A billion dollar industry where blacks are free to express themselves how they feel fit. An art form used where people are not afraid to be different. It all sounds like a dream, but it not. It is called hip hop and it is constantly growing more and more each and every day. But what is hip hop? This is a very difficult question to answer because there are several different answers to it. Is it simply dancing and music with an up-tempo beat? Not at all, and I plan to discuss the real meaning of hip hop in the following paragraphs of this essay.
Before we can define hip hop, we must first look learn the history of it. The foundatio of hip hop began in Jamaica in the 1940's and by the 1960's, it would not be uncommon to find trucks at street corners filled with sound equipent. These trucks played American rhythm and blues for the people of the neighborhood. This later transformed into what we now call hip hop in the mid-to late 1970's. This phenomenon could be found in the projects of Brooklyn, New York, particularly the Farragut Projects. The DJs (disc jockeys) of the 70's mostly played disco music back then. One DJ by the name of DJ Kool Herc, who emigrated here from Jamaica and settled in the Bronx focused his music on rhythm & blues and funk records. Kool Herc also originated only playing the "break" or the music material between the verses of a song, repeating it over and over. This was called "break-beat deejaying" and two turntables playing the same record were needed to perform it. Once break-beat deejaying came about, people began to perform a unique, acrobatic twisting style of dance to go along with these beats. The dancing was called "break dancing". Kool Hercs next idea was to get someone to "MC" the parties he threw. The MC was to keep the crowd going between songs. This is how rapping came about. DJ Hollywood was one of the first MCs and he would use rhyming verses in his rap.
