Rap
What is rap music?
Who is considered the father of modern rapping?
What is flow in rap music?
Who are some notable rap artists?
Rap is a musical style in which rhythmic or rhyming speech is “rapped”—recited or chanted—to musical accompaniment. Originating in African American communities in New York City in the 1970s, rap is one component of hip-hop, a broader cultural movement that also includes deejaying (turntable manipulation), graffiti painting, and break dancing.
Rap came to national prominence in 1979 with the Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight.” The genre’s other early stars include Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, the Cold Crush Brothers, Kurtis Blow, Run-DMC, and LL Cool J. Rap’s popularity led to the development of many subgenres, such as gangsta rap, G-funk, and trap.
Origin and development
Rap is sometimes described as poetry spoken to a beat—specifically, to a backing track, which can include digital sampling (music and sounds extracted from other recordings). Jamaican-born hip-hop pioneer DJ Kool Herc is widely credited as the father of modern rapping for his spoken interjections over records, but among the wide variety of oratorical precedents for rap are the epic histories of West African griots (oral historians), talking blues songs, jailhouse toasts (long rhyming poems recounting outlandish deeds and misdeeds), and the dozens (a ritualized word game based on exchanging insults, usually about members of the opponent’s family). Other influences include the hipster-jive announcing styles of 1950s rhythm-and-blues deejays such as Jocko Henderson; the Black Power poetry of Amiri Baraka, Gil Scott-Heron, and the Last Poets; rapping sections in recordings by soul artist Isaac Hayes and funk legend George Clinton; and the Jamaican style of rhythmized speech known as toasting.
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Early rappers often referred to themselves as MCs, short for “master of ceremonies.” In the oral history Yes Yes Y’All (2002), Grandmaster Caz of the Cold Crush Brothers describes how MCs became central figures in the hip-hop scene.
The microphone was just used for makin’ announcements, like when the next party was gonna be, or people’s moms would come to the party lookin’ for them, and you have to announce it on the mic.…So different DJs started embellishing what they were sayin’. Instead of just sayin’, “We’ll be at the P.A.L. next week, October this and that,” they’d say, “You know next week we gonna be at the P.A.L. where we rock well, and we want to see your face in the place,” little things like that.…I would make an announcement this way, and somebody would hear me, and then they’d go to their party and they add a little twist to it. Then somebody would hear that and they add a little bit to it. I’d hear it again and take it a little step further ’til it turned from lines to sentences to paragraphs to verses to rhymes.
Technique
Rap evolved into its own art form, and MCs were expected to exhibit a specific set of skills. The primary element of a rapper’s technique is “flow”—the combination of rhythm, cadence, and speed with which a rapper delivers the lyrics of a song. Rappers are also often judged by their lyricism and wordplay (such as the use of double entendres or metaphors), the complexity of their rhymes, and their ability to “freestyle” (or improvise) rhymes on the spot.
Subgenres of rap
Many early rap lyrics were party-centric, but some groups wrote socially conscious songs that addressed the harsh realities faced by African American and Latin American youth in the 1970s and early ’80s. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message” (1982) was a prime example, paving the way for the radical political lyrics of Public Enemy. Another prominent group of the 1980s was Run-DMC. The first rap act to appear on MTV, Run-DMC also ushered in rap metal when the group collaborated with heavy metal band Aerosmith on the 1986 hit “Walk This Way.” That same year the Beastie Boys combined playful rap lyrics, snotty fraternity boy posturing, a subversive punk mentality, and hard rock samples on the hit “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party).”
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The late 1980s saw the advent of gangsta rap, with lyrics that were often misogynistic or that glamorized violence and drug dealing. The subgenre’s most famous artists included N.W.A, Tupac Shakur, The Notorious B.I.G., Ice-T, and Snoop Dogg. G-funk emerged from gangsta rap in the early 1990s, primarily on the West Coast. Featuring funk samples, slower tempos, synthesizer melodies, and a prominent bassline, G-funk was popularized by such albums as Dr. Dre’s The Chronic (1992) and Above the Law’s Black Mafia Life (mixed in 1991 but released in 1993).
Despite the hard-hitting turn that rap took with the gangsta and G-funk subgenres, party raps and dance-focused singles continued to do well on the charts, typified by such acts as the Miami-based 2 Live Crew, known for their X-rated lyrics and censorship battles, and the radio-friendly songs of the all-female ensemble Salt-N-Pepa and of MC Hammer from Oakland, California.
Trap, another offshoot of gangsta rap, originated in the 1990s in Atlanta. Incorporating elements of electronic dance music, trap is characterized by its lyrics referencing street culture and its complex drum patterns and deep-bass “808s” (named for the Roland TR-808 drum machine). Rappers Gucci Mane, Young Jeezy, and T.I. are often cited as the “holy trinity” of trap. Atlanta (along with Memphis, Tennessee) also produced crunk, a high-energy club music noted for its repetitive refrains. Starting out in the 1990s with the East Side Boyz, Lil Jon became crunk’s biggest star by the early 21st century with such megahits as “Turn Down for What” (2013; with DJ Snake).
In Chicago, underground rapper Pac Man, who died by gun violence in 2010, coined the term drill to describe a music style that grew from trap. Among drill’s early characteristics were its monotone vocal delivery and explicit, aggressive lyrics. It was later popularized by fellow Chicagoan Chief Keef and adopted by mainstream artists Kanye West and Drake.
