hi I'm Clint Smith and this is Crash Course black American history and today we're talking about the origins of rap and hip-hop on the streets of Harlem and the South Bronx in New York City in the late 1970s rap and hip-hop emerged as a direct response to two things one the rampant economic and political inequality of the post-1960 Civil Rights era and two the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s and 1970s performers tackled a range of subjects from Pure braggadocio to parties to race class gender and the unfolding political crises in the black community by the 1990s hip-hop Counter Culture emerged into the mainstream and in doing so created upward Mobility for individual artists through their Fame and wealth and subsequently lifted many of them out of poverty many artists also embedded social and political analysis into their work in an attempt to critique different aspects of American society and disrupt the status quo they use their lyrics and platform to explore issues like State surveillance drug addiction crime unemployment and racism soon hip-hop became a billion dollar industry the pioneered new forms of musical production that continue to evolve and revolutionize the music industry to this day so as we learn about the rise of hip-hop and rap we'll look at the resulting cultural conversations this important genre of music inspired let's get started [Music] rap and hip-hop began in the 1970s on the streets of New York City it's specifically in the Bronx I started as a form of pure Showmanship at block parties or other social Gatherings at places like recreation centers and Parks this jockeys more commonly known as DJs or MCS would compete with each other by layering and remixing Beats at their turntables and rhyming over the Beats while friends battled it out in informal breakdancing competitions after the Civil Rights victories of the 1960s like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 black communities experienced a decreased interest in their political and economic well-being from the government and policy makers the result was a lack of investment in Black communities and their social infrastructure resulting in staggering poverty rates increased police surveillance and ambiguous messaging from former allies of the Black Liberation struggle at the same time the country was seeing the burgeoning Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s which emphasized radical visions of reimagining Darkness through music visual art poetry theater and literature hip-hop was in many ways an extension of this artistic project and in the years that followed black communities turned to hip-hop counterculture as an outlet for self-expression and freedom dreaming the origins of hip-hop can be roughly categorized by four main pillars although we should note that it contains multiple forms of artistic expression that don't fit neatly into any specific category especially as the genre has grown and evolved over time but let's take a look at these four pillars in the thought bubble the first is DJing we're making music and beats using record players turntables and DJ mixers this had never been done before and completely revolutionized the sound and texture of the music it also allowed DJs to become sort of orchestrators basically using their turntables like a conductor would use their baton the second pillar is rapping or making rhythmic vocal Rhymes over the Beats created by DJs both DJing and rapping have diasporic Roots within the black community drawing on traditions of African-American gospel call and response West African storytelling and Jamaican remixing and music sampling just to name a few the third pillar is graffiti painting movies like wild style and B Street help to popularize the connection between hip-hop and graffiti sometimes graffiti gets a bad rap and is tied to images of social Decay and urban blight but the truth is that many graffiti artists are incredibly talented and some of the work they create serves as a direct challenge to the idea that beautiful art can only be found in a fancy Museum or a gallery the fourth and final pillar is breakdancing a style of dance that encompasses attitude style and oftentimes acrobatic agility now real life Clint would never dare try this on camera because my needs would be paying for it tomorrow but animated claim doesn't have to worry about sore needs and is always down to break it down thanks thought bubble now we can't talk about hip-hop and rap without talking about the people and personalities that made the music groups like Grandmaster Flash and the furious five were pioneers of the genre and they laid the groundwork for folks that would come after with their lyrical dexterity and social commentary one of the most politically charged music groups in history Public Enemy came onto the scene in the late 1980s they employed the rhetoric of black nationalism and black militancy and embraced revolutionary ideas like overthrowing the government they're hit single fight the power was released in 1989 and featured in director Spike Lee's classic film do the right thing the song tackled racism head on and called on black people to challenge and fight back against white supremacy other groups and artists that were contemporaries the Public Enemy include Run DMC Eric B and Rakim salt and pepper Beastie Boys LL Cool J Queen Latifah and A Tribe Called Quest each of these artists brought a complex mix of style lyrical prowess and Artistry to their work that looked to challenge social norms and these artists brought further Innovation to the airwaves by pioneering new forms of Music sampling and mixing for early hip-hop and rap stage competitions also often sparked heated rivalries that sometimes took on the form of gang rivalries for example Wu-Tang Clan brought together artists some of whom were formally affiliated with rival gangs to represent their neighborhoods and competitions against other rap groups from hubs like Harlem Brooklyn and the Bronx Wu-Tang painted vivid pictures of urban life using the language of the streets but this was more than just slang for them they created a new lexicon that weaved together rhetoric with diverse influences including the five percent Nation an offshoot of the Nation of Islam philosophy Asian Cinema and Foo so these groups and artists were engaging in a complex Nexus of intersecting identities and influences even as they were pioneering their own new forms of expression as hip-hop began to take over the mainstream as a dominant counter-cultural Voice by the 1990s some rappers and black record label owners became millionaires seemingly overnight rap artists like Notorious B. I. G Tupac Shakur and their supporting record labels Bad Boy records led by Sean Puffy Combs and Death Row Records led by Suge Knight epitomized the infamous East Coast versus West Coast rivalry Biggie and bad boy represented the original New York City Centric roots of hip-hop while Tupac and death row represented the expansion of hip-hop outside of its Regional New York Roots by offering a distinctly California sound in the late 1980s rappers Too Short NWA and iced tea had already pioneered hip-hop on the west coast coming out of economically depressed areas in Los Angeles and Oakland their lyrics often reflected personal experiences some of nwa's most popular and most controversial songs served as a direct response to the police brutality they witnessed in their own neighborhoods and questioned the very legitimacy of policing an institution that many felt was only there to surveil and harass black people Regional differences played a major role in the evolution of rap Styles and content but the coast to coast rivalry centered largely On Tupac and Biggie's interpersonal conflict the Rivalry had much to do with competition among the record labels media coverage and two talented lyricists with a penchant for quick and rhythmic comebacks on their records unfortunately the conflict between them ended in tragedy and the still unsolved murders of Tupac Shakur in 1996 a Notorious B.
