Hip Hop Vs. Rap

Jalaia Surles
Professor Wally Shaw
Music Appreciation
2 December 2016

Hip Hop vs Rap
When I think of Hip Hop, I think of mainly guys beatboxing. Beatboxing is a form of vocal percussion primarily involving the art of mimicking drum machines using your mouth and voice. Hip Hop artists such as Doug E. Fresh and Vanilla Ice used the beatboxing style of rhyming in a lot of music in the mid 80’s and early 90’s. Another thing that comes to mind is men walking around with boom boxes up close to their face rhyming to the music melodies being played. Hip Hop is described as a lifestyle that represents the way of living. On the other hand, when I think of Rap music, both male and female artists rhyming to beat in either a form of poetry or fast rhyming
depending on the instrumental being played. Hip Hop puts me in the mind frame of primarily men telling life stories on fast tracked beats oppose to Rap where is it more common for both male and female artists rhyming to beat about their life stories or common issues.
Hip Hop and Rap comes from the same origin with similarities within the same music background both have different elements to distinguish a unique and different style. Hip Hop was originated in the Bronx, NY in the 1970’s by a Jamaican DJ named Kool Herc who mainly repeated rhymes over instrumentals at parties. Hip Hop was mainly composed of MCing and breakdancing. The Hip Hop lifestyle within music was a trendsetter. They dressed different and wore different hairstyles and cuts. You see less beatboxing and breakdancing in music today, although It is history, some of the Hip Hop trends are not as popular anymore. Women were also apart of Hip Hop, but not as heavily involved as men in the early 70’s. Female achievements were often overlooked in the music industry. Hip Hop music was known to bring communities together with the lyricist rhyming about common issues on which majority of the crowds could relate to. The music was primarily played throughout African American and Latino neighborhoods in the south end of the Bronx. Hip Hop today is legendary to the older generations and Rap music is being idolized by the younger generations. In the mid 90’s Hip Hop began to transform from a lifestyle culture of music to music that focused on symbols of wealth and status.
Rap music was formed from the combination of rhyme and poetry to a musical beat. Rap music focused more on present issues such as culture rivalries, politics, money, drugs, and sexual exploitation.
Rap is more of a constant flow of music. Today Rap is not only voiced over instrumentals. Freestyle rapping is a type of rapping in which lyrics are recited with no structure or subject, basically whatever comes to the artist mind is verbally rhymed with no instrumental. We also have Gospel Rap/Hip Hop in which Christians used different melodies outside of the traditional gospel music to express their love for God. A lot of people criticize Gospel Rap/Hip Hop since Rap/Hip Hop was known to represent a lot of things that were not of Christian living such as: drug usage, murder, foul language, and sexual exploitation. With it made it hard for Christians to accept that style of music. In my opinion, if there is no verbal abuse in the lyrics then it shouldn’t matter what beat is being used if you are still expressing your love for God through music and appropriate lyrics. I have yet to hear to bashful gospel rap song. I enjoy listening to Gospel Rap and Hip Hop over regular Rap and Hip Hop. You get to listen to more melodized beats with gospel music oppose to the traditional instruments. It also gives you a break from listening to music that is all talking about the same
thing.

Work Cited
“Hip Hop Music.” Wikipedia. Wikipedia.org. Unknown. Web. 3 December 2016.