THE RAP ON HIP-HOP

摘要

From is hmble origins some 30 years ago in New York's bombed-out, poverty-ravaged South Bronx, hip-hop has risen to become a dominant cultural force both here and abroad. Strictly defined, the term refers to the entire cultural constellation that accompanies rap music, which in 2001 surpassed country music as the most popular musical genre in the United States. Originally, hip-hop consisted of break dancing, a freestyle dance largely performed on cardboard flats laid out on the street; graffiti, now an influential element of style in fashion, television commercials, and the visual arts; and rap, hip-hop's unquestionable core, widely conceded to be the invention of DJ Kool Herc. These days, rap music can be made by anyone with home studio software and a computer, but in its purest form, it springs from a mic controller (MC), who rhymes verses over a beat most often supplied by a DJ, who manipulates records on turntables. Rap falls into six primary categories: "gangsta," which focuses on murder, money, and mayhem; apolitical pop, which features a danceable beat and easygoing lyrics; political, whose calling card is socially analytical lyrics; positive, which encourages listeners to become more aware of social and personal ills and to take steps to change them; experimental, which continually modifies its style; and, finally, feminist, which challenges the implicit definition of rap as music created by and for males.