Understanding Rap and Hip Hop Music

As a new way of communicating and expressing ideas, hip hop has become one of the most popular musical genres in popular music. It managed to fulfill the needs and wants of music lovers of different races and cultures in ways no one could have anticipated and became responsible for the entire electronic-based music explosion throughout the world.

Since its birth in 1970s to this date, so many styles have emerged. The electronic synthesizers, drum machines and sequencers had all contributed heavily to the emerge of these styles. There are many sub-styles of those genres in today's popular music.

Today it means much more than just music, rap and dance. It is culture, philosophy, partying, knowledge, dancing, rapping and more. It is a lifestyle, where you can experience a journey to everything with passion.

The core elements of hip hop are MC-ing, DJ-ing along with beakdancing and graffiti which are constantly being merged with the culture, slang and clothing trends.

People often use rap and hip hop interchangeably. All rap is considered to be hip-hop but the vice versa isn't true. Because rap is something we do, whereas hip-hop is something we live. They differ in three main features; musical attributes, culture and community message.

Rap includes some poetic lyric, beats and their rhyming with subjects varying from relationships to commercialism. Anything depicts the street life can be found in rappers themes such as love, violence, crime, race, social and political issues.

Rapping, which is a medium of vocal application of between talking and singing is an important element of hip hop music. Any subject is good for rap beats; in other words, there are infinite number of subjects can be selected as topics of rap music.

People, money, cars, love and hate or anything else can be a subject for rapping about. People who write rap songs use things that interest them; the favorite things they like to do, favorite sports, car, song, etc. Any person or object at any place can be a good subject for a rap song.

In short, since this new music is a way of communication and expressing feelings then the writer of the song is completely free in communication what he or she wants with the outside. This richness of feelings which can be found everywhere around the world can be the reason of the rising popularity of hip hop music culture all around the world.