I. G in 1997. as hip-hop moved further and further into the mainstream older Americans both white and black often viewed it as a symbol of everything that was wrong in Black working-class communities this negative association affected all aspects of Black America some of the animosity toward hip-hop in the 1990s centered on discomfort with the controversial lyrics which painted an explicit picture of what many people called Ghetto Life In addition to hypersexuality violence and misogyny that denigrated women while simultaneously glorifying the image of gang life one of the strongest opponents of rap music was long-standing civil rights activists and politician C Dolores Tucker who campaigned against what she saw as the threat of hip-hop music to Black communities even more discomfort grew out of the lyrical use of the n-word an unrestrained profanity in hip-hop songs hip-hop artists work to reclaim and repurpose the n-word in their songs by replacing the ER at the end of the word with an a as an act of rebellion against the racial slur but this argument of reclamation and repurposing wasn't always persuasive particularly to older black communities who had witnessed the words use as a much more common slur in the early half of the 20th century in fact in 2007 the NAACP would even stage an actual funeral for the n-word pushing to eliminate it from the American lexicon altogether but rap and hip-hop in the 90s wasn't entirely focused on battles of the Coast or hyper masculinity of male MCS it also saw significant output and Innovation from black women MCs black women stepped into the male dominated genre and offered fresh perspectives and musical Revolutions of their own they shifted the tone of rap music away from antagonizing and objectifying women to foregrounding Black feminist messaging and bringing those revolutionary politics to a broader audience female rappers like MC Lyte yo-yo Queen Latifah De Brat and Eve all evolved as artists by refuting and denying the sexist and misogynistic scripts offered to them by their male counterparts they articulated fresh perspectives on sexual racial and class politics through their music for example Queen Latifah's 1993 uni Ty was a commentary on the state of black women in society and gender Politics the lyrics focused on sexism sexual harassment and the public pressures that women in hip-hop were often forced to conform to similarly sister Soldiers the hate that hate produced in 1992 evoked black power rhetoric and called for the eradication of white supremacy while some black women rappers focused on a radical politics of unity and Community engagement others revolutionized the way that black women reviewed asexual objects by taking control of their own hypersexualized representation in popular media rappers like Lil Kim and Foxy Brown focused on a more sexualized feminine image but projected an aura of dominance control and lyrical prowess that kind of flipped the script of black women being passive receivers of the male gays and into one of being in control of how that gaze was directed and deployed an artist like Missy Elliott offered an even more complex and queered image of black Womanhood at the turn of the 21st century like their male counterparts black women MCS also garnered widespread commercial and critical Acclaim hip-hop artist Lauren Hill formerly of the rap group Fuji's became one of the most well-known examples of hip-hop and black feminism's wide reach her first solo album The miseducation of Lauren Hill released in 1998 won critical Acclaim worldwide sales and five Grammy Awards from the coastal Wars to the cultural Wars of the 1990s hip-hop and rap had a lasting influence on American popular culture and music as well as on diasporic expressions of Blackness throughout the world as hip-hop and rap evolved to Encompass other demographics outside of the black community in New York City the art form became an expansive language that encompassed a variety of cultural critiques and shifts from its days on the streets of the Bronx to its place as a global cultural Juggernaut today hip-hop has continued to evolve and expand it's now a global phenomenon that has been adapted and embraced by a wide variety of cultures it has gone from the fringes of society to the center of American culture with hip-hop artists even headlining the Super Bowl halftime show for the first time in 2022.
