- Ronnie M
- Mar 9, 2021
- 4 min read
The revolution of Hip-Hop is a story of how the underdog became the “upperdog”, as it went from being an underground movement in the Bronx, New York, to becoming a well-established genre in the popular music industry, making way for a more cross-cultural music scene.
First, we need to look at the roots of hip hop, originating from Funk and Soul which was inspired by the Blues and Spiritual music, Call and Response. Therefore, Hip-Hop is deeply rooted in the Afro-American culture. However, the thought of rapping or talking over a beat has been around in European music such as the singspiel from Germany and all the way back to the ancient Greek theatre. The concept of talking or chanting over a beat was not new to the Bronx in the 1970s, however, the way it was being done and the technology was revolutionary; not to forget, Hip-Hop was a whole movement consistent of rap (or mc-ing), break dance, graffiti, and DJ-ing (turntabling)
The Bronx in the 1970s was a community with little stability, where an urban renewal project starting in the mid 1960s to the 1970s oversaw destruction of buildings to make room for a new city plan. This included banks and insurance companies reducing their financial services, making it almost impossible to be granted a mortgage. Due to the financial stress and the uncertainty, many believed that the landlords set fire to their buildings to scam the insurance companies, this made the living situation for people in the Bronx even more uncertain. To cope with the harsh reality, big parties were hosted in the run-down buildings. A tactic used already in the first century stating, “Bread and Circus for the people”, distracting the people from the real political issue not by changing the reform rather giving them some freedom and fun (Ellis, 2019). It was in these parties the movement of hip hop really took off.
It was in 1973, 1520 Sedgwick avenue DJ Kool Herc hosted a party, his sound system was a guitar amp and two turntables. He played James Brown ‘Give it up Turn Loose” on both of the turntables and spun it to break the beat repeatedly known as breakbeats.
Afrika Bambaataa would improve the technique and would later be regarded as the founder of Hip-Hop. This movement was made up of a mass amount of people, mainly Afro-Americans who faced economic neglect and injustice and Hip-Hop became a way of protesting against the current regime. Later it would become a legend of how a small minority that are looked down upon by the rest of society can completely change the world of music forever.
From the creation of Hip-Hop, to today’s Hip-Hop, there have been some big changes. There was a brief era of Gangster rap in the 90s with musicians like Tupac and Notorious B.I.G, this was seen as a genre or lifestyle that coincided with the original ideas for the Hip-Hop movement, which are: loyalty, friendship, love and having fun. In the later years, Hip-Hop has also mixed with other genres of music, maybe most common RNB, where a phrase or a chorus will be sung by a RNB singer and the verses rapped, but also rock and pop music on the main pop charts like Ed Sheeran, Tori Kelly, and even Elton John.
It is not only impressive, but inspiring to see how a small group of people in the Bronx grew to influence the music world in such a big way, it also starts the discussion of if this was one of the ways Afro-Americans could find a place in the Popular Music scene. In a report by Stacy Smith from the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, it is stated that the ratio of white people to underrepresented racial/cultural groups in the Music Industry were 54.6% to 45.4% (Smith, 2020). At first glance this might not look too bad, however, when thinking that this is all the people who are not white collected in one group, it is rather shocking how white people and especially white men are dominating the music scene.
As we can see, the process of making Hip hop music an “upperdog” has not happened over night. There have been multiple artists who have made their mark within the genre and expanded the fanbase. It has also been affected by the arrival of the internet and the ability to stream music worldwide. The last 10 years it has dominated the music charts and festival line-ups. It is a genre that is recognized all over the world and people from different cultures and languages are creating Hip hop. It has indeed become the upperdog in the music industry, it is an empowering genre and it creates a space where underdogs can shine and prosper.
"Well, a lot of people within government and big business are nervous of Hip-Hop and Hip-Hop artists, because they speak their minds. They talk about what they see and what they feel and what they know. They reflect what's around them." - Afrika Bambaataa
