The Hip Hop Subculture

“Rap is something you do, Hip Hop is something you live”~ KRS-One

Hip Hop Manifests via...

• Communication and Expression/style

• (re)Claiming space

• Appropriation of text and technology

• Social justice

• Class and racial inequities

– Lack of resources

• Youth identity formation

• Opposition to dominant culture (subculture?)

– Anti-Disco?

• Competition

• Postindustrialization

The 4 Elements

• DJing

• Breaking=physical manifestation of hip hop

• Bombing/Writing=communication through NYC...subways and trains as SCREENS

• Emceeing

• Beatboxing?

• Fashion?

• Vernacular?

Caribbean Influence

• Jamaican Sound System

• Sound Clash

• Dub Music=Version

• Toasting=Rap

• Selectah=DJ

• DJ=MC

Rose

• Hip hop is a bi-product of:

– Deindustrialization

– Gentrification/Urban Renewal

– City bankruptcy

– Class gaps

– Limited means

• Hip hop is about:

– Fame/Status, Style/Identity, Appropriation/Critique Via Style, Turf, Competition

Rose Cont'd

• “Hip hop remains a never-ending battle for status, prestige, and group adoration, always in formation, always contested, and never fully achieved” (p. 36)

• Hip Hop's stylistic continuities:

– 1) FLOW

– 2) Layering

– 3) Ruptures in line

Bricolage and Incorporation

• Hebdige Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979)

• Important theory of subcultural style

– Style challenges hegemony

– Bricolage=taking everyday items and invert their meaning; objects as a medium

• Subcultures “Incorporated” into mainstream through “recuperation”:

– Commodified form: subcultural signs into mass consumable objects

– Ideological form: deviant behaviors are normalized

DJ Kool Herc

• Father of Hip Hop

• From Kingston

• Brought sound clash/system aesthetics to urban America and flipped it

• Gave “jams”, first one Aug. 11, 1973 at 1520 Sedgwick Ave (Cedar Park)

• “Merry go round” technique using the break or “get down” part of a record

Herc Cont'd

• Herculoids=Herc's crew

• Became biggest DJ in Bronx

• Known for his powerful system, the Herculords

• DJs battled for territories

• 1974 ish, Coke La Rock grabs the mic

– ^First Emcee

Jams

Afrika Bambaataa

• Former Black Spade

• Started the Universal Zulu Nation

• “Master of Records” and “Godfather” of hip hop

• First DJ to get accepted in the “downtown” new wave/punk scene

• First to call all 4 elements “hip hop”

Grandmaster Flash

• Innovator and “inventor” of techniques

• Retrofitting technology

• Musical collage through “cutting” 2 of the same records

• (re)Composition

NYC Blackout of '77

• Most of NYC has no power for one day

• Significant for 2 reasons to hip hop:

– 1) It brought a TON of media attention, mostly negative, to the South Bronx

• This attention would eventually shine on hip hop

– 2) Much of the looting happened at stereo stores and clubs. Within days there were new DJ/MC crews with nice equipment

• DEMOCRACY because of ACCESS!!!