Digital Scavenger Hunt: Hip Hop
By doing the digital scavenger hunt I found that hip hop began during the 1970’s in the Bronx, but it didn’t start getting popularized until the 1980’s. On the Ngram Viewer however, it didn’t really peak until about 1997. The purpose of hip hop during this time was to serve as a form of activism for minorities. A big time hip hop producer during its early development was Afrika Bambaataa. He included a wide variety of different types of music to create his style of hip hop including, “Balinese monkey chants, electronic German disco records, James Brown, reggae, obscure disco non-hits, and a Perez Prado mambo – all spliced together and overlapped on two turntables.” His early contributions to hip hop allowed him to develop a reputation, and he eventually was coined “the godfather of hip hop.” He was a very controversial musician, and he used his platform to fight political injustices and inform the community. He headed what used to be a street gang called the Black Spades and reformed it into the Zulu Nation. Through his leadership of Zulu Nation the culture of hip hop was being spread throughout the community starting with the youth. Over time hip hop began to develop a negative reputation due to the controversial and violent nature. Bambaataa however, continued to pursue hip hop despite the threats that geared towards members of the hip hop community. In fact he featured this verse, “You Can Have Watergate Just Gimme Some Bucks and I’ll Be Straight” from the N.W.A song “F***K the Police” during his set at one of his Wednesday night performances at the Wetlands. People who attended on Wednesday nights often times received threats, but Bambaataa continued to serve controversial content week after week. N.W.A’s song “F***k the Police” was one of the most controversial songs in hip hop history. It told the truth of police brutality in minority communities, and questioned the morals and ethics of the whole judicial system. The government went through great lengths to try to censor the song, and it resulted in the members of N.W.A getting arrested numerous times for performing the song. The song caused an uproar within the African American community. The government has tried to silence the African American community for years; however, this song and the governments attempts to try to keep the song and the people quiet actually brought the African American community together. That’s one thing that hip hop is always done is brought the people that it was created for together. Hip Hop artist originally used it as a tool to tell their stories. These stories were relatable to its audience because they were about real experiences and situations that occured and still occur in the African American community which is why it will always be relevant.
References:
By, J. L. (1990, Jan 26). The history of hip-hop. Newsday Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/278147465?accountid=14541
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Hip+Hop&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CHip%20Hop%3B%2Cc0
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