Essay - Origin and History of Rap Music Origins of Rap Music...

Origin and History of Rap Music

Origins ***** Rap music

The emergence of Rap ***** as an accepted mode of cultural expression has only been recognized by academic commentary in the last twenty years. "Twenty years after its genesis, Rap poetry remains a vastly popular art-form across the continent ***** around the world" (Ramsey 165).

***** of ***** reasons given for the relative lack of attention to the development of the historical origins ***** rap music is, "... cultural differences between Euro-American and African-American sensibilities, the reluctance of ***** poets and critics to embrace popular culture, and the inability of print-based analysis to deal adequately with oral artistry" (Wood 129).

However, these views have changed in recent ***** with regard to the importance ***** ***** history and orig*****s of rap music. (***** 165)

***** music should be discussed within the context of the overall "hip hop" *****. In this sense, Rap music should be seen in terms ***** three interrelated modes of expressing. These are, rap music, graffiti writing, and break dancing. (Ramsey 165) This in turn is related to various cultural developments, which concern the *****sue of disenfranchised B***** youth in Western societies. In this sense, the modern his*****ry ***** origins ***** contemporary Rap music style can be traced back to ***** perceptions of social and racial prejudice and the struggle for equally. Ramsey succinctly summarizes this aspect of the ***** ***** modern Rap.

***** youth created fashions, language, ***** musical and bodily performance styles and formed elaborate networks of posses (or crews) that expressed their local identities and affiliations through ***** modalities. While the origins of hip-hop ********** can be ***** ***** specific locations, ***** mass-media coverage ***** broad-based consumption made it one ***** ***** most widely known popular musics of the late twentieth century.

Ramsey *****)

*****, one has to look fur*****r back into history and particularly African ***** ***** to understand the origins of Rap music. Many studies state that ***** origins of ***** ***** are deeply em*****dded in the general African American culture and that *****se ***** can be traced back even further. These studies refer ***** various ***** traditions that ***** seen as precursors of modern Rap. For example, "...***** children's games; double-dutch chants; black vernacular preaching styles; the jazz vocalese of King Pleasure, Eddie Jefferson, and Oscar Brown, Jr.; the on-the-air verbal virtuosity of black DJs; scat singing; courtship rituals..." (Ramsey 165)

***** an article entitled Rap Music and Street Consciousness by Cheryl Keyes (2002), the author stresses ***** the earlier ***** foundations of ***** can ***** found in African culture. This refers to African oral traditions as well as chant*****g and story telling in ***** society that were the precursors to modern Rap. These ***** ***** continued by the slaves in America in the nineteenth century.

As Wood states in Understanding Rap as Rhetorical Folk-Poetry (1999); "In oral culture, poetry, music, drama and dance tend to function as complementary parts of an integrated, cooperative artistic expression" (***** 129) The integration of these