Rap is a style of music: description and features

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Rap is one of the most popular genres of contemporary music. This direction gained massive popularity in the nineties of the last century and has since been firmly entrenched in the world of show business.

At the moment, rap is used in many other musical styles, and compositions annually occupy the first lines in the top lists of radio stations and music channels.

Description

Rap is the performance of verbal recitative to rhythmic music. The rapper reads the lyrics to the beat, which can also be accompanied by electronic music. The subject of the texts is absolutely any, as well as the main message. There are several types of rhyme. The most difficult are the so-called "square rhymes" (that is, double). A stream of double rhymes with a powerful emotional message is called "punchline". It is often used during battles - verbal contests between two rappers. The recitative style is called "flow" (from the English flow - to lay).

Various styles

The rap artist is also called "MC" (from the English MS - master of ceremony). Rap is not only a genre in its own right, it can also be part of a song in other styles. Rapcore is a mixture of fast aggressive recitative to heavy music withusing guitars. One of the most prominent representatives of this genre is the French hardcore band Rise of the North Star.

The birth of rap culture

Rap songs appeared back in the seventies of the last century in the poor areas of New York, populated by black immigrants from Africa. Presumably, the fashion for quickly reading rhymed text was brought from Jamaica. The first rappers were DJs and read their lyrics during discos. Gradually, rap migrated to the streets.

Black poets showed their skills to passers-by and did not even think about commerce, but made music for their own pleasure.

The first rap battles also began to take place. Two people alternately read out peculiar pamphlets in order to insult the opponent or in another way to show their superiority over him. Ten years later, the first paid songs began to appear on the records. Rap began to conquer Europe. Until the mid-nineties, this music continued to be positioned as a genre for gangsters and gangsters. However, in the US, the media began to pay huge attention to the rap scene. In the late 1990s, the famous standoff between the East and West coasts took place. Musical battles took place between the leading performers of the two camps - Tupac Shakur and Notorious B. I. G.. As a result, both were shot dead in a street showdown. The events of those days seriously affected the entire rap culture as a whole.

Since then, the question of the so-called "truestness" (fromEnglish word true - real) rap artists.

Russian rap

In Russia, rap was first discovered after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The first songs were recorded on pirated magnetic cassettes, less often on disks. Since at that time there was almost no control over the observance of copyright in the post-Soviet space, it was extremely unprofitable to sell your albums to foreign performers. However, after a short period of time, domestic performers also appeared. Russian rap, of course, succumbed to the huge influence of foreign ones, so the pioneers of this genre often simply copied famous performers like Dr. Dre or Eminem. But some features of the specifically Russian style were also noticeable.

A serious place on the hip-hop scene was occupied by representatives of Russian emigration in Germany and Great Britain. Under the auspices of the German rapper Kul Savas, they released rap songs on the Optik Rush label. The main style was battle rap. Groups such as "Shock" and "First Class" gained immense popularity in the post-Soviet space and set the direction for the development of the genre for several years.

New time

However, over time, more and more performers appeared.

Due to the fact that rap music itself is unpretentious, and its creation does not require serious skills, this genre is the most common in a quantitative sense. Basically, all you need to create is a microphone and a computer. The simplicity of information prompted young people to become more and more involved inrap culture. In addition to classical themes, beat songs have also become a means of conveying their political or social protest. Thus, the genre of hardcore rap was formed. It is often used by performers with radical political views. Usually the concerts of such groups are not advertised, and only representatives of a particular subculture are allowed to attend them.

Rap culture

Russian and foreign rap is also a kind of subculture. Rappers usually differ in demeanor, clothing style and social self-identification. Spacious bright things, most often semi-sports, are used as clothes. A special "chip" in the rapper's wardrobe are sneakers and baseball caps. Also, the style of clothing is characterized by an abundance of various attributes such as watches, bracelets, chains, bandanas and others.

Although it mostly concerns young people in Western countries. The post-Soviet space was hardly affected by such trends.

Rap culture is also closely related to other elements of hip-hop. For example, a hobby for riding a skateboard or cycling. Events are often held in which young people compete in the skill of riding a bicycle or skateboard, and then in the ability to remove an opponent with rhymes. In Russia, the most famous show of this kind is Snickers Urbania. So rap is not only music, but also a lifestyle.