Hip hop music

Hip hop music or hip-hop music, also known as rap music and formerly known as disco rap,[5][6] is a genre of popular music that originated in the Bronx[7][8][9][10] borough of New York City in the early 1970s by African Americans,[11][12][13] and it had been around for years prior before mainstream discovery.[14] This genre of music originated as anti-drug and anti-violence,[15] while consisting of stylized rhythmic music (usually built around drum beats) that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted.[16] According to the professor Asante of African American studies at Temple University, "hip hop is something that blacks can unequivocally claim as their own[17]". It was developed as part of hip hop culture, a subculture defined by four key stylistic elements: MCing/rapping, DJing/scratching with turntables, break dancing, and graffiti art.[18][19][20] Other elements include sampling beats or bass lines from records (or synthesized beats and sounds), and rhythmic beatboxing. While often used to refer solely to rapping, "hip hop" more properly denotes the practice of the entire subculture.[21][22] The term hip hop music is sometimes used synonymously with the term rap music,[16][23] though rapping is not a required component of hip hop music; the genre may also incorporate other elements of hip hop culture, including DJing, turntablism, scratching, beatboxing, and instrumental tracks.[24][25]

Quick facts: Hip hop, Stylistic origins, Cultural origins,... ▼

Hip hop
Stylistic origins	Funk disco rhythm and blues jazz spoken word reggae signifyin' the Dozens scat singing talking blues performance poetry[1]
Cultural origins	Early 1970s, The Bronx, New York City, U.S.[2]
Typical instruments	Rapping singing[3][4] turntables DJ mixer drum machine music sequencer synthesizer keyboard
Derivative forms	Baltimore club breakbeat Florida breaks funk carioca ghetto house ghettotech glitch hop grime illbient Latin freestyle nu metal reggaeton wonky
Subgenres
Alternative boom bap bounce British Brooklyn drill chap hop chicano rap chopped and screwed chopper Christian cloud rap comedy conscious crunk crunkcore Desi hip hop dirty rap drill East Coast freestyle rap gangsta rap g-funk hardcore hipster hop horrorcore hyphy instrumental Islamic jerkin' Jewish Latin Latin trap mafioso rap Memphis rap Miami bass mumble rap nerdcore phonk plugg political progressive road rap snap music Southern trap tread turntablism UK drill underground West Coast (complete list)
Fusion genres
Contemporary R&B country rap electro emo rap hip hop soul hip house industrial hip hop jazz rap lofi hip hop new jack swing pop rap punk rap ragga hip hop rap opera rap rock rap metal trap metal rapcore trip hop Regional fusion genres Afroswing bongo flava boomba music cumbia rap genge gyp-hop hip hop galsen hipco hiplife igbo rap kwaito low bap merenhouse motswako na mele paleoleo nuyorican rap Romany hip hop songo-salsa stronda urban Pasifika vigilante rap zenji flava
Regional scenes
Regional scenes African Algerian Angolan Beninese Botswana Gambian Ghanaian Ivorian Kenyan Mauritian Moroccan Namibian Nigerian Nigerien Senegalese South African Tanzanian Togolese Zambian Zimbabwean Asian Bangladeshi Burmese Chinese Hong Kong Indian Indonesian Japanese Korean Malaysian Nepalese Pakistani Philippine Singapore Sri Lankan Taiwanese Thai Middle Eastern Arabic Azerbaijani Egyptian Iranian Israeli Lebanese Palestinian Saudi Arabian Tunisian Turkish Yemeni European Albanian Austrian Belgian Bosnian and Herzegovinian British Bulgarian Croatian Czech Dutch Finnish French German Greek Portuguese Hungarian Icelandic Irish Italian Macedonian Montenegrin Norwegian Polish Romanian Romany Russian Serbian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swedish Swiss Ukrainian North American Canadian Cuban Dominican Haitian Mexican Salvadoran US East Coast Southern West Coast Oceanic Australian New Zealand South American Brazilian Colombian
Local scenes
Local scenes Brasília Celtic Desi Leeds Port Harcourt Scottish US Asian American Atlanta Baltimore Chicago Detroit Latino Memphis Miami Minneapolis/St. Paul Native American New Jersey New York Northwest Omaha Philadelphia Washington, D.C.
Other topics
Old school hip hop New school hip hop Golden age hip hop
2023 in hip hop music

Hip hop as both a musical genre and a culture was formed during the 1970s when block parties became increasingly popular in New York City, particularly among African American youth residing in the Bronx.[26] At block parties, DJs played percussive breaks of popular songs using two turntables and a DJ mixer to be able to play breaks from two copies of the same record, alternating from one to the other and extending the "break".[27] Hip hop's early evolution occurred as sampling technology and drum machines became widely available and affordable. Turntablist techniques such as scratching and beatmatching developed along with the breaks. Rapping developed as a vocal style in which the artist speaks or chants along rhythmically with an instrumental or synthesized beat.

Hip hop music was not officially recorded for play on radio or television until 1979, largely due to poverty during the genre's birth and lack of acceptance outside ghetto neighborhoods.[28] Old school hip hop was the first mainstream wave of the genre, marked by its disco influence and party-oriented lyrics. The 1980s marked the diversification of hip hop as the genre developed more complex styles and spread around the world. New school hip hop was the genre's second wave, marked by its electro sound, and led into golden age hip hop, an innovative period between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s that also developed hip hop's own album era. The gangsta rap subgenre, focused on the violent lifestyles and impoverished conditions of inner-city African American youth, gained popularity at this time. West Coast hip hop was dominated by G-funk in the early-mid 1990s, while East Coast hip hop was dominated by jazz rap, alternative hip hop, and hardcore hip hop. Hip hop continued to diversify at this time with other regional styles emerging, such as Southern rap and Atlanta hip hop. Hip hop became a best-selling genre in the mid-1990s and the top-selling music genre by 1999.

The popularity of hip hop music continued through the late 1990s to early-2000s "bling era" with hip hop influences increasingly finding their way into other genres of popular music, such as neo soul, nu metal, and R&B. The United States also saw the success of regional styles such as crunk, a Southern genre that emphasized the beats and music more than the lyrics, and alternative hip hop began to secure a place in the mainstream, due in part to the crossover success of its artists. During the late 2000s and early 2010s "blog era", rappers were able to build up a following through online methods of music distribution, such as social media and blogs, and mainstream hip hop took on a more melodic, sensitive direction following the commercial decline of gangsta rap. The trap and mumble rap subgenres have become the most popular form of hip hop during the mid-late 2010s and early 2020s. In 2017, rock music was usurped by hip hop as the most popular genre in the United States.[29][30][31]