Hip Hop

Alexis Elena Armstrong Due October 26, 2005

English 101

Outline #2

Introduction

A pair of two thousand dollar jeans, a forty thousand dollar watch, and a car that almost totals $100,000, wondering why you can't buy a houseÐ'...Priceless. These materialistic items plus many more, are some of the symbols that most people identify with the Hip Hop culture. At least that is what it means today. Hip hop is a cultural movement that began among urban African Americans and Latinos in the Bronx New York City in the early 1970s, and has since spread around the world. Hip Hop was a movement, and to others it was a fad that would eventually fade away. From what we see on television to the language we are exposed to has something to do with Hip Hop culture. Although created by black youth on the street, hip hop's influence has become worldwide. Approximately 75% of the rap and hip hop audience is non-black. The variety of people it is influencing is now even present in corporate America. To see hip-hop as simply rap is to not understand the impact and influence of a greater movement.

Body

1. Who started it and why

a. The movement that became known as "hip hop" is said to have begun with the work of DJ Kool Herc, while competing DJ Afrika Bambaataa is often credited with having invented the term "hip hop" to describe the culture.

b. The message in the beginning: trying to live out the American dream from the bottom up, by using dance, art, expression, pain, love, racism, sexism, broken families, hard times, overcoming adversity, and the search for God as the many guides.

2. Negatives

a. Exploitation of women in hip-hop culture has become an accepted part of it for both the artists and audiences alike. All women, but mostly black women in particular are seen in popular hip-hop culture as sex objects.

b. The Message now. (a lyric from the song Unbreakable, by Alicia Keys)

c. How the media portrays the hip hop culture.

i. Language.

ii. Clothing.

3. Positives

a. Vote or Die, Influence of Sean Combs to vote in 2004

b. Russell Simmons and the Hip Hop conference.

c. The potential to make it cool not to commit hate crimes, not to discriminate, and not to be racist.

Conclusion

The Hip Hop culture

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