The History of Rap Music

February 13th, 2008 | By Paul Andre

Let’s take the time to learn a little more how the hip hop culture evolved. Before there was the fashion style, there was music.

Hip hop rose to popularity in New York in the late 70s during the height of popularity of the so-called block parties. DJs usually played funk and soul music and later on tried to play only the break beats of the songs. It became a hit among block partygoers and the rest is history, so they say.

One of the famous DJs at the time was DJ Kool Herc, who is widely regarded as the godfather of hiphop. Aside from DJ-ing, he also began collaborating with emcees to supply the words to the music. A lot more DJs followed suit including hip hop legend Grandmaster Flash and helped develop the genre into what it is today.

But what’s hip hop without the emcees? Now popularly known as rappers, they supply the words to the music not by singing them but by rhythmically speaking them along the beat. The themes in the lyrics are varied ranging from partying, sex, drugs and even political ones.

As the music evolved, so did the art of rapping. Freestyle rapping is one popular form wherein rappers spit out lyrics spontaneously. This is also popular with rapping duels wherein two rappers go head-to-head and try to top each other in coming up with the best rhyme.

What could be considered as hip hop music’s golden age was in the 1980s when the genre was just starting to become recognized. Groups such as Run DMC and Beastie Boys, as well as solo acts like LL Cool J helped boost the popularity of the music was then limited to block parties.