HIP HOP RESEARCH
Origins of hip-hop
​
Hip-hop originated in the Bronx area of New York in the 70s.
Hip-hop began in New York
Its vocal origins lie in the Jamaican 'toasting' tradition. Toasting is a cross between talking and rhythmic chanting which was originally practised by Jamaican MCs.
Black DJs such as Grandmaster Flash and the Jamaican-born 'father of hip-hop' Kool Herc extended the instrumental sections from records by mixing between two identical copies of the same record.
Conventions of a Hip-hop music video
Hip-hop music has originated from places in Africa and the Caribbean where music such as jazz, soul and blues has influenced the creation of hip-hop music. Hip-hop music explores themes of love, relationships, everyday struggles, prejudice, unfairness and gang culture. Through this they also follow the conventions of the ways life and people are presented. For example, hip-hop music tends to represent women as sex objects and they represent men as powerful and confident. They also present their lives to be a hard struggle and they are constantly wanting to earn money.
Tory Lanez - Luv
​
The music video usually shows the artists or the band in a club or a party environment.
As hip hop's main motive/agenda tends to be to create a commercial profit, the music videos tend to be appealing to the wider audience, who are in this case younger viewers. It is common to find themes of partying, alcoholism, etc. trying to 'sell' the idea of having a good time.
​
​
Young Thug, Travis scott - Pick up the phone
(F.t. Quavo)
Relating back to Laura mulvey's male gaze theory, most of the top-trending hip-hop songs have music videos engineered to appeal to a younger audience. Typical conventions of a hip hop music videos are the overload of a woman embracing her sexuality and sexual appeal. This is visually pleasing to the larger proportion of the audience, and hence people don't mind watching the video whilst listening to the song, hence the correlation between the biggest hits and the most sexualised hip hop video; conforming to Laura Mulvey's visual pleasure theory in a patriarchal society.
Sean Kingston - Beautiful Girls
A slightly larger artist has been used in this video featuring Sean Kingston. Within the video, he concentrates on hi music instead of concentrating on appearance, clothes and cars, like other hip-hop artists, although flash cars are included within his video, as it is a part of the hip-hop genre.
Hip hop music videos usually use quite dark toned colours, simple settings and portray the sexuality of women and the attraction between both genders. However, Many Hip-Hop artists are men, so this will attract a wider range of audince, conforming to the male gaze theory from Laura Mulvey. This video helped produce ideas for the main task of producing a music video.
Started from the bottom - Drake
Started from the bottom is a song by Canadian hip hop recording artist drake, released as the first single from his third studio album nothing was the same, The song was written by Drake, Michael Coleman and Noah Shebib.
This song is a significant song in conforming to conventions of a Hip-hop song, giving impressions that the artist, Drake, was once at a point where he had minimal wealth, posessions which now are a reality through the struggle he has been through.
How might the genre develop?
From the type of music that is distributed and categorized within the hip hop genre today and before is that the perspective of the legacy of hip hop relies on enlightening listeners and teaching the values of life through complex story telling within the song/track itself produced by the artist. Through the music being produced by previous artists or present artists today will be based upon true life story telling and past experiences in which they want to express through music. this therefore can show that the genre might develop as artists may story tell real life experiences in songs to express a sense of feelings and emotions.
Additionaly, society is changing and the wants and needs of hip-hop music audiences will inevitably be changing and the most successful artists will be the ones who can adapt their 'style' and music with ease to meet those wants and needs.