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Hip-Hops roots go far beyond its emergence at 1520 Sedwick Avenue, then introduced by the infamous DJ Kool Herc, a classic story about the first instance of breaking and rapping over a beat inside a garage house party in the Bronx. But long before then African traditions established the use of spoken word. Dr. Imani Perry asserts that the spoken word of African-American music has its origins in Africa and survived the middle passage to the Western Hemisphere (Perry, 2004). She goes on to say that the history of Black power movement talk and its impact on the development of hip hop, located it as a musical form, at best revolutionary and at least rebellious, for young listeners across the globe. Dr. Perry argues four distinctions of hip-hop music that make it characteristically black .
American Music.
1. Its primary language is African American Vernacular English.
2. It has a political location in society distinctly ascribed to black people, music and cultural forms.
3. It is derived from black American oral culture .
4. It is derived from black American musical traditions. .
It is no secret how music permeates the human psyche, namely music's significance to culture. With much of their history wiped away strategically, African-Americans have leaned heavily on a combination of music, spoken word and storytelling to hold on to their antiquity since chattel slavery. This unique merging of memoirs is an essential historical resource to the black community. Junius Williams claims that memoirs can be reliable historical resources and make lessons come alive within the reader (Williams, 2014). Much of hip hops quintessence is essentially black in that it pulls from numerous forms of black music, i.e. blues, jazz, gospel, rhythm & blues and soul, each of these genres having origins in the black struggle.
One of the most critical aspects of these stories and poetic words is in fact the indication of struggle.
I chose to do research on hip-hop dancing and culture in Hong Kong. I wanted to know the current status of hip-hop dancing, how it was before and gain an insight on its future. I had the great opportunity to interview some hip-hop teachers in Hong Kong and local dancers. With hip hop dancing there are many styles. There is the breaking, popping, locking, freestyle, new school, old school and mainstream routines. ...
A suburbanite's nightmare. This was the Bronx. Adversity can lead to futility, or spawn creativity. As history has always shown, society's oppressed adapt, and make the best out of the worst situations. MCing, Grafitti, D-Jaying, and B-boying, were all created in the Bronx. ...