talent in the underground scene, but the average listener knows Jay-Z, Juvenile, and Trick Daddy- three artists who are unbearable to listen and have shown either no lyrical ability whatsoever, or in the case of Jay-Z have just plain gotten worse over the years.

Artists like Jay-Z have specifically expressed in songs that they do not love hip-hop. Jay-Z: "I ain't a rapper. I'm a gangsta that knows how to rap". That is why the music some people this is hip-hop, is garbage. It's half-as sed music involving no creativity at all, just a bunch of ignoramuses trying to get paid.

Those with skill might get paid less, but they take pride in how much harder it is to be original than it is to mumble over tracks and stagnate this art form with tired topics. Chapter Four: What does this all mean so far? You may ask be asking yourself these questions at this point: Why does this guy want underground hip-hop to get more attention? Wouldn't that cause some of the artists to become commercialized if they got paid more? My answer is this. First of all, underground hip-hop already gets attention from its own fans- plenty of attention.

But, not enough for it to influence our youth and everyone around the globe (though underground groups have succeeded overseas). Underground artists are notorious for being positive and sticking to the artistic aspect of things and bucking the norms of commercialism. If you listen to the radio, you hear a lot of artists who sound the same, talk the same, have the same beats, and talk about the same damn things i.e. money and cars, and don't have any message. What message does the underground scene have that commercialized hip-hop does not? The message is not always stated for you in the music. Three things that true hip-hop has over the radio rotation are creativity, originality, and experimentation, which could all mean the same thing to hip-hop fans.

Still, there is a message passed down from the godfathers of hip-hop and that is: To earn respect, skills on the mic must be shown. The ability to rock a crowd with sheer lyricism, explaining why you are doper than the other man, and having a Dj who could support you with dope beats were essentials in old school hip-hop and still are in the underground scene. Underground hip-hop is filled with groups such as The Pharcyde, The Roots, Jigmastas, and Jurassic 5 who use live instruments to not only enhance their lyrical talents, but also to give audiences a great show. All four of these groups are dedicated to preserving hip-hop culture. Emcees battle to prove they are i ller, Djs do the same thing, and breakers, break dancers, poppers, whatever you want to call them, continue the tradition of mixing their dance art form of popping, locking and spinning using the music to help create different techniques. What has been great for the underground scene is its ability to sell more records now, and that is by and large due to the increase of smaller, independent record labels (see chapter 1).

Labels such as Rawk us, Fondle 'Em, Stones Throw, Good vibe, ABB Records, and others can compete with majors like Bad Boy and Def Jam now because they are backed by people who have money and want to see hip-hop culture survive.