Yet let’s dive a little more into emceeing first. Rap music is a combination of two of the four major components which are DJing and emceeing. RappingĪlthough the hip hop culture is composed of four elements Rap music is one of the main elements of hip hop that is recognized today. Organized DJ block parties gave way for graffiti to be more prominent around the city’s walls, and so on. These musical breaks laid the foundational looped drumbeats that gave break-dancers the beats to break into their iconic moves. By way of the innovative hip hop breaks by the DJs, techniques created the longer musical 8-count drum loops of a song. The hip hop DJs are considered the element that incepted the other factors of the hip hop lifestyle. The ingenious beat break was first said to be heard from DJ Kool Herc, and his unique blend of various musical genres from James Brown to English rock made the sound as nothing heard before.Īfrika Bambaataa was another DJ that brought the art of the turntable to heights by way of mixing hip hop beats with electronic techno-pop funk pioneered by German artists like Kraftwerk.
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(Photo by Louis Hansel on Unsplash)ĭJ Kool Herc made the hip hop sound system a craft by bringing techniques that paved the way for what is now known as the hip hop tone. Hip-hop sound systems were first simple turntables where DJs manipulated sounds and music sequences. DJ Kool Herc is credited to have been the pioneer of block parties and community events around the Bronx back in the early 1970s. What made hip hop music and beats so avant-garde in its time was due to the innovative techniques introduced by some of hip hop’s pioneers.ĭJ Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa are both credited to have pioneered the DJ and emceeing combination of what we now know as hip hop. The word DJ was derived from the word disc jockey and was the newfound manipulation of sounds in the early 1970s. Every culture has made hip hop its own, yet the early roots, sounds, and elements of the culture can still be listened to and seen in every rendition. Since hip hop’s inception over 50 years ago, the cultural phenomenon has evolved and grown out of its Bronx roots and onto a world stage of its own. The four to five elements covered almost all the senses including visual, physical, oral, aural, and mental. With these four key elements, it is easy to say that hip hop emerged as a way for entertainment in the early 1970s and not limited to just its musical genre. Along with these four elements, some argue that street knowledge and fashion should also be included.
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The four elements include MCing, DJing, breakdancing, and graffiti. The hip-hop culture started with four key elements, which some argue are five and even six total elements. Yet what many forget is that hip hop is not just to describe the musical genre, but a phrase to describe hip hop’s whole culture. Nowadays the hip-hop culture has spread across the world with what seems an everlasting musical genre. The hip-hop culture has evolved since its inception in the early 1970s streets of the Bronx.