Some people feel that Rap is not music or art and neglect the fact that hip-hop has become a flourishing culture. To study American Rap Music, we must first look at the Hip-hop culture. Hip-hop’s four components, Graffiti art, MCing, DJing, and break dancing, define the face of this unique urban culture. Rap is a vital part to the hip-hop culture, without hip-hop it would not have existed or evolved into what it is today. Rap goes back over twenty years and is very similar in style to the poetic Griots of West Africa. According to the Wikipedia online encyclopedia, the Griots were ancient storytellers who used poetry and rhythm to teach villagers about their history. These Griot traditions survived through the slaves that came to the new world especially since the written language was barely used. With its spread across the world to mainstream audiences, hip-hop has become a synonym for rap music however these two words do not have the same meaning. Jamaican music played a big role in the creation and evolution of American rap music, helping characterize its identity. Rap is an art form that evolved from creative urban minorities who gave birth to the hip-hop cultu

Urban minority youths faced adversity, which helped them express themselves in completely different and unique ways; this way of life gave birth to a new culture. Hip-hop spread like wildfire from birth and has since spread throughout the world. The popularity of this culture has gained force throughout the years attracting not only urban minorities but also Caucasian Americans in the suburbs. The four elements to its culture all revolved around each other helping the hip-hop culture evolve and survive. Today hip-hop is a billion dollar a year industry, with influences in many different areas of the consumer market with the most highly targeted groups of consumers being Caucasian American suburban teens. Style and dress have played major roles in fashion trends, and hip-hop’s technique in music production has also taken the music industry to new heights. To think that such a successful industry and influential culture originated from creative minorities who took a negative aspect of their lives and changed it into such a positive creation is mind blowing. People in search of entertainment in New York City really sparked a creation that all should be proud of. Though many feel that rap has had a negative influence on the youth of today, they fail to realize that these artists or “rappers” only express themselves as a product of their environment. A kids choice is his or her own, and a parents responsibility is to encourage children to make the right choices.

Perhaps even more importantly, American Rap music was highly influenced by Jamaican music. Before looking at rap music in the United States, music in Jamaica should be looked at first. Jamaican music held an enormous effect on American Rap music and it’s creation in the early seventies. Styles of Jamaican music that should be looked at are “toasting” and “Dub” music. Dick Hebdige in his book, “Cut N’ Mix” describes Jamaican “toasting” as when the DJ talks over the music he played. Toasting was usually done at “Blues Dances”, these functions were regular in the Jamaican ghettos and there, they played American R&B, a style of music introduced to them by Black American sailors stationed on the island. With the increasing demand for R&B and the absence of a band on the island that could play this kind of music, Jamaicans adapted and created sound systems. These large arrangements were made up of Disk Jockeys (DJ), bouncers, and engineers; they were movable nightclubs or discos that were set up in order to meet the needs o

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